1940s George Hurrell, Photographer to the stars

So, these were in a trunk of vintage newspapers & magazines that I acquired YEARS ago. They all have tape around the edges, like they were framed at some point in time.

Based on my limited research, these may have appeared in an Esquire magazine.

Stunning photography!

Sally Who?

She has the "girl next door" look.

And this one could easily pass for a modern "selfie", but in the 1940s....not an everyday image

1937 Opera Tenor Brings Down Chicago Opera House

Article from December 13, 1937 Time Magazine

Tenor
Tip-top Italian-style tenors have always been a scarce commodity, and for the past two decades they have been growing scarcer & scarcer.  Opera impresarios count on the fingers of one hand (Gigli, Lauri-Volpi, Borgioli, Schipa…) the lusty high-voiced Latins still capable of raising even moderate-sized rafters on either side of the Atlantic.  Since the death of Enrico Caruso (1921), tenor departments of U.S opera houses have shown a steady decline.  Today their audiences count it a privilege to hear their "Ridi Pagliaccios" and "La donna è mobiles" sung by anything bigger than a microphone voice. 

Last week, during a performance of Tosca, pandemonium broke loose in Chicago's Civic Opera House.  Excited opera-goers pounded the floor, stood on their seats and yelled frantic approval.  Conductor Moranzoni tried to get the performance going again, was stopped by a gusty chorus of "boos."  For more than five minutes the demonstration continued. Finally the cause of it, a broad-shouldered, lusty looking Italian tenor, Galliano Marsini, repeated "E lucevan le stele."  And the opera was allowed to go on.

Son of a Livornese macaroni maker, 34-year-old Masini worked once as a stevedore, then as a mechanic, was sent to Milan by admiring townsmen.  He claims that he never took a singing lesson, that the Milanese taught him only repertory.  He made a  debut in Livorno (Tosca) in 1928 and has sung since at La Scala and other leading European opera-houses.

Masini's U.S. debut in Lucia di Lammermoor las month, and subsequent appearances in La Gioconda and Tosca as "one long crescendo of excitement," now spoke of him unhesitatingly as "another Caruso."  While Chicago music-lovers last week were congratulating each other on this sensation of the musical season, Tenor Masini was being watched by hawk-eyed impresarios from coast to coast.

Smoking A Pipe Through the Years

1959 German toy ~ Rock or Roll

From June 1959 Popular Mechanics Magazine

Versatile German Toy Can Rock or Roll

Here's one kind of toy that should keep a toddler from becoming bored.  When he's tired of using the piece of kindergarten equipment as a make-believe car, he can turn it upside-down and use it as a rocking chair.  With some additional parts, it becomes a seesaw or a push toy.  The idea was developed by a refugee from East Germany.

1967 Sonny & Cher ~ 3rd Wedding Anniversary Party

Article appeared in October 1967 edition of Ladies Home Journal

On cue with Sonny & Cher's arrival, the phonograph spun out their first big hit, "I Got You, Babe," a very fitting choice for the occasion.

Cher is the genius behind all the great costumes the singers appear in everywhere, from recording sessions to parties.

Well-wishers, from left:  William Friedkin, director of their film GOOD TIMES, pop singer Lulu, actress Yvette Mimieux, and Harvey Kresky.

All the guests adored the idea of using platters for dinner plates, and no one was the least bit shy about the heaping helpings.

Harvey Kreskey, Personal Manager for Sonny & Cher 

"Dear Journal:  Is it corny to give Sonny & Cher a third wedding anniversary party?"

Not corny, if you make it candy.  Candy's a symbol for a third wedding anniversary.  So, we helped Harvey plan his surprise party for the young rock singers around a candy theme.  We dreamed up candy centerpieces made from giant lollipops and created an anniversary cake decorated with a gumdrop garden of bright flowers and "gras," continued the confection colors on vinyl tablecloths strewn with glued-on three-dimensional felt flowers.  Our sweetheart of a drink, served outdoors by the pool with hot hors d'oeuvres, was Loving Cup - guests helped themselves to a split of champagne, poured it over ice into giant burgundy glasses, added a dash of Grand Marnier and a few strawberries.  Our buffet was served indoores, on wildly flowered platters big enough to take seconds the first time around.

Vintage Celebrity Endorsements

1951 Jimmy Stewart Endorses Avon

1934 Rex Beach endorses Camel Cigarettes

1934 Tommy Loughran and Joseph Smith (trainer) endorses Palmolive Shave Cream

1940 Walter Huston endorses Williams Shaving Cream

1949 Lucille Ball endorses Lux soap

1954 Jean and Joan, The Corbett Twins endorse Chesterfield Cigarettes

1940 Al Smith endorses Pullman

1934 George Earl, trainer of cyclist "Torchy" Peden endorses Palmolive shave cream

1941 Lynn Merrick endorses Old Town Ribbons & Carbons

1941 Joe "Flash" Gordon of the new York Yankees endorses Fisk Tires

1941 Bradshaw Crandell, famous artist, endorses Pontiac

1940 Lily Pons (Metropolitan Opera) endorses Baldwin
Room design by Ruth Von Seine of Lord & Taylor, Fifth Ave

1951 Bob Feller endorses Gillette

1951 George Mikan endorses Gillette

1951 Gertrude Lawrence endorses Avon

1951 Vic Raschi endorses Gillette

1952 Paul Richards endorses Gillette

1949 Bob Hope, United Airlines

1949 Burgess Meredith endorses Williams Shaving Cream

1949 President of Western Union, Walter P. Marshall

endorses Rolex

1940 Patriotic Strip-tease sends pictures for Army recruits

From Time magazine, Oct 7, 1940


ARMY
From Margie, With Love
Redheaded Margie ("Poor Man's Garbo") Hart is a strip-teaser who plays Manhattan's theatres and the Midwest burlesque houses.  This week she gave 62-year-old Major General William N. Haskell, commander of the 27th Division, New York National Guard, a shock.  Sent to the 27th were 50 autographed copies of Margie's "most vivacious" photograph with the promise of 4,500 more as soon as prints were ready.  Margie sent her mementos out of practically pure patriotism.  She wanted them distributed among the 27th Division, which will soon go into training far from the Manhattan "girlie" houses, at Anniston, Ala.

Said Margie:  "A little romance and sentiment help to while away a man's lonely hours.  I only wish I could do more for our soldiers...I do hope the generals won't give my picture to married men.  I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea."

Asked West Pointer Haskell:  "Who is Margie Hart?"  Someone told him. Across the package he scrawled "Refused," ordered the photos returned.

1941 S.S. "America" ~ Navy Buys Cruise Ship

From Time Magazine, June 9, 1941

ECONOMICS OF THE AMERICA

When the Navy last week conscripted the luxury liner America, it left the venerable U.S. Lines without a single passenger ship.  But at the company's offices in lower Manhattan there was no mourning. The atmosphere was more like a carnival.  Everyone got a 10% bonus (based on last year's pay).  Passenger department clerks were told they would be kept on.  After work there was a rush to nearby bars.

The loss of its vessels has been a god-send to U.S Lines.  Over 80% of its $3,801,180 net income in 1940 came from sale if its ships.  The America, its No. 1 money-loser, was the climax.  She was built to replace the old Leviathan, whose owners patted her poop whenever she lost less than $75,000 a trip.  The America did a little better than that. But since her commissioning last summer she has lost something like $1,250,000.

Biggest boat ever built this side of the Atlantic, the America cost $17,586,478.  Of this, U.S. Lines put up $2,396,629 cash, the Leviathan (valued at around $2,000,000), and a mortgage for $7,328,140, the Maritime Commission the rest.  But even after throwing out the Government's ante, the America cost U.S. Lines $850,000 annually in depreciation ($600,000) and interest ($250,000).  And that was without even moving her from the dock.

Barred from the Atlantic run for which she was designed, the America spent her brief commercial life in the cruise business, mostly in the Caribbean.  She could carry 1,202 passengers, needed a crew of 643.  But she never was entirely full, an average $170 per passenger, each twelve-day cruise yielded about $76,500.  Against this were operating costs of $90,000 (wages, food, fuel, general overhead at $7,500 daily, plus depreciation and interest of $28,200 ($2,350 daily). Result:  net loss of $41,700 a trip.  The loss to U.S. Lines was less than that.  Under the Bailey-Bland (ship relief) Act of 1940, most of its losses will be paid by the Government.

This week not even U.S. Lines knew what the Navy would pay for their pet ship.  But one thing they did know:  in ships, bigness does not beget profits.


Another article about the Naval acquisition in the same magazine.

Requisition
West from the Virgin Islands toward Haiti stood S.S. America, a thwarted ship in a restricted ocean.  Biggest (27,000 gross tons) and fanciest merchantman ever to slide down a U.S. way, she had been conceived by the Maritime Commission for the blue-ribbon North Atlantic passenger trade.  But before her birth was complete, World War II and the Neutrality Act closed in her horizons.  Since she left her fitting-out dock ten months ago, her life has been a pleasant tedium of Caribbean cruises.  Last week adventure crooked an imperious finger to this immaculate loafer of the Antilles.  She was drafted into the U.S. Navy.

The summons came in a radiogram from the Navy to her master, young Captain Giles Chester Stedman of U.S. Lines, who is also commander in the Naval Reserve.  He was ordered to cut short the cruise, cancel the stop at Port-au-Prince, cut the stop at Havana from 48 hours to one (presumably to let former King Carol of Rumania and Playmate Lupescu disembark), put in at Newport News, Va. for refitting.  The spume under America's forefoot widened and whitened as she picked up her feet and shook herself out of her cruise pace.  On radio and telephone Giles Stedman and U.S. Lines got he Navy to agree to let him fropo his 250 passengers at New York, promised to have his beauty back in Newport News by Wednesday of this week.  There workmen will pull out her luxury trappings, install three- and four-decker bunks in her cabins, paint her Navy grey, perhaps arm her with 5-in. guns for her new life as a transport.  Built to carry 3,500 soldiers or marines.

In four days of the frist week of Franklin Roosevelt's unlimited emergency, 18 passenger liners and two modern freighters were drafted for Army and Navy.  Grossing better than 200,000 tons, they included American President Lines' brand-new President Jackson and President Adams, its older trans-Pacific liners President Taft, President Pierce, President Coolidge, and President Cleveland.  American Export Lines lost its new Explorer and Executor, just completed for the India trade.  Moore-McCormack, which now has 15 ships in the armed services, gave up Mormacpenn and Mormacwren from South American run.  Total of drafted passenger craft:  better than 45,000 tons.