LIFE was quite the fan of Austrian actress Senta Berger, at least judging by the coverage it offered when she began making movies in the United States. The magazine introduced her to the American public in a 1965 story headlined “She’s Paulette, Hedy and Ava, All in One.”

For those not on a first-name basis with those leading ladies of the early days of cinema, the article filled in the details:

“When people look at Senta Berger, they see more than just an astonishingly pretty young woman. They see images of other famous beauties—a hint of Paulette Godard, a flicker of Hedy Lamarr, quite a lot of Ava Gardner—or whomever they remember as being dark and altogether wonderful.”

LIFE magazine photographer Bill Ray caught up with Berger when she was down in Mexico filming Major Dundee, which was directed by the legendary Sam Peckinpah. The movie starred Charlton Heston as the title character, who leads a military expedition in Mexico during America’s Civil War. Berger played a Mexican woman who has a romance with the Heston character. Major Dundee flopped in its day but has gained respect over the years, thanks in part to the release of a restored version which was closer to Peckinpah’s vision. The film now has a 97 percent fresh score on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

Ray captured Berger on the set of Major Dundee and also posing in a swimsuit and in the nude. It’s not difficult to see why the editors were gushing about Berger.

Even though Major Dundee wasn’t appreciated in its time, Berger’s career rolled on. In 1966 alone she appeared in six movies, and she would stayed busy for years, acting in film and television in productions on both sides of the Atlantic. The most recent of her 171 IMDB credits came in 2023, when she starred in the German romantic comedy Weisst du Nocht.

Austrian actress Senta Berger during the time she was shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee” in Mexico.

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Senta Berger and Charlton Heston relax between scenes during the filming of ‘Major Dundee,’ directed by Sam Peckinpah, Mexico, April 1964.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger during the time she was shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee” in Mexico.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger during the time she was shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee” in Mexico.

Bill Ray/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Austrian actress Senta Berger during the time she was shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee” in Mexico.

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Director Sam Peckinpah the filming of “Major Dundee” in Mexico, 1964.

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Senta Berger and Charlton Heston during the filming of ‘Major Dundee,’ directed by Sam Peckinpah, Mexico, April 1964.

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Charlton Heston and Senta Berger kiss by the water’s edge in a scene from the film ‘Major Dundee,’ directed by Sam Peckinpah, Mexico, April 1964.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger during the shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee” in Mexico.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger during the time she was shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee.”

Bill Ray/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Austrian actress Senta Berger during the time she was shooting the 1965 film “Major Dundee” in Mexico.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1965.

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The post LIFE Gushed That This Actress Was “Paulette, Hedy and Ava, All in One” appeared first on LIFE.

For LIFE photographer Bill Ray the lack of a specific trend to highlight gave him license to be creative in his coverage, and he delivered a stunning set of photos with a singular feel. It was as if the fashion houses couldn’t decide on a look, so Ray created his own—one that is both sleek and striking and with hints of punk rock culture, just as its earliest seeds were starting to take hold.

This set includes the works of such big-name designers as Pierre Cardin, Marc Bohan and Yves Saint Laurent. If you like this collection, here’s a look at LIFE’s coverage of another picturesque fashion week in 1951. Enjoy!

Danielle Sauvajeon modeled an Yves St. Laurent dress with a Spanish influence, 1968.

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Danielle Sauvajeon wore an Yves St. Laurent dress at a Paris fashion show in 1968.

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Danielle Sauvajeon modeled Yves St. Laurent’s evening Bermudas with schoolboy-size silk scarf, Paris, 1968.

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Sin-May Zao modeled a late day dress (left) and a evening dress (right) from Pierre Cardin in this composite photo that appeared in LIFE magazine, 1968.

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Sin-May Zao modeled a Pierre Cardin dress in Paris, 1968.

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Sin-May Zao modeled spring fashions in Paris, 1968.

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Sin-May Zao modeled a Pierre Cardin dress. Paris, 1968.

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Sin-May Zao modeled spring fashions in Paris, 1968.

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Prunelia showed off a 1930’s style look while modeling this dress by Marc Bohan of Dior, 1968.

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Prunelia modeled a Marc Bohan daytime suit in Paris, 1968.

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Prunelia modeled a chiffon evening dress by Marc Bohan of Dior in Paris, 1968.

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NIneteen-year-old model Agneta Bylander, who worked under the name Mouche, wore a dress of organza by Michel Goma with matching head scarf, Paris, 1968.

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Spring fashions from Paris, 1968.

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The post Singular Spring Looks with Bill Ray appeared first on LIFE.

In February 2023 the six-time NBA MVP and six-time NBA champion graciously handed a ceremonial basketball to Lebron James to commemorate James breaking Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA all-time scoring record, which had stood since 1984. Abdul-Jabbar was also a central character in the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty that debuted in 2022 and has been renewed for a second season (and which Abdul-Jabbar, like many other former Lakers, has criticized for its inaccuracy). Abdul-Jabbar has also gained notice an author and also as an opinion writer, expressing his insights on race and other societal issues.

It was evident that he was not a typical athlete when LIFE profiled Abdul-Jabbar in its Feb. 17, 1967 issue. At that point he was 19 years old and a sophomore at UCLA, and he was still known by his birth name of Lew Alcindor (he would change it after converting to Islam in 1968). This was also before he began wearing his familiar goggles on the court, a protective measure he took after suffering a scratched cornea. It was also before he would lead UCLA to three NCAA championships and a record 71 consecutive wins.

The mood of the LIFE profile is captured by a quote from the young star, “The world wasn’t made for people over six foot two.” (The story gives his height as 7’1 3/8″, though the NBA lists it as 7’2″). The story presents him as a loner who values his privacy and is not at all comfortable with the spotlight. The photos by Bill Ray show a basketball star who, in the course of trying to live an ordinary life, can’t help but stand out because of his size. Abdul-Jabbar towers over his then-girlfriend as they walk around campus. His visit to a music store has the feel of a scene from Gulliver’s Travels. “I wish I could become a musician,” Abdul-Jabbar told LIFE. “That’s the one thing in the world that I would really enjoy.”

Perhaps the most eye-grabbing of Ray’s photos show Abdul-Jabbar shopping for clothing, and getting measured for a pair of dress pants (length: 51 inches). The tailor—who, it must be noted in fairness, seems to have been on the shorter side—needed to stand on a chair to get the Abdul-Jabbar’s measurements. The shop manager quipped to LIFE, “The only pants longer than these are for a redwood tree.”

It’s the kind of not-very-witty joke the cerebral basketball great must have heard a thousand times in his life, and it gives a sense of why, at such a young age, he was already cherishing his privacy.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, UCLA sophomore, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gets measured for a pair of dress pants, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gets fitted for a pair of pants, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gets fitted for a pair of pants, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a Los Angeles music shop, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a Los Angeles music shop, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a Los Angeles music shop, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with then-girlfriend Jeri Haywood, a fellow UCLA sophomore, in 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at UCLA in 1967 with then-girlfriend Jeri Haywood, a fellow sophomore.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in action as a UCLA sophomore, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in action as a UCLA sophomore, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (No. 33) in action as a UCLA sophomore, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a UCLA sophomore, 1967.

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in action as a UCLA sophomore, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Following His Own Tune appeared first on LIFE.

“If you’re not one, being a city kid can sound like an awful drag,” the magazine noted. “You haven’t got a backyard to fool around in, and since you live in an apartment house the neighbors are likely to complain about any noise you make. A gang may swoop down and steal the city boy’s bike, or grab his bus pass while he’s at the penny arcade, or beat him up while he’s just waiting at the corner for a friend.”

But Ray discovered that Brian had plenty to do.

The story shows how New York City was in many ways rougher than it is today: Brian had been mugged once, and though his parents let him take the subway alone, they told him to avoid certain streets. But the city was in certain ways also more carefree. Brian’s hobbies included shooting off homemade rockets in Central Park, and playing in a junk yard with his friends. (Not everything was innocent: Brian also threw things off the roof of his building.) Brian and his pals roamed the city, unencumbered by social media or cell phones, and in the evenings he played cards with his family.

There was certainly a level of danger for a kid in the city then, and a level of fun and possibility, too.

“Playing round in the city is fun,” Brian Sullivan told LIFE assistant editor Anne Holister, “and scary sometimes too. One of us hides in these rocks in Central Park and the others find him. Then we slide down the slope. Some kids fell off it 20 years ago and got killed.”

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brian Sullivan in the park with friends.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sullivan described the moment: “I launched the rocket and it went out of sight. Then it blew up. The body tube and the fins were floating down, and i climbed up on the fence to see where they would land, but I lost them. I was a little upset. The rocket cost me $1.50. One thing I don’t like about shooting off rockets in the park is that everybody comes round to watch, steps on your foot.”

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Joann, John, Robert, Dad and I play rummy every night after dinner,” Sullivan said. “It’s better than TV. Dad usually wins.”

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Brian Sullivan on the streets of New York City.

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Brian Sullivan learned to type at school.

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Brian Sullivan with his Siamese cat at home in the kitchen.

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“My brother John and I—he’s 25—take a lot of walks. This one was down 42nd Street. I can’t go there by myself, and don’t want to,” Sullivan said.

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“This guy was right out front of the Metropolitan Museum, spouting things from the Bible,” Sullivan said. “He’s been around for years. We kept saying `What are you doing, what’s all this, what are you, a nut or something?’ and he didn’t even care.”

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“I call this the knight room,” Sullivan said. “It’s at the Metropolitan. All the armor, the weapons, it’s really fascinating. My friend Trevor Johnston and I had a pretend sword fight with a couple of pieces of paper. Some day I’ll take up fencing.”

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Brian Sullivan at the Museum of Modern Art.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Dad took me to the firehouse where he used to be chief,” Sullivan said. “I talked with the men and they let me use the hose. I almost broke a car window with the spray. I think you’d go right up in the air if you held that hose alone.”

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Brian at the firehouse.

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Brian Sullivan in New York City.

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“We go on top of our building and throw pebbles down onto the grass,” Sullivan said. “We get chased a lot. Water bombs are better than pebbles because they make a nice big splash.”

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“I love hockey, there’s so much action,” Sullivan said. “Here we’re playing on skates in the playground. I was goalie, guarding a park bench goal. I’m second from right in this picture.”

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Brian Sullivan rode bikes with friends in Central Park.

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Brian Sullivan with his friends in Central Park.

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The post The World of a 13-year-old in New York City, 1972 appeared first on LIFE.

A year after the flames were put out and the smoke cleared from the southern California sky, LIFE revisited the scene of the devastation for a “special section” in its July 15, 1966, issue that the magazine called “Watts: Still Seething.” A good part of that special section featured a series of color photos made by Bill Ray on the streets of Watts: pictures of stylish, even dapper, young men making and hurling Molotov cocktails; of children at play in torched streets and rubble-strewn lots; of wary police and warier residents; of a community struggling to save itself from drugs, gangs, guns, idleness and an enduring, corrosive despair.

In that July 1966 issue, LIFE introduced Ray’s photographs, and Watts itself, in a tone that left no doubt that, whatever else might have happened in the months since the streets were on fire, the future of the district was hardly certain, and the rage that fueled the conflagration had hardly abated:

Before last August the rest of Los Angeles had never heard of Watts. Today, a rock thrown through a Los Angeles store window brings the fearful question: “Is this the start of the next one?” It brings the three armed camps in Los Angeles the police, white civilians, the Negroes face to face for a tense flickering moment. . . .
Whites still rush to gun stores each time a new incident hits the papers. A Beverly Hills sporting goods shop has been sold out of 9mm automatics for months, and the waiting list for pistols runs several pages.
Last week a Negro showed a reporter a .45 caliber submachine gun. “There were 99 more in this shipment,” he said, “and they’re spread around to 99 guys with cars.”
“We know it don’t do no good to burn Watts again,” a young Negro says. “Maybe next time we go up to Beverly Hills.”
Watts seethes with resentments. There is anger toward the paternalism of many job programs and the neglect of Watts needs. There is no public hospital within eight miles and last month Los Angeles voters rejected a proposed $12.3 million bond issue to construct one. When a 6-month-old baby died not long ago because of inadequate medical facilities, the mother’s grief was echoed by a crowd’s outrage. “If it was your baby,” said a Negro confronting a white, “you’d have an ambulance in five minutes.”
Unemployment and public assistance figures invite disbelief in prosperous California. In Watts 24% of the residents were on some form of relief a year ago and that percentage still stands. In Los Angeles the figure is 5%.
[It] takes longer to build a society than to burn one, and fear will be a companion along the way to improvements. “I had started to say it is a beautiful day,” Police Inspector John Powers said, looking out a window, “but beautiful days bring people out and that makes me wish we had rain and winter year-round.”

For his part, Bill Ray, a staff photographer for LIFE from the mid-1960s until the magazine’s demise in the early 1970s, recalled the Watts assignment clearly, and fondly:

“In the mid-nineteen-sixties [Ray told LIFE.com], I shot two major assignments for LIFE in southern California, one after the other, that involved working with young men who were volatile and dangerous. One group was the Hells Angels of San Bernardino the early, hard-core San Berdoo chapter of the gang and the other were the young men who had taken part in the Watts riots the year before.
I did not try to dress like them, act like them or pretend to be tough. I showed great interest in them, and treated them with respect. The main thing was to convince them that I had no connection with the police. The thing that surprised me the most was that, in both cases, as I spent more time with them and got to know them better, I got to like and respect many of them quite a lot. There was a humanity there that we all have inside us. Meeting and photographing different kinds of people has always been the most exciting part of my job. I still love it.
Two big differences in the assignments, though, was that I shot the Hells Angels in black and white which was perfect for their gritty world and “Watts: A Year Later” was in color. Also perfect, because Watts had a lot of color, on the walls, the graffiti, the way people dressed and, of course, my group of bombers who liked to practice making and throwing Molotov cocktails [see slides 17, 18 and 19 in gallery].
Those two assignments documented two utterly marginalized worlds that few people ever get to see up close. There was no job on earth as good as being a LIFE photographer.”

The words painted on the grocery store alerted rioters that the stored was African-American owned.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Young men hung out near Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Young men near Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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William Solomon (right, in his home in Watts) commanded a big Watts street gang, which he openly admitted took an active part in the riot. A champion hurdler in high school, he had no job and was on probation for assault. With two followers shown with him, he later helped at a neighborhood association and used his influence to keep order there and, by his interest, give its program a certain prestige in the streets.”

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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The Fire Last Time: Life in Watts, 1966

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Booker Griffin (yellow shirt) moved in on an argument between students and police who found the youths carrying heavy boards and suspected a gang fight. He calmed both sides.

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Making Molotov cocktails, Watts, 1966.

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Molotov cocktails in Watts, 1966.

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Molotov cocktails in Watts, 1966.

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Molotov cocktails in Watts, 1966.

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LaRoi Drew Ali refused to join any group, but viewed Christianity as a device to keep African-Americans down. “Even if somebody did rise up on Easter,” he said, “it would just be another white man to kick us.”

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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The Fire Last Time: Life in Watts, 1966

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

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The post The Fire Last Time: LIFE in Watts, 1966 appeared first on LIFE.

Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of photographs made by Bill Ray in 1963 a time in the 25-year-old Wood’s career when she had made the leap from actress to genuine movie star and, more importantly, to formidable Hollywood player. Many of the photos in this gallery were not originally published in LIFE, but appear in Ray’s book, My Life in Photography. 

For Ray, the most striking memory of the several weeks that he spent with Wood and her showbiz cohorts is, unsurprisingly, Wood herself or, more specifically, her singular beauty.

“She was divine,” Ray told LIFE.com. “Really. She was divine to look at, and to photograph. She had that wonderful face, a great body, those amazing eyes just a beautiful young woman, and a lot of fun to be around.”

For the Dec. 20, 1963, issue of LIFE that focused wholly on the movies, Ray scored the choice, high-profile feature on Wood, which was the only piece in the issue that was devoted to a single actor or actress. “This was big stuff,” he says today of the assignment. “You know, back then photographers were never part of the meetings where these sort of assignment decisions were made, so to get the call for something of this magnitude I was thrilled.”

Thrilled, but hardly cowed or overawed. After all, by the time the Natalie Wood shoot came his way, Ray was a seasoned professional, having covered JFK, Elvis Presley, John Wayne and other huge names and famous faces. What comes through in many of his photographs is the sense that here was a photographer who genuinely enjoyed his work, while his subject was a strong young woman who had been in the public eye for so long that having her every move documented was hardly anything new.

As LIFE reminded its readers in that special year-end double issue back in 1963, Natalie Wood was about as self-aware and self-confident an actress as one was likely to meet:

Natalie Wood was in a crowd watching a movie being filmed 21 years ago when the director asked her do a bit: drop an ice cream cone and cry. Then and there, 4-year-old Natalie showed she was born to be a star: she wept so convincingly that the movies hired her and ever since they have been thankful for the foresight. . . . [Movies] still cannot get along without the glamor that stars bring. And Natalie, the biggest young star around, now holds Hollywood in her hand. Her latest performance in her 35th film, ‘Love With a Proper Stranger,’ may win her an Oscar. [She did earn an Academy Award nomination for the role, but Patricia Neal took home the Oscar for her work in ‘Hud.’] Natalie has talent which she uses brilliantly, temperament which she can control, and a dark fresh loveliness that glows from the screen. All this earns her a million dollars a year, along with something that means even more to her the power and the glory that stardom brings.

“Natalie Wood,” observed a prominent Hollywood director, … “has a stranglehold on every young leading-lady part in town. If a role calls for a woman between 15 and 30, you automatically think of her.”

This is exactly what Natalie has worked 21 years to get. She has battled producers and top studio heads with unyielding ferocity to win the roles she wants. Today, before she will do a picture, she demands and gets total approval of script, director, leading man, all actors, everybody clear down to make-up and wardrobe people.

One last detail that Bill Ray recalls about his time with Natalie Wood, however, casts something of a pall across his otherwise sunny memories. At some point during those several weeks, he joined Wood and a number of other people on a boat ride to Catalina Island (see slide 16 in the gallery) the same island off the California coast near which Wood would drown in the fall of 1981. When Ray heard about her death, he was stunned: not only because he had always liked her and remembered the time he spent with her with such fondness, but because he had been struck during that boat ride in 1963 by how uncharacteristically out of sorts she seemed.

“It was obvious to me,” Ray told LIFE.com, “that Natalie did not like being out on the water at all. When I heard that she’d drowned, in basically the same place where we’d been all those years before, I wasn’t just sad although that was part of it. I was also very, very surprised.”

Five decades later, the mystery of Natalie Wood’s death endures. Bill Ray’s pictures, meanwhile, shed a clear, poignant light on a time when the star’s already impressive career felt boundless, and her life charmed. The future, it seemed then, was hers for the taking.

—story by Ben Cosgrove 

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Wood was playing a game. Friends named something, she acted it out. Here is ‘slightly sensuous.'”

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

The woman who guided Natalie to stardom was her mother, the Russian-born Mrs. Maria Gurdin (center). Stern and shrewd, she scrutinized scripts, haggled over fees, snd dressed her child in prim clothes when competitors wore sexy ones.

© Bill Ray

Wood played billiards with actor Tony Curtis, 1963.

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Wood got a piggyback ride from producer Arthur Loew, Jr., who stopped when Paul Newman invited them to go go-cart racing, 1963.

© Bill Ray

Gowned in satin, bathed by spots, fussed over by attendants, Wood glowed with the glamor pf a Hollywood star.

© Bill Ray

Wood, a shrewd businesswoman, enjoyed presiding over her high-powered cabinet.

© Bill Ray

Wood’s big brown-black eyes grew larger with delight seeing costumes sketched by Edith Head for `Sex and the Single Girl’.

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

Natalie Wood, 1963

© Bill Ray

The post Natalie Wood: Portraits of a Legend appeared first on LIFE.