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.

LIFE’s coverage of the 1960 strike discussed the issues at hand but was chiefly taken by the spectacle of Hollywood coming to a halt. Here’s how LIFE opened it’s coverage in its issue of March 21, 1960:

Nightmares filled the nation’s dream factories. In movie studios everywhere there was a frenzied scurrying to finish films before the big actor’s strike began. Casts worked almost around the clock on seven-day weeks, catching naps in dressing rooms and on sets. Directors had two scenes shot at once to speed things up. … Then the strike that no one believed would really happen—movies after all are devoted to happy endings—did happen. The cameras stopped. And a kind of panic seized Hollywood.

The photos, mostly by Ralph Crane, depict the drama both in negotiations and on the set, chronicling movies in their last moments of production. A few capture the poetry of Hollywood gone quiet, including a desolate but beautiful photo of a worker watering a patch of indoor lawn on an otherwise empty Paramount Studios set, tending the plot while waiting for the stars to return.

Viewed all these years later, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the strike is that it was led by Ronald Reagan. He was president of the Screen Actor’s Guild back then, and he would of course go on to serve as President of the United States. While in the Oval Office this former strike leader was no friend to labor. In 1981, his first year as president, the nation’s air traffic controllers went on strike, and he responded by having the 11,000 striking workers fired in what is seen as a pivotal moment in the decline of unions.

In 1960 the actor’s portion of the strike lasted about a month before all sides made a deal was made and everyone was back to making movies.

Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan answered questions about the progress of strike negotiations, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ronald Reagan, to the left in a bowtie, leads a meeting of the Screen Actor’s Guild, 1960. James Garner is the third to Reagan’s left, and Dana Andrews also sits nearby.

J.R. Eyerman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, answered questions during their strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actor’s Guild, during the union’s strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actor James Cagney in midst of strike negotiations, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the Screen Actor’s Guild strike of 1960, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A film crew frantically trying to finish its work on “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” before the start of an actor’s strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A crew frantically trying to finish work on the film “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” before the start of an actor’s strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert Preston and Dorothy McGuire in a scene from movie Dark at the Top of the Stairs, which rushed to finish production before the 1960 actor’s strike.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fred Astaire kissing Lilli Palmer in a scene from the film The Pleasure of his Company, 1960; the movie was one of those whose filming was interrupted by the actor’s strike.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charles Ruggles and Debbie Reynolds clowning on set after actor’s strike halted shooting of The ‘Pleasure of His Company, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fred Astaire in his dressing room, talking to co-star Debbie Reynolds, after the studio where they were filming The Pleasure of His Company, was shut down by the strike called by the Screen Actors Guild in 1960. Astaire was against the strike, saying “It is violently wrong to interrupt production in the middle.”

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The clapboard was raised in front of actress Suzi Carnell during the shooting of Studs Lonigan in L.A.’s Griffith Park before the actor’s strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Slapstick comic and bit player Snub Pollard (foreground) took a lunch break during the filming of Studs Lonigan with the actor’s strike looming, 1960.

.Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Dennis Morgan, Jimmy Brown and Jack Carson on a golf outing during the actor’s strike of 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The deserted back lot at Fox studios during the actors’ strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dick Webb watered an indoor lawn on a set at Paramount Studios during shutdown caused by SAG strike, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Scenes From the 1960 Actor’s Strike That Was Led by Ronald Reagan appeared first on LIFE.

Here, LIFE.com pulls from its archives a series of expressions—from people and, in a few cases, animals—that are both wordless and deeply rich. It’s a reminder that while communications by computer or phone call are certainly convenient, there is no quicker way to understand what a person is feeling than by looking them in the eye.

Bob Hope, 1941

Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Donald the dog-loving duck plays with his (seemingly embarrassed) friend, Trigger, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, 1949.

Loomis Dean Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mrs. Leland S. McCleery watches her Michigan Wolverines lose to the Wisconsin Badgers, 1959.

Paul Schutzer Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

An intensely concerned Dr. Ernest Ceriani holds a bandage on the eye of a young girl whose head he has just stitched up after she was kicked by a horse, Colorado, 1948.

W. Eugene Smith Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A frightened 15-year-old German Luftwaffe anti-aircraft crew member weeps after being taken prisoner by American forces during the drive into Germany in 1945.

John Florea Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A serene Marilyn Monroe on the patio outside of her Los Angeles home, 1953.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Child star Margaret O’Brien, 1945

Bob Landry Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Rene Carpenter, the wife of NASA astronaut Scott Carpenter, watches his orbital flight on TV in 1962.

Ralph Morse Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Yorkshire hogs appear to smirk as they share the shade on a hot summer day in 1951.

Wallace Kirkland Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1957.

Loomis Dean Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A kitten emerges, undaunted, from a pot of milk, 1940.

Nina Leen Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A less-than-happy Amer4ican taxpayer at an IRA information center in New York City, 1944

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dazed U.S. Army Corporal Roy Day Jr., photographed after surviving a massacre by North Korean troops of 26 of his American fellow-prisoners. Day played dead after all of the prisoners were shot and left on a hillside in Korean, 1950.

Hank Walker Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Jeanne Moreau weeps in a scene from the film, Five Branded Women, 1960.

Gjon Mili Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Two boys hold their breath, amazed, on their first elevator ride, 1948.

Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gen. Douglas MacArthur roars orders from the bridge of the flagship USS Mount McKinley during an assault on the Inchon beachheads during the Korean War, 1950.

Carl Mydans Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Winston Churchill, inscrutable during an election campaign, 1951.Winston Churchill, 1951

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A tough sergeant bawls orders from the corner of his mouth, 1952.

Cornell Capa Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A mother nurses her child, Israel, 1960.

Paul Schutzer Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Shirley MacLaine and her daughter Sachi Parker playfully pout, 1959.

Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pediatrician Dr. Ralph Shugart confers with a worried mother of a baby that has been crying for hours, 1963. He decided to give them both a sedative.

Leonard McCombe Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A woman laughs uproariously as she undergoes a “head-tapping session,” part of a sensory awareness class in an encounter group at the Esalen Institute in 1970.

Arthur Schatz Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A jubilant Ronald Reagan celebrates victory during California’s gubernatorial primary, 1966.

John Loengard Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Comedian Ed Wynn looks horrified at the idea of killing worms in the Broadway show, Hooray for What!

Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A North Korean soldier contemptuously sticks out his tongue at LIFE photographer Joe Scherschel on the second day of cease-fire talks during the Korean War, 1951.

Joseph Scherschel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE’s Most Expressive Faces appeared first on LIFE.