Yesterday Today

The Last Ziegfeld Girl: 33 Rare Photographs of Doris Eaton Travis From the 1920s

Doris Eaton Travis (1904-2010) was an American dancer, stage and film actress, dance instructor, writer, and rancher, who was the last of the acclaimed Ziegfeld girls.

Travis began performing onstage as a young child, and made her Broadway debut at the age of 13, and joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies as the youngest Ziegfeld girl ever cast in the show in 1918. She continued to perform in stage productions and silent films throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.

When her career in stage and screen declined, Travis started a second career as an Arthur Murray dance instructor and local television personality in Detroit. Her association with Arthur Murray lasted for three decades, during which time she rose through the ranks to own and manage a chain of nearly twenty schools. After retiring from her career with Arthur Murray, she went on to manage a horse ranch with her husband and returned to school, eventually earning several degrees.

As the last surviving Ziegfeld girl, Travis was featured in several books and documentaries about the Ziegfeld Follies years and her other stage endeavors. Travis had also returned to the stage as a featured performer in benefit performances.

52 Incredible Photos of Paris Taken by Robert Doisneau in the 1940s and 1950s

Robert Doisneau was born in 1922 in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris. He becames a camera assistant at André Vigneau’s studio in 1931, where he discovers artistic outlets that will spur him on. The four years he spent working for the advertising department of Renault car maker, from where he was fired for repeated lateness, led him to the attractive position of independent photographer.

World War II bursts out then, putting an end to his projects. Later, in the Parisian post-war euphoria, despite the fact that he daily deals with orders to make a living, he hoards the photos that will meet with great success, obstinately cruising where “there is nothing to see”, favoring furtive points, tiny pleasures lit by the ’ reflections of sunbeams on cities’ asphalt.

When he died in April 1994, he left behind 450,000 negatives that tell an entertaining story of his time with a tender and observant eye, which must not hide the depth of his thought, his irreverent attitude toward power and authority, his relentlessly free-thinking mind.

D-Day in Color: Stunning Colorized Photos of Allied Soldiers Landing on Normandy Beaches in June, 1944

Some 156,000 Allied troops landed on five Normandy beaches during the operation on June 6, 1944, which would ultimately lead to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history and saw 4,400 allied troops lose their lives.

Striking shots show men storming French beaches under ominous grey skies for the invasion, glider pilots on landing craft, and British Airborne Pathfinders at Harwell checking their watches on the night of June 5, 1944, hours before the battle commenced.

The original black and white photographs were painstakingly colorized by electrician Royston Leonard, with each snap taking between four and five hours to complete.

“As time goes by I find I am doing more World War Two pictures and giving them a bit of colour helps the younger generation to connect and not just see them as something that happened long ago,” he said. “In the images I see a world that has gone mad and men and women pulled from their lives to sort out the mess. World War Two shows people at their best and at their worst. We must look and learn and not let it happen again.”

**The astonishing scale of the invasion can be seen in this image taken of the American forces arriving on Utah Beach.**

**U.S. troops from the USS Joseph T. Dickman wait to disembark from their landing craft as they approach Utah Beach on June 6 1944**.

**A craft from the USS Samuel Chase lands troops of the US Army First Division on Omaha Beach.**

**Glider pilots take the opportunity for a quick cigarette as they are crowded onto a landing craft.**

**Royal Marines descend from landing craft with their heavy backpacks, weapons and equipment on Juno beach.**

**American troops arrive on a Normandy beach in a lengthy procession from their landing crafts.**

**British troops show their true grit as they help injured comrades onto Sword Beach.**

**US Army Fourth Infantry Division troops take a breather after making their way onto Utah Red Beach.**

**British Airborne Pathfinders check their watches on the night before the invasion.**

**Reinforcements arrive by sea to bolster U.S. troop numbers on the Normandy front.**

**The USS LST-21, manned by the U.S. coastguard unloads British Army tanks and trucks onto a Rhino barge in the opening hours of their invasion of Gold Beach.**

**Troops load U.S. LSTs with artillery equipment, vehicles and troops in Brixham, England before they head for Normandy.**

**Nazi General Erwin Rommel inspects defences ahead of D-Day. On the actual day of the invasion he was away from the front celebrating his wife’s birthday.**

**German troops camouflage a Panzer VI Tiger tank with undergrowth in the Normandy village of Villers-Bocage.**

**Members of the 22nd Independent Parachute Company, 6th Airborne Division attend a briefing ahead of the D-Day invasion.**

**Troops establish a radio communications post after landing.**

(Images Colorized by Royston Leonard / Mediadrumworld.com)

14 Vintage Photographs of Debbie Harry Posing With Her Cars in the Late 1970s

In 1979, the pop world was agog over a New Wave band fronted by an aggressive and slightly loopy blonde female singer known as Debbie Harry. The band was Blondie. Their hits were legion. From the breakthrough album “Parallel Lines” in 1978 alone they had Hanging On the Telephone, One Way or Another, Sunday Girl and Heart of Glass. Blondie’s band accrued several more hit songs before the decade was over.

Blondie was a new start. The Punk rock scene from England was starting to affect New York City clubs and Blondie was hanging around with early fans of the music including Richard Hell, The Ramones and Television. Blondie also remained friends with the New York Dolls and The Magic Tramps who represented the Glam Rock scene. Through this entire period of transition and growth towards becoming major music stars. Debbie Harry drove a classic pony car; a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro coupe.

Of course back in the early 1970s, it was just a used car. Debbie described it as “an inheritance from her Mother.” She didn’t have enough money to properly take care of it and living in apartment buildings in the roughest part of New York City. Debbie owned it from her arrival in New York in 1971 all through the Stiletto band era. She mentions the car in a poem she wrote during this time. Debbie’s car contributed greatly to keeping body and soul together. She mentions how convenient it was to have transportation for gigs and the luxury of enjoying trips to the beach or Coney Island during the summer.

25 Vintage Color Photos Showing Life of Americans From Between the 1940s and 1960s

Introduced in 1935 as the first modern color film, Kodachrome was used extensively after World War II by amateur photographers equipped with the new high-quality and low cost 35mm cameras. Americans in Kodachrome 1945-1965 is an unprecedented portrayal of the daily life of the people during these formative years of modern American culture. It is comprised of ninety-five exceptional color photographs made by over ninety unknown American photographers.

These photographs were chosen from many thousands of slides in hundreds of collections. Like folk art in other mediums, this work is characterized by its frankness, honesty, and vigor. Made as memoirs of family and friends, the photographs reveal a free-spirited, intuitive approach, and possess a clarity and unpretentiousness characteristic of this unheralded photographic folk art.

**Cowboy Kid, St. Cloud, Minnesota, 1955**

**Pink Barbie, Richwood, West Virginia, 1965**

**Wedding Musicians, New Milford, Connecticut, 1956**

**Mother with Green Ford, Pocasset, Massachusetts, 1957**

**Children with Gun, Ruel, Indiana, 1953**

**Jerry and His ’57 Chevy, Kansas City, Kansas, 1962**

**Girls Eating Watermelon, Russellville, Kentucky, 1953**

**Blue Prom Dress, Hamilton, Massachusetts, 1961**

**Easter Sunday, Louisville, Kentucky, 1962**

**Dancing in the Kitchen, Preston, Connecticut, 1955**

**Dakota Couple, Rapid City, South Dakota, 1953**

**Corn and Piglet, Princeton, Illinois, 1951**

**Golden Girl, Henderson County, North Carolina, 1962**

**Blue Convertible, Muskogee, Oklahoma, 1963**

**Beauty Contestants, Kapiolani Park, Honolulu, Hawaii,1958**

**Swimmers, Alexandria, South Dakota, 1948**

**Seventh Wedding Anniversary, Hermosa, South Dakota, 1952**

**Bride with Bridesmaids, Des Plaines, Illinois, 1954**

**Nana and Beba, Brooklyn, New York, 1949**

**Mom with Chiffon Cake, Portsmouth, Ohio, 1950**

**Four Ladies at Tea. Grand Forks, North Dakota, 1955**

50 Gorgeous Photos of Actress Cyd Charisse in the 1940s and 1950s

Born 1922 as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, American dancer and actress Cyd Charisse was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout of polio.

After recovering from polio as a child and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually focused on her abilities as a dancer, and she was paired with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly; her films include Singin’ in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), Brigadoon with Gene Kelly and Van Johnson (1954) and Silk Stockings (1957).

Charisse stopped dancing in films in the late 1950s, but continued acting in film and television, and in 1992 made her Broadway debut in Grand Hotel.

Her last film appearance was in 1994 in That’s Entertainment! III as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films.

Charisse was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 2006. She died in 2008 because of heart attack, aged 86.

An Afternoon At Currie’s Ice Cream Store – Los Angeles 1946

25 Vintage Photos of the Crimean War, 1853-1856

The Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) was a conflict between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Most of the conflict took place on the Crimean peninsula, but there were smaller campaigns in eastern Anatolia, Caucasus, the Baltic Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea. In Russia, this war is also known as the “Eastern War”, and in Britain it was also called the “Russian War” at the time.

The Crimean War was one of the first wars to be documented extensively in written reports and photographs: notably by William Russell (writing for The Times newspaper) and the photographs of Roger Fenton.