Vintage Photos

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:13:12 GMT

Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:20:00 GMT

random pictures

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:52:04 GMT

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:53:05 GMT

Born in 1919 (we'll assume), Eva Gabor was the youngest child of a would-be actress with illusions of grandeur for her three daughters. Her story is one that begins in Budapest, Hungary, and ends in New York after a whirlwind life. Eva married in her teens, to Dr. Erik Drimmer, an osteopath that became the personal physician to Greta Garbo. Perhaps it was this that refueled her dreams of becoming an actress. To any rate, she began to reach towards that goal when she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. Under them, she made two films, Forced Landing and Pacific Blackout, neither of which helped her career. Months after making the latter, she married for the second time, to millionare Charles Issacs, a relationship that lasted 7 years. For the next decade she was at a standstill, and her appearences on camera where nothing more than forgettable. Then, in 1950, she found Broadway and landed a starring role in the Rodgers and Hammerstein production The Happy Time. Shortly after followed a self-titled radio show, and various television programs. Unfortunately, just as Eva had started to make a name for herself in Hollywood, she faced one of her biggest challanges: her recently immigrated sister, Zsa Zsa.

Though they were pitted against each other for many roles, Eva managed to hold her own in the spotlight against her more celebrated sibling. She had a string of hit movies in the 1950's, including The Last Time I Saw Paris and Gigi. The mid-50's brought more films, and stage productions like Strike a Match and Little Glass Clock. Eva's autobiography, Orchids and Salami, was published in 1954. She remarked that it was titled so because friends commented that those were the only things found in her house. In 1956, she married and divorced John E. Williams. In '59, she married Richard Brown, her longest marriage. It lasted 13 years.

with co-star Eddie Albert (Green Acres)

With the '60's came, for Eva, the return to Broadway, which had helped her forge her name earlier in her career. She also took on roled in comedies, like New Kind of Love. She hovered on the edge of stardom until she landed the infamous role of Lisa Douglas on "Green Acres". It was this role that granted her lasting fame as the glamorous, wacky, extremely lovable wife of a lawyer turned farmer. This also opened up an avenue to her that Zsa Zsa had already formed a reputation in: variety and talk shows. She often made apparences on shows like "Tonight Show starring Steve Allen", "The Walter Winchell Show", and "It Could Be You."

She married her last husband, Frank Jameson, in 1973. The couple parted ways a decade later. In the 70's, Eva joined sister Zsa Zsa in the theater for a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace, and remained at her elevated status of stardom throughout that decade and the next. She even tried her hand at another television series in the mid-80's, "Bridges to Cross". The made for tv movie Return to Green Acres proved to be her last starring role before her death in 1995. (c) http://gaborabilia.tripod.com/

'Toronto Flashbacks' Part 4

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:04:15 GMT

A horse-drawn streetcar belonging to the Toronto Street Railway Company travels south on Yonge Street at Queen, c.1885.

The water chute at Scarborough Beach Amusement Park. The park was operated by the streetcar company as a means of getting riders for under-used equipment on nights and weekends in the early years of the century.

'Ardwold', Sir John Eaton's residence built on the brow of the hill overlooking Davenport Road, c.1910. Demolished 1936.

Cutting ice on Grenedier Pond, 1909. The pond was named after War of 1812 Grenediers who crashed through soft ice and drowned while in retreat from American invaders.

"Girlie Show" barker makes his pitch at the 1939 Canadian National Exhibition midway show.

Front Street looking west from Yonge Street after the Great Toronto Fire, April 1904.

Josie Dyment and Myrtle Cook (right) await the starter's gun, 1926. Cook won a gold medal at the Amsterdam Olympics, 1928, as a member of Canada's women's 400 metre relay team.

In the suburban Toronto of 1908, atrocious road conditions on the Earlscourt area forced bread delivery to be done by handcart.

"Canada's Strongman" Fred H. Beasley shows off at Hanlan's Point, Toronto Island, 1922.

The first job for many recently arrived immigrants in Toronto was as labourers building sewer and water mains under the city's streets, c.1906.

'Toronto Flashbacks' Part 3

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 04:02:27 GMT

(Lots of photos in this 'Toronto Flashbacks' series, so lots of posts shall be made.)

The ruin of a building gutted during the "Great Fire of 1904" teeters at the northwest corner of Bay and Wellington Streets.

An all-girl orchestra set to play at one of Toronto's earliest motor shows, Transportation Building, Canadian National Exhibition, 1912. This was the first year the Exhibition's name was changed from Toronto Industrial Exhibition.

The city's elegant new King Edward Hotel towers over King Street, shortly after opening in 1903.

"In the good old summertime" at Sunnyside Beach, on the western outskirts of the city, c.1900.

Count Jacques de Lessep's 'Bleriot XI' monoplane arrives at the Tretheway model farm, July 13, 1910. Known as 'Le Scarabee', this aircraft was the first to fly over Toronto.

'Toronto Flashbacks' Part 2

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:23:35 GMT

Five more pictures from the historical Toronto postcard book.

Front Street looking west to the "Coffin Block" at the Front-Wellington-Church streets intersection, 1887.

Veterans of the army that put down the North West Rebellion of 1885, assemble in front of Osgoode Hall, 1908. More than 600 men from Toronto volunteered to put down the Rebellion.

William (Jr) and brother Joseph James on assignment, complete with plate camera, ladder and 'Monarch' motorcycle, 1912. The boys' father William (Sr) arrived in Canada in 1906 and over the next four decades photographed a wide range of daily activities in Toronto, as well as important news, social and cultural events.

Tremendous crowds gather in the rain in front of the new "old" city hall to welcome the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, 1901. In 1910, he came King George V and she became Queen Mary.

The famous passenger steamer 'Cayuga' operated between Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake for half a century before being scrapped in 1957. She's seen here on the Niagara River in 1911.

'Toronto Flashbacks' Part 1

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:11:50 GMT

Hello there! Today I bring you a few pictures scanned from a postcard book of historical photos of Toronto I got some time ago.

One of the Toronto Railway Company's wooden streetcars, converted to the "travelling headquarters" of the 109th Regiment, heads toward Berlin via Shuter St., 1916.

Members of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club gather on the front lawn of their island clubhouse. The clubhouse was destroyed by fire August 15, 1904. RCYC is the second oldest yacht club on the continent. (The oldest is the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron)

A view of the ferry docks in 1927 with 'Trillium' and 'Blue Bell' in the distance and 'Primrose' at her dock. 'Trillium' is still in service. (At least, 'Trillium' was still in service in 1989 when the postcard book was published. Upon further, but brief research, 'Trillium' was originally retired in 1957, but brought back into service in 1976.)

Taking a spin in High Park in a "Northern" auto, 1906. City aldermen refused the donation of the parkland in 1873, as it was "too far out in the countryside".

Members of the Town of North Toronto's fire department pose with some of their helpers in front of Fire Hall #5, c.1900.

And a special bonus, I bring you this video clip:

More pictures to come along soon. ;)

brushes away cobwebs

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:18:21 GMT

Surely we haven't run out of pictures to post here!

The first four are from the Science and Society Picture Library, which you all should go to because they have some fantastic pictures there. Plus I've added a couple others and some Chaplin. Because you can never have enough of ol' Charlie.

Girl posting a letter, ca. 1911-1915

Hubert Latham's monoplane downed in English Channel, 1909

L'aperitif postcard, 1900

Amy Johnson, aviator, 1930s

ca. 1900

I always thought Charlie had a lovely smile.

The Tramp in colour! (using Autochrome)

And I think this is my favourite picture ever of Charlie Chaplin:

“I had played the violin since I was sixteen and once had great ambitions to be a concert performer. As for the cello - I could pose well with it, but that’s about it!”
- Charlie Chaplin, My Life in Pictures

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:59:31 GMT

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:32:07 GMT

Ladies riding habit

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 06:19:58 GMT

It's been too long without some pictures here! So I bring you the sidesaddle riding fashions of the late 1800s/early 1900s. (I can't remember where exactly I found these pictures, though.)

ETA: - They're from Corsets and Crinolines.

Only married ladies wore top hats, so this young lady wore a bowler instead.

niagara falls

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:19:14 GMT

ok soo i decided to post some vintage pictures of teh falls because i live by them and they are amazing and soem of teh pictures i found i just had to share soo here ya go!!

>soory if some of these are paintings but i couldnt find many i hope you enjoy!!

The Original Betty Boop

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 01:20:39 GMT

Helen Kane (August 4, 1903 – September 26, 1966) was an American popular singer, best known for her "boop-boop-a-doop" trademark and her signature song, "I Wanna Be Loved By You". Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick used Kane as the model for his studio's most famous creation, Betty Boop.

By the time she was 15, Helen was onstage professionally, touring the Orpheum Circuit with the Marx Brothers. Helen spent the early 1920s trouping in vaudeville as a singer, and kickline dancer with a theater engagement called the 'All Jazz Revue.'

In the mid-1920s Helen married department store buyer Joseph Kane and took his last name professionally. By 1928 the marriage had ended in divorce.

Kane's first performance at the Paramount Theater in Times Square proved to be her defining moment and career's launching point. Kane was singing the popular song That’s My Weakness Now, when she interpolated the scat lyrics “boop-boop-a-doop.” The rather odd gamble paid off, resonating with flapper culture and, four days later, Helen Kane’s name went up in lights. Overnight, the world changed for Helen. Kane’s agent Harry Besney got her $5,500 a week in Oscar Hammerstein’s 1928 show Good Boy (where she introduced the hit, I Want to Be Loved By You).

As she took on the status of a singing sensation, there were Helen Kane dolls and Helen Kane look-alike contests, appearances on radio and in nightclubs. In late 1928 and early 1929 this cult following had reached its peak. Helen Kane's height (about 5 feet tall) and slightly plump figure attracted attention and fans. Her round face with its huge brown eyes was topped by black, curly hair; her voice was a baby squeak with a distinct Bronx accent. Audiences found Helen adorable.

In mid-1929, Paramount Pictures signed Helen to make a series of musicals, and put her on a salary of $8,000 a year.

In 1930, Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick introduced a caricature of Helen Kane, with droopy dog ears and a squeaky singing voice, in the Talkartoons cartoon Dizzy Dishes. "Betty Boop", as the character was later dubbed, soon became popular and the star of her own cartoons. In 1932, she was changed into a human from a dog, her long ears turning into hoop earrings.

In 1932, Kane filed an unsuccessful $250,000 suit against Paramount and Max Fleischer, charging unfair competition and wrongful appropriation in the Betty Boop cartoons. The trial opened in April 1934 with Helen Kane and Betty Boop films being screened by Judge McGoldrick (no jury was called). Betty Boop voice-over talent Mae Questel, Margy Hines, and Bonnie Poe were brought in to testify. McGoldrick ruled against Helen in 1934, claiming that Kane's testimony could not prove that her singing style was unique or not an imitation itself (a little-known black singer known as 'Baby Esther' was cited by the defence as "booping" in song).

With the hardships of the Great Depression biting, the flamboyant world of the flapper was over, and Kane's style began to date rapidly. After 1931 she lost the favour of the movie makers, who chose other singers for their films. She appeared in a stage production called Shady Lady in 1933, and made appearances at various nightclubs and theatres during the 1930s.

In 1950, she dubbed an 18-year-old Debbie Reynolds who performed "I Wanna Be Loved By You" in the MGM musical biopic of songwriting duo Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby: Three Little Words. She did not appear in the film's credits.

She appeared in several TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s, principally Toast of the Town (later episodes known as The Ed Sullivan Show).

Kane battled breast cancer for more than ten years. She died of the disease in Jackson Heights, Queens, on September 26, 1966. Helen Kane is buried in Long Island National Cemetery.

Source: Wikipedia

You can download most of her more famous songs from here.

beautiful vintage wedding dresses

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:54:41 GMT

http://www.victoriana.com/weddinggowns/weddinggowns-2.html

http://www.bobbydene.com/weddr1.htm

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 20:26:03 GMT

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 06:13:36 GMT

Renée Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc.

I just got finished watching this. I didn't really expect to like it in the beginning but I was amazed by how intense and expressive her facial expressions were. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not even religious and I thought that this was an incredible film.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc) was a silent film released in France in 1928 based on the trial records of Joan of Arc. The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and starred Renée Jeanne Falconetti and Antonin Artaud. It is widely regarded as a landmark of silent cinema.

The film details the last hours of Joan of Arc after she has been captured by the English. It details her trial, imprisonment, torture and final execution similar to that of a passion play. What especially stood out at the time Passion was made was the film's camera-work and emphasis on the actors' facial features. Dreyer shot a great deal of the film in close-up and forbade his actors to wear any makeup, the better to tell the story through their expressions. Falconetti — in her second and last movie role — was commended for her multifaceted performance as Joan.

Passion was originally intended to use the new technology of sound, but Dreyer did not have sufficient financing and so the film is silent.

Dreyer intended the film to be watched in complete silence with no musical accompaniment. However, in 1994 composer Richard Einhorn wrote an oratorio based on the movie, entitled "Voices of Light". This piece is now available as an optional accompaniment on the Criterion Collection's DVD release of the film. In 1999, American indie singer/songwriter Cat Power provided musical accompainment at several screenings of the film in America.

Some critics claimed that Passion was the best silent film ever made, and Pauline Kael wrote that Falconetti's portrayal of Joan of Arc "may be the finest performance ever recorded on film." However, it was banned in Britain for its portrayal of crude English soldiers who mock and torment Joan in scenes that mirror biblical accounts of Christ's mocking at the hands of Roman soldiers. The Archbishop of Paris was also critical, demanding changes be made to the film. Whether or not this request was honored in any way is unknown.

The original version of the film was lost for decades, after a fire destroyed the master negative. Dreyer himself attempted to reassemble a version from out-takes and surviving prints, but he died believing his original cut was lost forever. Almost miraculously, a virtually complete print of Dreyer's original version was found in 1981 in a janitor's closet of an Oslo mental institution. This version is now available on DVD.

Source: Wikipedia

I wonder how it ended up in a mental institution?

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 01:27:52 GMT

Brought to you courtesy of mysteriouspeople.com.

Clairvoyant healer, medium and prophet, Edgar Cayce was born in 1877 on a farm in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. At the age of nine he found himself unable to spell the word 'cabin' which brought a reprimand from the teacher Lucian, his uncle. At home that evening Edgar's father tried to teach him the basics of spelling, but the boy was unable to learn. Losing all patience his father then lashed out at Edgar knocking him off his chair. Edgar later said that lying on the floor he clearly heard a voice that said 'If you sleep a little, we can help you.' He then slept with his spelling book under his head. When he awoke he found that he knew every lesson in the book and could repeat each one word for word. This amazing talent was to remain with Edgar for the rest of his life; he only had to sleep with a book under his head and he would awake knowing everything it contained.

When Stella C came into Price's life he was tired of false mediums and shams. On a day early in 1923, he was travelling home by train from London to his Pulborough home, and found himself sitting opposite a charming and attractive young woman, 'a typical English girl' as he was to say later. This was the 22 year-old Dorothy Stella Cranshaw. She had been born in 1900 in North Woolwich, London, the daughter of a charcoal burner, and was at the time working as a nurse in a London hospital. Price had a pile of newspapers and magazines next to him, and Stella, having nothing to read, asked to have a look at his copy of Light, a magazine concerning psychic phenomena.

In the conversation that followed Stella displayed a mild, merely objective interest in psychic matters, though she did have some puzzling experiences to relate. She told Price that sometimes whilst sitting in a quiet room on a calm day, with the windows closed, there would be a breeze and small objects such as match-boxes would move around in the air, accompanied by raps and flashes of light. She said that these 'breezes' almost always occurred when there were flowers around. She was extremely fond of flowers and occasionally, when she was seated at a desk with a vase of flowers on it, there would be a gentle breeze which fanned her cheek and made the flowers bend in the vase.

Nina Kulagina was only 14 when the Nazis began the siege of Leningrad. Like many Leningrad children she had to become a soldier, and along with her father, brother and sister, she joined the Red Army and was sent into the thick of the action. The conditions during the 900 day siege were appalling. Winter temperature sometimes reached forty degrees below zero, bread rations were about four ounces a day, the water and the electricity were cut off, and the city was devastated by bombs and artillery fire. Nina served on the front line in Tank T-34 as a radio operator, and distinguished herself enough to become senior sergeant. But the fighting came to an end for her when she was seriously injured by artillery fire. Fortunately, she managed to recover and later settled down, married and had a son.

Nina was always aware that she had psychic powers. She could mentally see things inside people’s pockets, and when she met sick people she could identify the disease they were suffering from, an image of the illness appearing in her mind. On one occasion when she was in a particularly angry mood, she was walking towards a cupboard in her apartment when a jug in the cupboard suddenly moved to the edge of the shelf, fell and smashed to pieces on the floor. After that, changes began to take place in her apartment. Lights went on and off; objects became animated and seemed somehow to be attracted to her. It was similar to having a poltergeist, but Nina knew the psychic power was coming from her, and discovered that, if she tried, she could control it.

Born on 24 May 1913, Eleanore Zugun was a Rumanian peasant girl who lived in the village of Talpa, in the north of the country. In February 1923, when she was eleven years old, she went to visit her grandmother's house at Buhai, a few miles away from her village. On the way she found some money by the side of the road, and when she arrived at Buhai she spent it on sweets and ate them all. Her 105-year-old grandmother, who had the reputation of being a witch, overheard Eleonore and her cousin arguing about the sweets, and warned her that the devil (Dracu in Rumanian) had left the money to tempt her, and from then on she would never be free of him. The next day poltergeist activity began.

Stones crashed against the house and broke windows, and small objects near to Eleonore jumped up and flew about. Her superstitious grandmother was convinced that the girl was possessed by the Devil and Eleonore was quickly sent home to Tulpa. But here, three days later, the poltergeist started again. A jug full of water rose slowly into the air and floated several feet without any water being spilled. A trunk shook violently up and down, a porridge bowl flew at a visitor and hit him on the back of the head causing a painful wound.

Student of Thesophy and mysticism, doctor, author, women's activist and vegetarian, Anna (Annie) Bonus Kingsford was born on 16th September, 1846, at Maryland Point, Stratford, Essex. She was the youngest of twelve children. Her father, John Bonus was a wealthy London shipbroker of Italian origin and her mother, Elizabeth Ann Schroder, was of Irish / German descent. When Anna was still a young girl the family moved south of the Thames to Blackheath, then still a village, near Greenwich.

Although plagued by illness from an early age Anna was an imaginative and creative child. She had mystical visions and seems to have possessed some psychic ability, often predicting impending deaths. She was an avid reader, in part due to access to her father's library, and would write plays for her dolls to perform from the stories she read. She wrote a novel Beatrice: a Tale of the Early Christians which was published when she was just thirteen, and later had some of her poems published as River Reeds in 1866. The death of her father in 1865 left the family with a large fortune from which Anna received a trust fund giving her £700 a year, enough to make her financially independent.

Mystic, occultist and traveller, Alexandra David was born in Paris, on the 24th of October 1868. As a child her favourite books were the science fiction fantasies of Jules Verne, and she promised herself one day to outdo the heroes of these stories. One of the first indications of this sense of adventure was her running away just before the family left to move to Brussels. Only after a widespread search was she caught by a gendarme, whom she scratched for his trouble.

By the age of fifteen Alexandra had already begun to study music, at this time she also obtained her first occult reading matter, an English journal produced by the Society of the Supreme Gnosis, sent to her by a woman called Elisabeth Morgan. That summer her family spent the holidays in Ostend, but Alexandra wanted something more interesting and walked into Holland and crossed over to England. In London she found Mrs. Morgan, who immediately persuaded her to return home.

In 1885, when she was seventeen, Alexandra again left home. This time she hiked alone over the Saint-Gotthard Pass through the Alps to the Italian lakes. Her mother came and retrieved her at Milan.

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:50:21 GMT

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:38:29 GMT

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 12:19:01 GMT

Life in the Yukon Territory, Canada

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:48:57 GMT

A number of pictures I found on the Archives Canada website.

Children at Wernecke Mining Camp ca. 1930s

Boys in Carmacks, 1912

St Mary's Hospital, Dawson City, 1904

Older women were often midwives.

A child's funeral in Mayo

Two women and their babies in Mayo, 1937

Shep the Dog pulling his owner in Fort Selkirk, May 1939

Dog, boy and a wooden wheelbarrow in Fort Selkirk

Children with dog cart

Children in Whitehorse, 1930s

Children playing funeral. (I found this one a bit unsettling.)

Update: Memento Mori Archive at Thanatos.net

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:49:47 GMT

I just recieved the following email and thought I would post it because it would be of interest of some of the people here.

This is an email sent to you by an administrator of "Thanatos.net Image
Archive".
If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find
offensive please contact the webmaster at:
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Message sent to you follows:
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Hello everybody.

Just a note - 46 new images have been added to the Memento Mori archive in
the last few weeks, including several in the last couple of days.

Also, the images are now being sorted so that newly-added images show up
first (instead of alphabetically).

Remember to sign in to view the full-sized images and comments.

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 02:28:07 GMT

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 01:55:14 GMT