The Wonderful World of Witches: Portraits of English Pagans

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Just about 50 years ago, in the fall of 1964, LIFE magazine published what must have felt to the venerable weekly’s long-time readers like a strikingly weird feature. Titled “Real Witches at Work,” the piece included photographs of modern-day British pagans — doctors, housewives, nurses, teachers — celebrating their ancient rites, dancing around fires and generally behaving like perfectly normal, faithful worshippers of the sun, the moon and Mother Nature have been acting for thousands of years.

Today, of course, when magic, the supernatural and the occult are central elements of some of pop culture’s most familiar (and profitable) franchises, and Wiccans are more likely to be found serving on the local school board or city council than practicing their beliefs in secret for fear of being “found out,” an article on real, live witches would excite little more than a shrug and a meh. In the early 1960s, however — and certainly in much of the United States – the notion of grown men and women getting naked in order to practice their religion would likely have blown a goodly number of puritanical minds.

But then, as Mrs. Ray Bone — a British housewife and pagan high priestess — noted in a nicely reasoned defense of witchcraft penned for that long-ago issue of LIFE: “It seems obvious to me that people can be just as immoral with their clothes on as with them off.”

Amen to that, Mrs. Bone. Amen to that.
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Liza Minnelli in 19: rare pictures of a legend in the world of the spectacle as a teenager

In March 1965, when photographer of life Bill Eppridge spent some time in a mission with enormously talented daughter of Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli was only turning 19 and launching what would prove to be a monumental own career. In fact, was about to debut on Broadway in the Flora of the red menace, a role that she would do at the time, the youngest woman in history to win a Tony Award for leading actress. (Also in the creative team of the show: composer John Kander and Fred Ebb, lyricist collaborated for the first time on Flora.) I would do in the future in classics as Cabaret Broadway team - later turned into a film starring Minnelli, of course, in his role as an Oscar as Sally Bowles - and Chicago winner.)

Liza Flora allowed Eppridge in his spirit trials and he even invited him to her birthday party 19 in New York, but in the end life published one photo of Eppridge. Here, on his birthday (born March 12, 1946, in Hollywood) and tribute to Minnelli and enduring career, LIFE.com presents a series of images - most of whom never ran in the life - a legend in the making.

Liza, of course, was not unknown to the world of the spectacle: Judy Garland was his mother, his father was Vincente Minnelli, had performed with her mother at the London Palladium and off-Broadway - had a little work done, but Flora the red menace would be his most high-profile role to date, the concert that pushed you completely out of the shadow of her famous parents and in another care facility.

Performance of premiere of Minnelli in Flora, life wrote: "would she acted and danced with a clumsy, captivating charm, cast seems to ' what-am - do-here?', he sang with a voice that quivered gently thanks to the boom of the seat belt, and occasionally they are uncontrolled - which only added to his sympathy..." She certainly seemed his mother makes several Rainbow. When he sang, also had echoes of Judy - the old catch and wavers and beats that you made a song it sounds as if what was happening by a nervous breakdown. But soon faded image of Judy and Liza came into focus.

In the decades since Eppridge made these intimate photos of the budding star, Liza has performed in famous concert halls of the world, accumulated numerous awards for his singing and acting happy to new generations of fans with appearances of thief in touchstones of pop culture and contemporary as Arrested Development. But his early years were really something special. As she herself Liza said life in 1965: "eighteen is great, but 19 is the best of all." It is when they are going to open in his first show on Broadway. "
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The war at home: rare portraits of black soldiers from World War II training

In August 1943, at the height of the second world war, LIFE magazine published an extensive article titled, "Division of black". Racial tensions that inexorably shaped American history and, to a large extent, defines American culture rarely have been more urgent or widespread they were in that moment, when U.S. troops were "fighting for freedom" overseas encoded time prejudice and inequality legislation remained in force in the United States. In fact, few months until the article appeared in life, a massive riot tore through Detroit, leaving several dead, hundreds injured and thousands - mostly African-American - low arrest.

"Black Division" of the life article, meanwhile, chronic and (somewhat mutely) celebrated the growing number of black troops in U.S., focusing primarily on a single unit combat units: the famous 93rd infantry division, its 16,000 soldiers and their thousand officers--half of whom were African-Americans - training at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.

Here, as another black history month it becomes an appearance of LIFE.com, at a crucial moment in American history, when many thousands of citizens, men and women, were otherwise and training to fight to defend a country that long had resisted the notion of "freedom and justice" for all. There is more heroism in that kind of effort; seen in a certain point of view, there is a kind of radical optimism that, in the end, defines the imperfect, bold American experiment as well as something you have.

-Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com
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Brutal beauty of Antarctica: Portrait of the bottom of the world

Photographer Michael Rougier accompanied an expedition to the bottom of the world, where investigators planned to retrace steps of Antarctic expedition of the World War I the time legendary (and ill-fated) in 1964, Sir Ernest Shackleton. When LIFE magazine published its photos in May 1965, the focus of the story had been reduced considerably - i.e., photos of Rougier appeared in an article on the United States and Russia to scientists studying the exploits navigation of Adelie penguins. Along the way, made countless photos of the lovely creatures and their cousins, emperor penguins, for example - in their natural habitat, brutal, beautiful. Not incidentally, it also nearly lost his life.

Another task for a photographer whose talent was matched only by its versatility.

Born in England in June 1925, Rougier fired to life for a quarter of a century, covering the war in Korea, the Boy Scouts, Japanese teens addicted to drugs, the Hungarian revolution of 1956, horse racing and myriad other topics. Photos made in Antarctica in 1964, meantime, remain among his most impressive: it is difficult to think of another photographer, in black and white, so perfectly could capture both the breathtaking beauty of the great continent of the South and the endearing quirkiness of its most famous residents.

At some point during the mission, however, things were terribly wrong by Rougier, as he lost balance and was sliding - for about a kilometre, out of control - down beside a glacier. As his daughter Karen recently said LIFE.com, which his father managed to save himself. Just.

"As a last sigh," Karen Rougier said, "cast collection by ice, and that's what prevented him from sliding on the edge of the glacier.

ROUGIER was seriously injured in the accident, but after recovering came to complete many missions more, by life and other publications. Michael Rougier died just two years ago, in January of 2102. A small peak close to where he almost lost his life, East LaPrade Valley of Antarctica, was named Rougier Hill in tribute to him.

Michael Rougier - the life photo collection/Getty Images

Michael Rougier, Antarctica, 1964.

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The allies at Anzio: rare photos of Italian campaign of the second world war

On January 22, 1944, six months after the Allied invasion of Sicily, the American and British troops swarmed ashore at Anzio, about 30 miles south of Rome. The idea of Winston Churchill and dubbed the attack, operation shingle trapped German troops along the Italian coast largely by surprise; But after the initial onslaught, the entrenched Germans. The next four months saw some of the fiercest, most prolonged fighting in the European theatre of the second world war, as the allies - including French along with the British and the Americans and Canadians - fought German troops for control of the region.

Life photographer George Silk, a native of New Zealand who covered the war in the desert of North Africa, through Rome, to the forests of Belgium and in Germany, spent months with allies after they landed at Anzio, a chronicle of what LIFE magazine at a time characterized as a "fruitless, slow and maddening battle". At the end of may the allies finally managed an assault breakout, supported by the artillery and air force; in early June, the Allied troops entered Rome virtually unopposed.

Here, on the 70th anniversary of the start of the battle of Anzio, LIFE.com presents a series of photographs of the silk - many of them never before - published illustrating graphically the tiring stagnation, always accompanied by deadly violence, which define the operation. Approximately 7,000 Allied soldiers died in those four months. Another 36,000 were injured or missing in combat. The Germans suffered 40,000 injured (5,000 dead) while more than 4,000 surrendered and were taken prisoner.

Note: According to typed legends of the Silk for your photos, slides #16 in the gallery above has a soldier, William P. Chirolas, showing "things you don't like men of company m: dextrose, taste terrible, almost invariably pulled away tablets; Barbasol - not like brushless shaving cream, they say it sticks in the razor; Fleetwood cigarettes - typical of cheap cigarettes that come in rations; processed American cheese - becomes very heavy when eaten every day... "

"Men complain," Silk designated, "cheap brands [cigarette] are distributed only to manufacturers who want to keep their trade names goes, and that good brands are taken up by the 'rear Echelon Boys' until they reach the front".

The role fine, used silk used to write their notes and who survives, yellowish and fragile, in the archives of life (see scan below), one can clearly discern that someone - likely a censor at the United States War Department - crossed out those particular observations with a red pencil. After all, the notion of "American boys" complaining bitterly of shabby tobacco, processed cheese and other humiliations in front doesn't fit the image of the office of public affairs at the Department of war wanted to present the people's House.

The more things change...

-Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com

LIFE magazine

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