But with those meaningful caveats in mind, we offer up these photos of couples who seem be enjoying each other’s company, at least for the time being. The pictures range from those whose show an idyllic view of young romance, such as the one of a handsome couple on vacation at Lake George, to others of older couples that appear to demonstrate a well-earned comfort, such as the man and woman sitting on rocking chairs on their front porch, each caught up in their diversions while listening to a record player.

This photo set also includes some celebrity couples, for whom more of the romantic backstory is well-known. They range from the famously tempestuous pairing of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to the model of a long-lasting (77 years) public marriage, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter.

The most forbidding couple in this photo set would be the Bergerons of the Quebec town of Saint-Fidele, who were photographed by John Phillips and featured in LIFE as part of a 1942 story on changes coming to French Canada. The story said that the Bergerons had “a true old-fashioned culture,” and described them as “thrifty but not stingy, carefree but conscientious” and, most importantly—and you can kind of tell this just by looking at them—”dead set against the manifestations of the 20th century.”

It’s possible the Bergerons gave Phillips a stern pose to let the readers of LIFE, know that they were not happy with the world. But they were united in their disdain, which can be one of the true joys of couplehood.

A young couple enjoyed a Lake George vacation in a Nina Leen photo entitled “Private Island,” 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Janet Leigh with actor husband Tony Curtis, who is holding daughters Kelly Lee (left) and Jamie Lee on his lap as they sit on the floor at home.

Allan Grant/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach, Florida, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

Paul Schutzer / (c) The LIFE Picture Collection

A couple on vacation in Cape Cod, 1946

Cornell Capa/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein and his wife on the opening night of the New York Philharmonic, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bicycle riders in Mansfield, Ohio, 1942

John Phillips/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The RKO studio lot was where Lucille Ball met Desi Arnaz, when they co-starred in the 1940 musical Too Many Girls. Here, in a rare color photo from his 1958 spread on the launch of Desilu Studios, LIFE’s Leonard McCombe catches the couple as they ponder their risky new venture.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple listened to the gramophone, 1940.

Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen and his wife, Neile Adams, embrace in the kitchen of their Hollywood home, 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

French Canadian couple Mr. and Mme. Henri Bergeron, 1942.

John Phillips/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Josephine Baker receiving a congratulatory kiss on the nose from her husband, orchestra leader Jo Bouillon, after Baker’s show at the Strand theater during her US tour, 1951.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Winter in Maine, 1942.

Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lauren Bacall fed wedding cake to her groom, Humphrey Bogart, after their marriage ceremony in Ohio, 1945.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Couple kissing in front of the Delta Tau Delta mummy at the University of the South, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A floating party on the Apple River in Somerset, Wisconsin in 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Senator John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline at their wedding reception, Newport, Rhode Island, 1953.

Lisa Larsen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American soldiers in England, 1944.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmy Carter kissed his wife Rosalynn, 1971.

Stan Wayman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Drive-in movie, Chicago, September 1951.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An elderly Polish couple walked hand in hand in the city of Poznan, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock

Actress Sophia Loren and husband, producer Carlo Ponti, after moving into their 50-room villa outside Rome, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple danced at Rosie’s Cafe, 1937.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hippie couple Randy Brook and Laurie Thruelsen hitched a ride in the back of a truck, 1971.

Vernon Merritt III/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple walked through Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, 1963.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bette Davis in front of a plane with her third husband, William Grant Sherry, who was studying to become a pilot under the G.I. Bill.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bob Smith and Mary Beth Sanger kiss after their underwater wedding in San Marcos, Texas, 1954.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A street scene in Yugoslavia, 1948.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post A Tribute to Couplehood appeared first on LIFE.

But there was, it turns out, a quite deliberate method at the heart of Halsman’s portraiture: in short, shoot men and women differently. The outline of the idea is no doubt familiar to portraitists shooting today although it’s also a very good bet that no one shooting today would phrase his or her modus operandi quite so … plainly.

LIFE once quoted Halsman as saying that, when photographing a woman, “I try to photograph her beauty; with a man I try to show his character. Once I photographed a man with a big nose, and emphasized his nose, and he was very pleased with the picture. That could not happen with a woman. The most intelligent woman will reject a portrait if it doesn’t flatter her. Only once in my whole career did it happen that a blonde asked me, ‘Please make me look intelligent.’ Unfortunately it was impossible.”

Halsman (b. May 2, 1906; d. June 25, 1979) began his long, enormously productive relationship with LIFE in 1942, and eventually shot more than 50 covers for the magazine. Of all the projects, themes, creative ideas and wonderfully revealing pictures Halsman devised and created throughout his long career, he is perhaps best know today for his portraits of rich, famous and often very powerful people jumping. Literally, jumping. And in true, mischievous Halsman style, he managed to make these portraits both mesmerizing and, somehow, significant — pictures that are saved from mere silliness by the evident technical prowess at play in each one.

The exuberant November 9, 1959, cover of LIFE  that featured a laughing, barefoot Marilyn Monroe in midair came out at about the same time as a remarkable tome, Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, which was filled with these singular, strange and, at times, downright thrilling portraits.

Other notables seen jumping in the book and in the issue of LIFE with Marilyn on the cover? Princess Grace of Monaco, Sophia Loren, Judge Learned Hand, Brigitte Bardot, Vice President Richard Nixon, the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theologian Paul Tillich and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name a few.

Why did they do it? Quite simply, because Halsman asked them to. (Only a very few subjects , including Herbert Hoover and the pianist Van Cliburn, ever refused.)

“In a burst of energy the subject overcomes gravity,” Halsman wryly noted of his jumping pictures. “He cannot also control all his muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible, and one needs only to snap it with a camera. I call this jumpology. The time may someday come when psychiatrists will diagnose hidden characteristics not with the slow and painstaking Rorschach test but with the rapid and hurtling Halsman.”

The rapid and hurtling Halsman. A marvelous phrase that, as aptly as any other, captures the quicksilver imagination and the finely harnessed talent that still, all these years later, animate the work of one of the all-time greats.

LIFE Magazine, November 9, 1959. Marilyn Monroe, photographed by Philippe Halsman.

October 16, 1944 cover of LIFE magazine featuring Lauren Bacall.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

May 22, 1950, cover of Life magazine featuring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

August 13, 1951, cover of Life magazine featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

September 3, 1951, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Gina Lollobrigida.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

December 17, 1951, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

April 7, 1952, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Marilyn Monroe.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

November 2, 1953, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Winston Churchill.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

April 26, 1954, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Grace Kelly.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

The post Might as Well Jump: LIFE Cover Portraits by Philippe Halsman appeared first on LIFE.