Yesterday Today

Photos of Dizzy Gillespie Taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1955

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917 – 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz.

His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality provided some of bebop’s most prominent symbols.

In the 1940s, Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione, and balladeer Johnny Hartman.

American jazz reviewer, historian, and author Scott Yanow wrote:

“Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time, Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up being similar to those of Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis’s emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy’s style was successfully recreated [….] Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time”.

These vintage photos were taken by Carl Van Vechten that show portrait of a young Dizzy Gillespie on December 2, 1955.

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35 Gorgeous Photos of Bonita Granville in the 1930s and 1940s

Born 1923 in Manhattan, New York City, American actress Bonita Granville began her career on the stage at age three. She initially began as a child actress, making her film debut in Westward Passage (1932). She rose to prominence for her role in These Three (1936), which earned her an Academy Award nomination at age fourteen. Her prominence continued with the Nancy Drew film series, and roles in Now, Voyager (1942) and Hitler’s Children (1943).

After marrying Jack Wrather in 1947, Granville transitioned into producing with her husband on series such as Lassie (1959–1973). She also worked as a philanthropist and a businesswoman, most notably owning and operating Disneyland Hotel with her husband. She was appointed to the John F. Kennedy Center Board of Trustees by president Richard Nixon in 1972 and for another term by president Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Granville died in 1988 of lung cancer at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 65. In addition to her Oscar nomination, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for her contributions to the film industry. She and her husband were posthumously named Disney Legends in 2011.

Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see the beauty of young Bonita Granville in the 1930s and 1940s.

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Corinne Griffith: One of the Most Beautiful Actresses of the Silent Film Era

Born 1894 in Waco, Texas, American actress Corinne Griffith pursued a film career after winning a beauty contest in Southern California. In 1916, she signed a contract with Vitagraph Studios, appearing in numerous films for the studio through the remainder of the decade.

In 1920, Griffith began making films for First National Pictures, and became one of the studio’s bigger stars. In the mid-1920s, she began executive-producing features, and served as a producer on 1925’s Déclassée and Classified, in both of which she starred. In the latter part of the 1920s, Griffith’s film career slowed, though she had lead performances in Outcast (1928) and the drama The Garden of Eden (also 1928).

Dubbed “The Orchid Lady of the Screen,” Griffith achieved critical recognition for her performance in Frank Lloyd’s The Divine Lady (1929), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. After 1932, Griffith retired from acting and became a successful author and businesswoman, writing numerous fiction and non-fiction books, as well as venturing into real estate, in which she had begun investing in the 1920s.

After suffering a stroke in July 1979, Griffith was hospitalized in Santa Monica, California, where she died shortly after of a heart attack. She left behind a reported estate of $150 million, making her one of the wealthier women in the world at that time.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see the beauty of young Corinne Griffith in the 1910s and 1920s.

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Life in America in the 1970s and 1980s

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Kansas City, Kansas, May 1983

McLean, Virginia, December 1978

In the 1920s, People Thought Radioactive Water Was Good for the Health

Back in the 1920s, people thought that drinking radium, and thorium, infused water was healthy. One of the more famous varieties of this water was sold under the brand name Radithor. It was eventually famously implicated in the illness and subsequent death of an industrialist named Eben Byers, which was accompanied by the headline of “The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off”.

A bottle of Radithor at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in New Mexico, USA.

Radithor was a well known patent medicine/snake oil that is possibly the best known example of radioactive quackery. It consisted of triple distilled water containing at a minimum 1 microcurie (37 kBq) each of the Radium 226 and 228 isotopes, as well as 1 microcurie of isothiouranium, a cheaper radioactive compound.

Radithor was manufactured from 1918-28 by the Bailey Radium Laboratories, Inc., of East Orange, New Jersey. The head of the laboratories was listed as Dr. William J. A. Bailey, not a medical doctor. It was advertised as “A Cure for the Living Dead” as well as “Perpetual Sunshine”.

These radium elixirs were marketed similar to the way opiates were commonly advertised with Laudanum an age earlier, and electrical cure-alls during the same time period such as the Prostate Warmer.

The story of socialite Eben Byers’s death from Radithor consumption and the associated radiation poisoning found its way into the New York Times under the title “The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off,” which led to the strengthening of the Food and Drug Administration’s powers and the demise of most radiation quack cures.

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People Posing With Their Cars in the 1950s

The post-World War II era brought a wide range of new technologies to the automobile consumer, and a host of problems for the independent automobile manufacturers.

The industry was maturing in an era of rapid technological change; mass production and the benefits from economies of scale led to innovative designs and greater profits, but stiff competition between the automakers.

By the end of the decade, the industry had reshaped itself into the Big Three, Studebaker, and AMC. The age of small independent automakers was nearly over, as most of them either consolidated or went out of business.

A number of innovations were either invented or improved sufficiently to allow for mass production during the decade: air conditioning, automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, seat belts and arguably the most influential change in automotive history, the overhead-valve V8 engine. The horsepower race had begun, laying the foundation for the muscle car era.

Here below is a set of color photos from Steve Given that shows people posing with their cars in the 1950s.

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Czech Classic Beauty: 40 Fabulous Photos of Olga Schoberová in the 1960s

Born 1943 in Prague, Czech actress Olga Schoberová, also known as Olinka Bérová worked as a clerk at the Technomat, for CZK 500 per month. Her older sister Eva was a model. Since Eva was quite busy as a model, Eva once sent Olga, who looked very similar to her, to a modeling job. Olga then started shooting commercials. A Pilsner beer poster with Olga attracted the attention of director Antonín Kachlík, who cast her in We Were Ten (1963).

In 1964, Schoberová became the first woman from Czechoslovakia to appear on the cover of Playboy magazine, photographed by Herman Leonard. In 1969, she appeared in the pictorial, Sex Stars of 1969, and with Brad Harris in The Secret of the Chinese Carnation (1964), and Massacre at Marble City (1964).

Olga Schoberová acted in 22 Czech, German, Italian, Austrian, Polish, English, and American movies. As “Olinka Berova”, she appeared in The Vengeance of She (1968), and several more films. She has been compared to Brigitte Bardot and Ursula Andress.

Take a look at these fabulous photos to see the beauty of young Olga Schoberová in the 1960s.

43 Fantastic Photos of New York City in the 1970s

Reeling from a decade of social turmoil, New York in the 1970s fell into a deep tailspin provoked by the flight of the middle class to the suburbs and a nationwide economic recession that hit New York’s industrial sector especially hard.

Combined with substantial cuts in law enforcement and citywide unemployment topping ten percent, crime and financial crisis became the dominant themes of the decade.

In just five years from 1969 to 1974, the city lost over 500,000 manufacturing jobs, which resulted in over one million households being dependent on welfare by 1975. In almost the same span, rapes and burglaries tripled, car thefts and felony assaults doubled, and murders went from 681 to 1690 a year.

Depopulation and arson also had pronounced effects on the city: abandoned blocks dotted the landscape, creating vast areas absent of urban cohesion and life itself.

These fascinating black and white photos show what New York looked like during the 1970s.

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30 Old Portrait Photos of Manila Ladies From the Early 20th Century

Manila is the capital of the Philippines, and its second most populous city. It is located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay, on the island of Luzon. The Pasig River flows through the middle of the city, dividing it into the north and south sections.

Manila became autonomous with the passage of Republic Act No. 409, “The Revised Charter of the City of Manila,” on June 18, 1949. Manila is the second most natural-disaster-afflicted capital city in the world after Tokyo. Nevertheless, it is among the most populous and fastest growing cities in Southeast Asia.

The term “Manila” is commonly used to refer to the whole metropolitan area, the greater metropolitan area or the city proper. The officially defined metropolitan area, called Metro Manila, the “capital region” of the Philippines, also includes the much larger Quezon City and the Makati Central Business District. It is the most populous region in the country, one of the most populous urban areas in the world, and is one of the wealthiest regions in Southeast Asia.

Here below is a set of old photos that shows portraits of Manila ladies from between the 1910s and 1930s.