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.

Some moments are beautiful because they are quiet, like the glimpses of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn before they went on stage together at the Oscars. Or the photo of Sammy Davis Jr. eating spaghetti and watching the news on television. Or burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee sitting at a typewriter while in costume before she performs one of her strip-teases.

Or consider the photo of the cast of The Honeymooners all sitting and waiting, Jackie Gleason with his ankle on ice. It’s funny to see the cast of this all-time great sitcom together without a smile on their faces, or any expression at all, really. Each of these photos their own way feels like a glimpse of reality.

Some photos offer curious juxtapositions, such as Johnny Cash, dressed in his trademark black, coming backstage at production of the musical Annie. Same with Frank Zappa and his family posing with the cast of Broadway show Cats. You can also find unexpected couplings, such as Lucille Ball visiting with Shirley Maclaine in her dressing room, or James Dean helping actress Geraldine Page with her hair.

Also intriguing are the images of stars just before they go onstage. This gallery includes shots of Alec Guinness and Albert Finney before they have leapt into character, and singer Paul Anka stretched out across two beds, They are about to cross the bridge from private person to public performer, and give their audiences the performances they came for.

Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre during the 28th Annual Academy Awards, 1956.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Award presenters Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly waiting backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre during the 28th Annual Academy Awards, 1956.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. ate spaghetti in his backstage dressing room while watching The Huntley-Brinkley Report news show in 1964. “My only contact with reality,” he told LIFE. “Whatever I’m doing, I stop to watch these guys.” Reflected in the mirror: LIFE photographer Leonard McCombe.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Paul Anka, backstage at the Copacabana, 1960.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Albert Finney backstage during a production of the play Luther, 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elvis Presley tenderly kissing the cheek of a female admirer backstage before his concert, 1956.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ray Charles backstage talking with Eric Burdon and the Animals, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Shirley MacLaine preparing to perform the TV show “Shower of Stars” in 1955.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Shirley MacLaine and Lucille Ball backstage during a benefit show for victims of the devastating Isewan typhoon, 1959.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marcia Diamond (right) watched as her husband Neil clipped their son Jessie’s nails in a dressing room at the Winter Garden Theatre, 1972.

MICHAEL MAUNEY/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee writes in her dressing room in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Bobby Darin in his dressing room, 1959.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman in his dressing room for the play (which he also directed), Jimmy Shine, New York City, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mae West backstage at the Hotel Sahara with one of the co-stars of her Las Vegas show, 1954.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

James Dean with the great Geraldine Page in her dressing room, New York City, 1955.

Dennis Stock—Magnum

Betty Grable, in her dressing room at 20th Century-Fox studios, pulled on black mesh stockings for a scene that would feature her famous legs, 1943.

Walter Sanders The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Josephine Baker’s four-foot chignon is wound up into three tiers of buns in her dressing room, 1951.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Honeymooners cast—Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows and Joyce Andrews—in 1954.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Chorus girls watching the Ed Sullivan television show at the Roxy Movie Theater dressing room, 1958.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Alec Guinness put on theatrical makeup at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada, 1953.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy relaxing in dressing room, waiting for show to begin, 1942.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Movie director Vincent Sherman (right) with actor Paul Newman in dressing room reviewing lines for the legal drama The Young Philadelphians, 1958.

Leonard McCombe/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Johnny Cash, with stepson John (right), posed with Annie star Alison Smith and Sandy at a Broadway production of musical, 1981.

DMI/Shutterstock

(Center, left-to-right) Musician Frank Zappa and children Moon Unit and Dweezil visited backstage at the Broadway musical Cats in 1983; the cast included actress Betty Buckley (center, bottom).

David Mcgough/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Insider’s View: LIFE Goes Backstage with the Stars appeared first on LIFE.

In 1958 when the pictures in this gallery were made, Dino—while famous as one-half of the Martin & Lewis comedy duo—had not yet crossed over into superstardom. But he was certainly enough of a draw that LIFE magazine devoted a photo-filled seven-page feature to the man they dubbed “Make-a-Million Martin.”

[To] his skillfully used musical and comedy talents, he adds an ebullience that pervades everything he does. . . . Uninhibited, spry of mind and muscle, he maintains a state of relaxation that “makes Perry Como look like a nervous wreck.”

Keeping carefree appears to be the common denominator of the many Martins — showman, businessman, prankster, family man, self-styled hell-raiser and Hollywood social lion. In each role he works hard at making hard work look easy.

Here LIFE pays tribute to one of show business’ enduring, and most laid-back, superstars.

Dean Martin swung a golf club in order to stay loose on the set of the film Some Came Running, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. visited Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra on the set of Some Came Running, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., 1958

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin with Shirley MacLaine, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin listened to music at home, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin in the steam room, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

After a steam bath, Dean dined on beef and beer before his Sands act. With him are songsmith Sammy Cahn (seated) and helper Mack Gray.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin, 1958

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin charged onto stage, followed by Frank Sinatra, at a performance by Judy Garland. To make amends for heckling Garland from the audience, they contributed their talents to the show.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin on stage, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin, 1958

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin hosted a dinner at his Hollywood Dino’s Lodge restaurant. The menu before guest Edith Adams had been altered by her husband, TV’s Ernie Kovacs.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin advised Jimmy Van Huesen (foreground), Johnny Grant (left), Leo and Mrs. Durocher that the dinner would be “on separate checks.”

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin took a turn running a Sands roulette wheel. He pushed chips to a winner, telling her, “Either take it or get out of here.”

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin signed autographs, Las Vegas, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin with his wife, Jeanne, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin at home with his wife, Jeanne, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean inspected his daughter Claudia’s hair. ‘Comb it with a broom?” he asked.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young Dino flexed for his father, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pop’s perplexity was registered as Gina strolled pensively in shoes large enough for two.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin at home, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Poker pals at Martin’s home included (clockwise from Dean at left) agent Jerry Gershwin, Tony Curtis, Milton Berle, Ernie Kovacs with 85-cent cigar, and director Billy Wilder.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin gave his son Dino a kiss and a dish of ice cream. “Eat it, it comes on the dinner,” said Dean.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Milton Berle joke slayed Tony Curtis, Dean Martin, and publicist Warran Cowan. “Show Miltie a curtain, he takes a bow,'” said Dean.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dean Martin with his wife, Jeanne, at home, 1958.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE magazine, Dec. 22, 1958.

LIFE magazine, Dec. 22, 1958.

LIFE magazine, Dec. 22, 1958.

LIFE magazine, Dec. 22, 1958.

The post Dean Martin: Rare and Classic Photos of a Laid-Back Legend appeared first on LIFE.

“Forget the movie, let’s pull the job!”

That, legend has it, is what Frank Sinatra joked upon hearing the plot for Ocean’s 11, the 1960 Vegas heist flick that went on to become the Rat Pack’s signature big-screen adventure.

It’s no wonder Sinatra and his kindred crew of high-living, hard-drinking, skirt-chasing buddies, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., especially, were gassed to make such a movie: just like their characters, they loved a good caper. From the late ’50s until they began to splinter apart in the mid-’60s, they were showbiz’s unrivaled kings of swing, quick-with-a-quip cats who could swagger into any joint from the Sands to Sardi’s and make it the most.

[Buy the LIFE book, The Rat Pack: The Original Bad Boys.]

LIFE magazine’s photographers trailed the Pack through those smoky, magical years, coming away with priceless material for some of the best celebrity photo-essays the magazine ever ran. But of the thousands of shots taken, many were never published until now. Here, in celebration of sharkskin sits, Scotch on the rocks, smoke-filled rooms and fedoras tilted just so, LIFE presents a slew of rare photos of the Rat Pack, together and apart, during their boozy heyday.

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin took a cigarette break during the recording of Sleep Warm in 1958.

Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin smoked a cigarette beside his dressing room door backstage before his performance in Las Vegas in 1958.

Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin shared a light moment in the recording studio, 1958.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra at the Sands Hotel and Casino, where he sang with the Count Basie Band in 1964. Out of that landmark collaboration came the great live album Sinatra at the Sands.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and Joe E. Lewis walked through the kitchen to get to the stage at the Eden Roc Resort in Miami in 1958.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. ate spaghetti in his backstage dressing room while watching The Huntley-Brinkley Report news show in 1964. “My only contact with reality,” he told LIFE. “Whatever I’m doing, I stop to watch these guys.” Reflected in the mirror: LIFE photographer Leonard McCombe.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. visited Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at MGM Studios, where the duo were making Some Came Running in 1958. The movie co-starred Rat Pack “mascot” Shirley MacLaine, who years later would affectionately describe her old friends as “primitive children who would put crackers in each other’s beds and dump spaghetti on new tuxedos.”

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin entertained on a narrow stage with couples dancing around him in 1958.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra offered a light in Sammy Davis Jr.’s Golden Boy dressing room in 1964. “It was six a.m. before the party got to Frank’s suite. But the evening was not over because Frank hadn’t said it was over. ‘Everybody have a little more gasoline,’ he ordered. Everybody did.” From “The Private World and Thoughts of Frank Sinatra,” LIFE’s classic photo-essay on the superstar, published in April 23, 1965

John Dominis/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. onstage during rehearsals for the Broadway musical Golden Boy, 1964.

Leonard McCombe/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Though he often joked about his race, Sammy Davis Jr. (here fiddling with a trumpet in 1964) was a serious, high-profile civil rights activist, and his refusal to play segregated venues helped lead to the integration of Miami nightclubs and Vegas casinos.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. clowned backstage during Golden Boy’s run in 1964. Davis once said, “As soon as I go out the front door of my house in the morning, I’m on, Daddy, I’m on! But when I’m with the group I can relax. We trust each other. We admire each other’s talent.”

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. rested on his side with a pillow on the floor of a New York City hotel room during the tour to preview Golden Boy in 1964.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. counted money backstage in Golden Boy, 1964. At the time he was being paid more than any Broadway star in history.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin had a massage at The Sands in Las Vegas, 1958. Said Martin once, “I can’t stand an actor or actress who tells me acting is hard work. It’s easy work. Anyone who says it isn’t never had to stand on his feet all day dealing blackjack.”

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra shaved in a steam room in Miami.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin tooled around the Warner Bros. lot while making 1965’s Marriage on the Rocks for the studio.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra cracked up during the Sleep Warm sessions in 1958.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra pretended to be drunk on stage for a charity event in 1960. After Martin fell, Sinatra put on a baseball cap and cried, “Safe!”

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE With the Rat Pack: Rare Photos of Frank, Dino and Sammy appeared first on LIFE.

The great St. Louis-born mezzo-soprano Grace Bumbry, for example, said of her own experience playing and singing the part of Bess: “I thought it beneath me. I felt I had worked far too hard, that we had come far too far to have to retrogress to 1935. My way of dealing with it was to see that it was really a piece of Americana, of American history, whether we liked it or not. Whether I sing it or not, it was still going to be there.”

Bumbry’s attitude is, arguably, the same that most people have chosen to take to the work. The opera might be filled with racial stereotypes; the songs might glorify the basest (quasi-mythical) aspects of Black culture; the characters might be emblematic of African American “types” anchored not so much in history as in the dominant culture’s notion of that history all that might be true, but the opera also, all these decades later, somehow endures. It has seen several revivals on Broadway (most recently in 2011) and musicians and singers as diverse as Miles Davis, Jascha Heifetz and Christina Aguilera have performed or recorded their own variations on the opera’s famous tunes.

Here, LIFE.com presents photos made on the set of the earliest film version of the opera Otto Preminger’s 1959 Porgy and Bess, starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr. as the drug-dealing pimp, Sportin’ Life, and Pearl Bailey. LIFE magazine evidently loved it (see below), but the years have not been kind to the production, and one would be hard-pressed to find a critic today who doesn’t find the film an unsettling combination of strident and cartoonish.

It’s also worth noting of this production that Davis and Bailey recorded their singing parts; Poitier’s and Dandrdige’s songs were dubbed by two classical singers: Robert McFerrin (Bobby McFerrin’s dad) and Adele Addison.

This, meanwhile, is how LIFE introduced the movie to its readers in the June 15, 1959, issue of the magazine, in a multi-page spread featuring Gjon Mili’s vibrant color photos. (Only one of Mili’s pictures from that assignment is in this gallery; none of the other photos here ran in LIFE.)

The folk opera, Porgy and Bess, is a story of life, death and faithlessness in a Negro tenement called Catfish Row. It has come a long way since composer George Gershwin and author DuBose Heyward launched it hopefully on Broadway in 1935 and sadly closed it after 124 money-losing performances. Gershwin and Heyward were dead when success finally came through some fine U.S. revivals and a triumphant State Department-sponsored tour of Europe. Today Porgy and Bess is a national treasure and a beloved classic and comes finally to the movie screen.

Samuel Goldwyn had his troubles casting the film, but he wound up with some of the finest Negro actors and singers in the land — Sidney Poitier as Porgy, Dorothy Dandridge as Bess, Pearl Bailey as Maria, Sammy Davis Jr. as Sportin’ Life. The glory of the opera, its unforgettable songs, comes resplendently from the stereophonic soundtrack. All the favorites are there Summertime, I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’, It Ain’t necessarily So, Bess, Yo Is My Woman Now. The plot, taken from the play by Heyward and his wife Dorothy, is unchanged in the movie as are the brilliant lyrics, written by Heyward and Gershwin’s brother Ira.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sidney Poitier on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dorothy Dandridge (Bess) and Brock Peters (Crown) on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. in character as Sportin’ Life on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pearl Bailey (Maria) in a scene from Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sidney Poitier on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959: At annual church picnic, the people of Catfish Row hear Sportin’ Life (Sammy Davis Jr.) sing his song of skeptical wickedness.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene from the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock.

Porgy and Bess

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brock Peters (Crown) on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess

Gjon Mili Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brock Peters and Sidney Poitier act out violent scene from Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sidney Poitier on the set of Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Porgy and Bess, 1959.

Gjon Mili Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Rare Photos From the Set of ‘Porgy and Bess’ appeared first on LIFE.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Rita Hayworth with husband Orson Wells and daughter Rebecca, 1946

Peter Stackpole (LIFE Picture Collection)

Kirk Douglas with son Michael, 1949

Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Humphrey Bogart and son Stephen in 1952

J.R. Eyerman /Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Charlton Heston lifted his two-month-old son, Fraser, who was portraying the baby Moses during filming of The Ten Commandments in 1955.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Senator John F. Kennedy played peek-a-boo with daughter Caroline in 1958.

Ed Clark/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Desi Arnaz with son Desi Jr. and TV son Richard Keith at a Dodgers game in 1958.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin with his son, Ricci, at home in 1958.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Vice President Richard Nixon and daughter Julie at a ballgame, 1958.

Hank Walker Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Tony Curtis and daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in 1959

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Richard Burton and his future stepdaughter, Liza (Liz Taylor and Mike Todd’s daughter), in 1962.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen kissed his daughter Terry goodnight in 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sammy Davis Jr. with his son Mark in 1964.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman with his daughter Karina, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jack Nicholson played with his daughter, Jennifer, on the deck of his home overlooking Franklin Canyon, Los Angeles, 1969.

Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Donald Sutherland with his son, Kiefer, in 1970.

Co Rentmeester/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Redford and his son, David, in Utah in 1970.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE With Famous Dads (and Their Sometimes-Famous Kids) appeared first on LIFE.