There’s all kinds of laughter here, in situations expected and unexpected. In one photo Bob Hope cracks up a few of his fellow entertainers, and himself, as he tries out material before hosting the Academy Awards. But you also see general Douglas MacArthur cackling with glee the day after the successful invasion of Inchon. Whatever prompted MacArthur’s laughter in that moment, the relief following the previous day’s assault had to have been a factor.

Humphrey Bogart laughs more gleefully in a photo from the set of The African Queen than he was known to do when playing any of his memorably hard-bitten characters. Frank Sinatra, while hanging out with friends in a Miami hotel room, laughs so hard at a joke told by his pal and opening act Joe E. Lewis that the singer was literally rolling on floor laughing.

One of the more frequent celebrity laughers in the LIFE archives is Sophia Loren, represented here with three photos. No small part of the icon’s appeal is that, among her other virtues, she seemed to enjoy where life had taken her.

Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Bob Hope and David Niven laughed at a Cold War-era Russian joke from Hope during a break from rehearsals for Academy Awards show at the RKO Pantages theater, 1958.

Leonard McCombe/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Singer Billy Eckstine (right) having some backstage laughs with his ex-boss, orchestra leader Earl Hines (center) and trumpeter Louis Armstrong backstage, 1949.

Martha Holmes/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock

Warren Beatty with Natalie Wood at the 1962 Academy Awards ceremony at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Broadway producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Marilyn Monroe in her Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Humphrey Bogart laughed while on location for the filming of The African Queen along the Ruki River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1951.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

(left to right) George Jessel, Dean Martin, and Jack Benny at a Friars Club dinner for Dean Martin, 1958.

Leonard McCombe/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elton John (right) sharing a laugh with his mother Shelia (left) and stepfather Fred Fairebrother (center) in their apartment, 1971.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and running mate Hubert Humphrey enjoying a laugh at Johnson’s ranch after their landslide victory in the 1964 presidential election.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

General Douglas MacArthur (center), slapped Vice Admiral Struble (left) on the knee while laughing gleefully the day after the invasion of Inchon, 1950.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy played with their children, April 30, 1957.

Paul Schutzer/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren with her husband Carlo Ponti on a boating trip off of Naples, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren laughing while exchanging jokes during lunch break on a movie set, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren laughed about her guitar-playing ability with her secretary Ines Bruscia beside her, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dick Clark on his TV show the “American Bandstand” in 1958.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American generals George S. Patton (left) and Omar Bradley (center) and British general Bernard Law Montgomery (right) laughed while discussing strategy and the progress of the campaign in France, July 7, 1944.

Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. laughed over dinner with his wife, Swedish actress May Britt.

Leonard McCombe/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rolling Stone band members Mick Jagger (left) and Keith Richards shared a laugh.

DMI

Nancy Reagan and her husband, then California Governor Ronald Reagan, walked behind Dean Martin and Phyllis Diller, California, 1970.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A rare laugh from somber Kim Novak greeted a joke by Otto Preminger, who visited Kim while she was in New York. She had great fondness and respect for Preminger, who directed her in The Man With the Golden Arm and put her genuinely at ease.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Alan Shepard laughs with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom (right) and Deke Slayton upon his arrival at Grand Bahama Island, shortly after his successful flight and splashdown, May 1961.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Harry Belafonte laughed during Bop City nightclub’s opening night, 1949.

Martha Holmes/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In a Miami hotel room Frank Sinatra fell off his chair howling at a joke told by his opening act and longtime friend, comedian Joe E. Lewis, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Laughing With the Stars appeared first on LIFE.

In 1986 Barbie was the subject of work by another artist, Andy Warhol. It might seem that the doll was a natural subject for an artist who had famously painted Marilyn Monroe and also had interest in consumer culture and mass production. But Warhol actually came to Barbie in a strange and roundabout way.

As recounted in this BBC story, Warhol was at first interested in painting Billy Boy, a figure in the world of art and fashion. Billy Boy, however, did not want to be painted. But Billy Boy was a big Barbie fan. He had a collection of more than 11,000 Barbie dolls (with 3,000-plus Ken dolls as well) and authored a book titled Barbie: Her LIfe and Times.

After turning down Warhol’s repeated requests, he reportedly told the artist, as a blow-off, that he should paint a Barbie doll instead:

“Out of annoyance I said to him, ‘Well if you really want to do my portrait, do a portrait of Barbie because Barbie, c’est moi.

“He took it literally. He took a Barbie that I had given him and turned it into a portrait and called it ‘Portrait of Billy Boy’.”

The painting would end up being Warhol’s last, as he died on Feb. 22, 1987. There actually ended up being two versions of his Barbie portrait: The original version sold at auction for $1.1 million in 2014. A second version was created for and purchased by Mattel, the company that gave us Barbie. The bonds between the worlds deepened when Mattel introduced a limited edition doll of Barbie done up as Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol displayed his portrait of Barbie, 1986.

DMI

The post The Surprising Reason Why Andy Warhol Painted Barbie appeared first on LIFE.

But images in the LIFE photo collection tell another story. Over the years the magazine’s photographers created many fascinating and resonant images of people lost in words. And those photos, viewed collectively, illustrate both the power and the great diversity of the reading experience.

For example, images here include:

—A soldier in a fox hole, savoring a letter from home.

—Sophia Loren perusing a newspaper while waiting on a movie set.

—The teenage son of the artist Christo passing the time with a book while his father erected one of his sculptures.

—Hockey great Jean Beliveau relaxing in bed with a novel.

—College girls at the University of Kansas reading their mail while sitting on their sorority house steps.

—Thomas Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, reading in his armchair.

—Jackie Kennedy, First Lady and future book editor—reading to daughter Caroline in her bed.

And on and on. One particularly poignant photo shows baseball star Roy Campanella a few months removed from the car accident that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. LIFE’s story on Campanella’s rehabilitation in the July 21, 1958 issue opened with a photo of the former Dodgers catcher hovering horizontally, face down, in a specially designed bed and studying a newspaper sports section spread out beneath him.

The benefits of reading are numerous: Experts believe that it strengthens your brain, reduces stress, improves empathy, helps you sleep better and staves off cognitive decline. That photo of Campanella makes evident another benefit, and underlines a common theme through so many of these images. Whether you are reading a letter, the newspaper or a great novel, you can be taken out of where you are and connect with another person, or even another world, all through the power of the written word.

Baseball star Roy Campanella, who suffered a broken neck in a car accident, reading a newspaper, 1958.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe at home, 1953.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jackie Kennedy read to her daughter, Caroline, in Hyannis Port, Mass., in 1960.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jennie Magill reading a story to her children; the image is from a 1956 LIFE story on working mothers.

Grey Villet The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Wilson Riles, California State Superintendent of Public Education, read a storybook to his grandson, 1971.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A tent-dwelling family at an Oregon read bedtime stories, 1969.

Photo by John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi reading next to a spinning wheel at home. (Photo by Margaret Bourke-White/The LIFE Picture Collection © DotDash Meredith)

Hockey great Jean Beliveau, the center for the Montreal Canadiens, 1953.

Yale Joel/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Babysitter Iva Peppe was engrossed in reading a magazine while Chad Gibson set up for a sneak attack, Des Moines, Iowa, 1957.

Leonard McCombe/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Reading the comics, Detroit, 1943.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Boys shopped for comic books, Des Moines, Iowa, 1945.

Nina Leen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Students in the library reading room at Howard University, 1946.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A student sits in a crowded library on the campus of Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beside his chuck wagon, cowboy Clarence Long read a western magazine, 1949. When he was through with the magazine he passed it to another cowboy. Such magazines were read and reread until the pages fell apart.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Lovell, wife of Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, read a newspaper at home, April 1970.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Michael Caine read an article about himself, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts, at his California home, 1967.

Bill Ray/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actor George C. Scott on set of the 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder. In the movie he played prosecutor Claude Dancer.

Gjon Mili/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A boy read newspaper comics while his leash-tethered mutt waited, New York City, 1944.

Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Sportscaster Bill Stern read a newspaper as his Chesapeake Bay retriever sniffed a sidewalk grate, New York City, 1944.

Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Aspiring actress Jo Ann Kemmerling read a book in the small tub that was set up in the kitchen of her small New York City apartment, 1953.

Nina Leen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The son of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Cyril Christo, read a book during the construction work on “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in Germany, 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

The children of architect Nathaniel Curtis enjoyed the home he designed: Cathy (left) read on the patio while Francis (center) and David (right) played a game in the living room, New Orleans, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

William Gerberding, a U.C.L.A. assistant professor of political science, read while waiting for the bus, 1964.

Bill Ray/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Soldier smiling while reading mail in a fox hole, 1945.

Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A solider read a letter at the U.S. naval base on Midway Atoll, 1942.

Frank Scherschel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A sailor relaxed aboard a US Navy cruiser at sea read a copy of Life magazine, 1942.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

German POWs read on their cots inside one of the prisoner of war barracks at Camp Blanding in Tallahassee, Florida, June 1943

Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Former Japanese war minister Hideki Tojo read in the yard of the Omira prison where he was being held for war crimes, Nov. 1945.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men talking and reading the newspaper in the local market, Maine, United States, 1942

Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Greer Garson read while relaxing in a hammock near her pool at her Hollywood home, 1943.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York City, 1943.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People reading newspapers with the headlines of the D-Day invasion at the Pershing Square Park, Los Angeles, June 6, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collecrtion/Shutterstock

Woman relaxing on sofa, Phoenix, Az., September 1952.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A teenage babysitter read to the boys she was watching, St. Louis, 1944.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A photo from an essay illustrating Richard Wright’s memoir Black Boy, 1945; to escape the wrath of his grandmother, Wright used to sit behind the barn to read.

Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A father read his daughter the Sunday comics, United States, August 1946.

Nina Leen?Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Department store magnate Bernard F. Gimbel reading his competitor’s advertising, under picture of his wife painted by De Guttman, 1949.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A barber in a small New England village, 1950.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young polio patients read letters from home while gathered around mailroom desk during mail call at FDR’s Georgia Warm Springs Foundation where they were receiving intensive treatment while being boarded there, November 1938..

Margaret Bourke-White/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women reading books and newspapers, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students read and relaxed at the ATO house at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At the University of Kansas, Kappa Alpha Theta sorority members read letters and newspapers,1939.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jill Corey’s father, a coal miner in Avonmore, Pa., eagerly reading the first letter home from daughter, who had moved to New York to become a professional singer, 1953.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A high school girl at the Newburyport Free Library in Massachusetts, 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fire Chief Bob Harmon of Hamilton, Ohio reading the newspaper at home while listening to the radio, from the LIFE essay “An American Block” about home life during wartime, 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children reading the comics, Hamilton, Ohio, October 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Sophia Loren read a newspaper by candlelight while in costume for her role in movie Madame Sans-Gene, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

On a Sunday afternoon in Emporia, Kansas, Sante Fe Railroad timekeeper John Tholen, 52, read newspaper with his wife and two sons, who are Kansas National Guardsmen, on their front porch, 1942.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hair salon, New York City, 1952.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dutch billiards prodigy Renske Quax (left) read comic books with his sister, Holland, 1953.

Nat Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frenchmen reading newspaper reports of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, 1963.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Out on Hampstead Heath in London, British author Colin Wilson sat underneath a tree wrapped in a sleeping bag, reading a book, 1956.

Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At Cumberland Mountain Farms in Scottsboro, Alabama, barefoot young boys sat outside on chairs made from tree sections and read during school, 1936. Cumberland Mountain Farms, like nearby Skyline Farms, was a government-sponsored resettlement project designed to help out-of-work farmers and their families.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Novelist Thomas Mann at home, circa 1939.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Comedian and actress Phyllis Diller read a copy of Vogue magazine, St. Louis, April 1963.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Visitors to TIME’s Reading Room at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1933.

Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Navy crewmen on a submarine, 1939.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A boy read a comic strip while getting a haircut in Garden City, New York in 1942

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert Kennedy, then the U.S. attorney general, read a book while walking with his three dogs, 1964.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Warship, 1943.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Anchorage, Alaska, 1958.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Author Hoffman Reynolds Hays read among the shelves, New York City, New York, 1944

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York Public Library, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Joy of Reading, Anywhere and Everywhere appeared first on LIFE.

ZiMAD, a mobile game developer, has announced a partnership with LIFE, the world-renowned magazine. In its first collaboration with a digital puzzle and gaming company, the LIFE Picture Collection will be sharing highlights from its vast and important photographic archive. And Magic Jigsaw Puzzles players will be able to relive the most spectacular moments in history, piece by piece.

LIFE’s debut features one of the most famous stars of the 20th century: Marilyn Monroe. You will find colorful and creative images by LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ed Clark, JR Eyerman, Michael Rougier and more featuring the world’s most famous blonde in the new puzzle set.

“We are happy that now our players have the unique opportunity to ‘witness’ the greatest events and plunge into the heart of history by playing their favorite puzzle game,” said ZiMAD CEO Dmitry Bobrov. “Magic Jigsaw Puzzles is the world’s largest digital collection of puzzles, and LIFE is one of the greatest private photographic archives in the United States. Through digitalization, such a partnership contributes to sharing of the cultural heritage of an entire generation.”

The new LIFE-themed puzzle sets will be free for all players. ZiMAD is also planning to update the collection with more images from the LIFE archive.

Collect your first puzzle now:
Google Play Store
App Store

The post LIFE Debuts Digital Jigsaw Puzzles With ZiMAD appeared first on LIFE.

Bloomgarden was a theatrical producer and a force behind of such enduring classics as Death of a Salesman and The Music Man, along with many other prominent titles, including The Diary of Anne Frank, Look Homeward, Angel, and Equus.

His success explains why LIFE, for a story its December 22, 1958 issue titled “People at the Top of the Entertainment World,” shone its spotlight on Bloomgarden. Wrote LIFE, “Little known to the public, Bloomgarden is unsurpassed at the complex job of choosing plays, directors, actors, and meshing them all together smoothly,”

Bloomgarden’s influence also explains the many stars that appear alongside him in the pictures taken by LIFE photographer Robert W. Kelley. Luminaries shown with Bloomgarden include actor Anthony Perkins, who starred in Look Homeward Angel before moving on to his career-defining role in Psycho. The man who Bloomgarden chose to direct Perkins in that play was George Roy Hill, seen here lunching with Bloomgarden, would go on to direct such movies as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

But the most glamorous figures in Bloomgarden’s orbit were undoubtedly Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. Bloomgarden had not only produced Miller’s classic Death of a Salesman but also another play of his, A View from the Bridge, in 1955.

And Bloomgarden was connected to Monroe not only through Miller but also through her close friend Susan Strasberg, who was photographed separately by Kelley and had starred in Bloomgarden’s production of The DIary of Anne Frank. In addition to being an actress, Strasberg was the daughter of Lee Strasberg, the legendary acting coach who taught Monroe. In 1992 Susan Strasberg wrote the memoir Marilyn & Me: Sisters, Rivals and Friends.

Kelley’s photos Monroe and Miller hosting Bloomgarden in their Manhattan apartment, sitting in the living room and gathering around the piano for a light-hearted shoot. When these photos were taken, Miller and Monroe were in the middle of what would be a five-year marriage, and they look very much the happy couple. It’s telling of Bloomgarden’s position in his world that he looked very much at home with the most glamorous couple in America—even if the former accountant stayed in his coat and tie.

Broadway producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Arthur Miller (left) and Marilyn Monroe in their Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Broadway producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Marilyn Monroe in her Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe poured a drink in her Manhattan apartment with theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden and her husband Arthur Miller in the background, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In her Manhattan apartment Marilyn Monroe poured a drink with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller (mostly obscured, at extreme left) and theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgardensit in the background, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden (right) visiting with playwright Arthur Miller his wife, actress Marilyn Monroe, in their Manhattan apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe hugging her husband, Arthur Miller in their apartment in New York, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kermit Bloomgarden visited Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller at their apartment in New York, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden visited Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller at their apartment in New York, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden with Marilyn Monroe at her New York apartment, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Theatrical producer Kermit Bloomgarden posed in his New York office, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kermit Bloomgarden visited with Anthony Perkins, who starred in Bloomgarden’s stage production of Look Homeward, Angel.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (right) hugged actress Susan Strasberg in 1958; she played the title role in his production of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Producter Kermit Bloomgarden and Susan Strasberg, who had starred in his production of The Diary of Anne Frank, walked in New York City, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (center) had lunch in 1958 with director George Roy Hill (left) and playwright Ketti Frings (right), who both worked on Bloomgarden’s production of Look Homeward, Angel. The play would earn Frings the Pulitzer Prize.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (R) having dinner with actor Robert Preston (left, and star of Bloomgarden’s The Music Man) and his wife, actor Peter Ustinov (third from left) and actress Celeste Holm (center) at George M. Cohan Corner, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (center) auditioned dancers, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York producer Kermit Bloomgarden (center) auditioned dancers, 1958.

Robert W. Kelley/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Marilyn, Arthur Miller and More: A Star Producer’s Spectacular Orbit appeared first on LIFE.

Miller met Monroe in 1951, while he was married to his first wife and she was in between her first and second marriages. After a brief affair, they kept up a correspondence throughout Monroe’s brief marriage to Joe DiMaggio and Miller’s separation from his wife. On June 29, 1956, the pair married at the Westchester County Court House in a civil ceremony with exactly two witnesses and zero photojournalists.

But shortly after the wedding—which was followed two days later by an intimate Jewish ceremony—LIFE’s Paul Schutzer photographed the couple as they drove with a friend to Connecticut, where Miller lived. Schutzer’s photographs capture a carefree affection that would soon give way to darker times, the happy beginning to a five-year marriage that would end just 19 months before Monroe’s death.

The union would come to be plagued by an assortment of strains, which perhaps began when Monroe discovered a notebook in which Miller had scribbled his misgivings about having married her. Tormented by repeated miscarriages and the many inner demons to which she would ultimately succumb, Monroe turned to barbiturates. And Miller turned to another woman, photographer Inge Morath, whom he met on the set of The Misfits—a film he had written to offer Monroe her first dramatic role and whom he would marry in 1962, shortly after divorcing Monroe.

Miller, who remained mum on the subject of Monroe for many years, would later say that their differences, at least in the beginning, drew them closer. “The very inappropriateness of our being together was to me the sign that it was appropriate,” he said in a 1987 interview, “that we were two parts, however remote, of this society, of this life.”

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller 1956

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

The post See Photos From the Day Arthur Miller Married Marilyn Monroe appeared first on LIFE.