Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, and more feature in exclusive look at rare archival images in “LIFE. Hollywood”

Hitting shelves this September, "LIFE. Hollywood" takes readers into the "LIFE" magazine archives for a look at the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The images of the Golden Age of Hollywood played an indelible part in its mythmaking — be it publicity stills of glamorous movie stars, shots from red carpets and awards shows, or more candid images.

LIFE. Hollywood, coming to shelves in Sept. courtesy of Taschen, takes readers into the archives of LIFE magazine with hundreds of meticulously researched and curated images of Hollywood's most glamorous decades. From 1936 to 1972, LIFE reigned as the world's most popular weekly photography magazine, coinciding with the Golden Age of Hollywood.

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The two-volume collection features images from location shoots, Oscar nights, homes, alluring parties, and more. Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive look at some of the rare and never-before-seen images featured in the lush coffee-table book.

With over 600 images included, LIFE. Hollywood features icons such as Robert Redford, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Errol Flynn; takes us backstage to the sets of soundstages of legendary films; and grants an insider's look at everything from Oscar parties to stars' political engagement.

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Accompanied by essays from Lucy Sante, the book delves into the rise and fall of the studio system, the magazine’s influence on photography, and the impact of historical events on Hollywood in 20th century America.

A peek inside

Get a look inside the tome that is LIFE. Hollywood, which features rare images of stars like Marilyn Monroe.

Robert Redford

This never-before-published photograph showcases a young Robert Redford on the streets of a bustling New York City.

From the book: “They throw that word ‘star’ at you loosely,” Redford groused to Life, “and they take it away loosely if your pictures flop.” Flops would not be a problem for Redford, who remained one of America’s most bankable leading men, starring in All the President’s Men, The Natural, and many others, and blossomed into an acclaimed directorial career with films like Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It. John Dominis, New York, 1969.

Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat"

From the book: Hitchcock savored creative challenges, like filming this wartime drama almost entirely on a single “set,” the titular boat, adrift in the ocean. He successfully gripped his audience’s interest in this tightly bound space throughout the film. Clockwise from top: Canada Lee (back to camera), Walter Slezak (blurry), Heather Angel (back to camera), Henry Hull, Mary Anderson, William Bendix, and Tallulah Bankhead. John Florea, Twentieth Century-Fox Studios, 1943.

Tallulah Bankhead gets wet

From the book: Portraying survivors of a torpedoed liner required Alfred Hitchcock’s cast to endure frequent soaking from simulated storms and also baking under the hot studio lights. Here, top-billed lead Tallulah Bankhead gets doused by a crewman. Peter Stackpole, Twentieth Century-Fox Studios, 1943.

Support for the Hollywood Ten

From the book: HUMPHREY BOGART AND LAUREN BACALL. Devoted married couple, iconic movie stars, liberal Democrats, and political activists: Bogart and Bacall field the press while speaking out against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. The couple organized the Hollywood Committee for the First Amendment, a delegation to Washington, D.C., that aimed to challenge HUAC’s persecution of alleged Communist actors during the Cold War. Life took a somewhat cynical view on the delegation and its motives. “They descended. on Washington by plane, breathlessly watched the hearings, signed innumerable autographs and told everybody who would listen that the Thomas Committee was violating civil rights.” The members of a Hollywood contingent listen raptly during a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing: (L–R) Danny Kaye, June Havoc, Bogart, and Bacall. The effects of the HUAC “witch hunt” would be felt throughout the film industry for years. Blacklisted or “grey-listed” actors, directors, writers, and technicians were rendered unemployable, and screenwriters like Dalton Trumbo had to sell scripts using the names of paid “fronts.” The HUAC’s lasting damage began to heal when Kirk Douglas openly gave Trumbo screen credit once again on Spartacus. Martha Holmes, Washington, D.C., 1947

The stars take Washington

Bogart and Bacall are visible here emerging from cars and speaking with the press as they join a contingent of Hollywood stars who traveled to Washington, D.C. to challenge HUAC's persecution of alleged Communist actors and screenwriters.

I am Spartacus!

From the book: SPARTACUS. Moviemaking tends to be far from glamorous, as this photo taken on location illustrates. Bored extras cast as casualties of war hold individual numbered cards so that the notoriously meticulous Kubrick could holler out how he wanted each one to pose. “As a technique it worked fine,” Life wrote, “but on screen the scene proved disappointing, so  they shot it all over again, this time indoors at Universal’s Hollywood studio. R. Eyerman, Los Angeles, 1959.

Check your Oscar at the door

From the book: AT ROMANOFF'S, producer Buddy Adler stowed his Best Picture Oscar for From Here to Eternity at the hat-check room, then decided to bring it to his table. The photo Life ran of the award involved some restaging: “Oscar in checkroom at Romanoff’s needs a little qualifying,” editor Loudon Wainwright Jr. noted. “We asked Adler’s permission, got it back to the checkroom, took our pictures, and back it went to the table. Ed Clark, Beverly Hills, 1954.

Sammy Davis Jr. in motion

This never-before-published image showcases singer-dancer Sammy Davis Jr. in constant motion while making Porgy and Bess.

From the book: SAMMY DAVIS, JR. This unpublished stroboscopic image of Davis dancing in character as the wicked Sportin’ Life perfectly captures the frenetic pace of his lifestyle. Life quoted a piece of advice Frank Sinatra gave him: “You smoke so much and drink so much and work so much that one day you’re going to open your mouth and dust is going to come out. Slow down.” Gjon Mili, Samuel Goldwyn Studios, 1959.

An actor prepares

From the book: MARLON BRANDO made his film debut in The Men, portraying a veteran paralyzed from the waist down. To enhance the believability of his character’s struggles on-screen, Brando stayed at Los Angeles’s Birmingham Veterans Hospital, going through the same arduous exercise regime of actual paralyzed veterans and living among them. “In the story of one paraplegic’s growing resolution to survive,” Life wrote, “Marlon Brando creates a character that is tough, agonized, and deeply moving.” Brando’s rebellious nature was boldly apparent, even as he was making his film debut in The Men. Life’s Theodore Strauss described him as “a non-conformist in the grand style, part mud-spattered child, part genius—a harlequin who had not been housebroken.” As for Hollywood’s reaction to him, Strauss wrote: “Not in recent memory had the town been confronted with an actor who treated almost any rudimentary standard of social behavior with such utter and childlike disdain.” With age, Brando would grow ever more contrary. Ed Clark, Los Angeles, 1950

The wunderkid emerges

From the book: CITIZEN KANE. At age 25, “boy genius” Orson Welles had already radically transformed theater and radio as art forms. And when he directed, co-wrote, and starred in his debut feature, Citizen Kane, he altered cinema permanently. “So sharply does Citizen Kane veer from cinema cliché,” The Observer’s critic C.A. Lejeune wrote at the time, "it hardly seems like a movie." W. Eugene Smith, New York, 1941.

Father and daughter duo

From the book: JANE FONDA AND HENRY FONDA in Times Square’s Shubert Alley. She had only recently debuted on Broadway in There Was a Little Girl and was about to appear in her first film, Tall Story. Exceptionally talented in her own right, she didn’t need to trade on her family name to succeed. Life reported: “‘Jane has made more progress in one year,’ says her surprised and immensely pleased father, ‘than I have in 30.’ Leonard McCombe, New York, 1960.

In like Flynn

From the book: ERROL FLYNN became synonymous with dashing, sword-wielding chivalry in classic Warner Bros. adventures like The Adventures of Robin Hood. Flynn was actually an inveterate hellraiser, blithe about his scandalous romantic life, hedonism, and chronic drinking. “One thing I always knew how to do: enjoy life,” Flynn wrote in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways. “If I have any genius it is a genius for living.” Reminiscent of his high seas adventures like The Sea Hawk, here he strikes a characteristically swashbuckling pose for Peter Stackpole aboard his yacht, the Sirocco. In a strange twist of fate, underage actress Peggy Satterlee accused Flynn of raping her on this spearfishing trip, and Stackpole and his photographs for Life were subpoenaed as evidence. Flynn was acquitted. Peter Stackpole, Pacific Ocean, 1941.

Hollywood's favorite couple

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward share their enormous brass bed, which they purchased while on location in the South filming The Long, Hot Summer. Woodward believed the bed had once been used in a brothel.

From the book:  PAUL NEWMAN AND JOANNE WOODWARD were young, bright, married stars on the ascendent when Life’s Parks photographed them all around New York. Newman had leaped from the stage onto the silver screen in Somebody Up There Likes Me and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and he was starring in Elia Kazan’s Broadway production of Sweet Bird of Youth. Woodward had won the Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve. Off screen, Life wrote, “They make a constant effort to weld their strong and divergent personalities. Joanne, a Georgia beauty, is witty and very ladylike. Newman is a glittering but very rough-cut diamond.” Woodward explained how wildly different their approaches to acting were: "Paul slaves at acting. He studies scripts for hours and doodles all over them. I like doing things subconsciously and bringing them forth full-blown. If I did as much thinking about a part as Paul does, I’d go raving mad." In the 2022 docuseries The Last Movie Stars, director Ethan Hawke had George Clooney and Laura Linney portray Newman and Woodward and gave readings from Newman’s unfinished, unpublished memoir. Gordon Parks, New York, 1959.

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