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.

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.

The most obvious mood to create is that of seduction, which Peter Stackpole did with his photo of actress Rita Hayworth. That image from 1945 captures the hold she had on her audience, later vividly portrayed in a classic scene in The Shawshank Redemption.

But some of LIFE’s bed portraits have a heavier mood. Consider a photo of William S. Burroughs, taken by Loomis Dean. The author of such novels as Naked Lunch and Junky is wearing a suit as he sits on a narrow bed with a squishy-looking mattress, while a bright light shines overhead in a modest-looking room. While the bed is nominally in a place of repose, nothing about this picture looks comfortable, which is fitting for the man who produced some of the most memorably disturbing literature of the 20th century.

Another man who looked uncomfortable in his bedroom portrait—Richard Nixon. He was photographed by Cornell Capa in 1952, the year he would be elected Vice President. Like Burroughs, he wears a tie and dress clothes. Here the future President sits up on a narrow bed, his dress shoes on the bedquilt as he reviews documents that he has propped on his legs.

Nixon is not the only subject to take his work into bed. Vladimir Nabokov is somehow writing while lying on his back (although this was not his normal routine). Comedian Bob Hope talks on the phone while getting a foot massage in a picture that makes the bed seem like the touring comedian’s office. Henri Matisse pulls off the impressive trick of sculpting in bed—though using the bedroom as a place of creation is has some precedent among great artists.

Of course some some subjects appear to be relaxed and enjoying themselves. John F Kennedy and wife Jackie play with their daughter Caroline. Author W. Somerset Maughm enjoys the luxury of breakfast in bed. Actors Jimmy Stewart and Paulette Goddard are each seen reading in bed, in very different circumstances—she is traveling on a transatlantic cruise, and he is back at his family home after having served in World War II.

The most striking bedroom photo may be of Sophia Loren and her husband, movie producer Carlo Ponti. The picture was among those taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt for a story on the couple moving into their dream house, a 50-room villa near Rome. The shoot was no doubt exhausting for an article that ran at ten pages in LIFE. Eisenstadt photographed the actress by the pool, picking fruit, and wearing many different outfits in the home’s various settings. In bed with her husband, more than any of the other stars that LIFE shot in their bedrooms, she truly looks as if she needs to lay down.

Actress Rita Hayworth lounging on her king size bed at home, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

William Burroughs, novelist.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard M. Nixon sitting on his bed reading over paperwork, 1952.

Cornell Capa/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Maureen O’Hara at her home reclining in bed while sewing, 1946.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Author W. Somerset Maugham getting breakfast in bed from a maid while summering on Cape Cod, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Elizabeth Taylor at age 13, sitting in her bedroom holding her chipmunk, Nibbles.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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

Yale Joel/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, cuddling his darling baby daughter Caroline in bed at home as her mom Jackie looks on, 1958.

Ed Clark/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

James Stewart, back home after serving in World War II, read in bed at his parents’ house, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Paulette Goddard having breakfast in bed in her cabin aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth during a North Atlantic crossing, 1948.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Henri Matisse sculped while sitting in bed in his apartment, circa 1951.

Dmitri Kessel/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Kim Novak, 21, lounging on a satin bed, 1954.

J.R Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Comedian Bob Hope talking on telephone while lying in bed, 1962.

Allan Grant/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Author Vladimir Nabokov writing in a notebook on the bed, 1958.

Carl Mydans/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jayne Mansfield lounges on a bed with her dog in her lavishly decorated home, known as ‘The Pink Palace,’ Los Angeles, 1960.

Allan Grant/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Andrews Sisters sitting on round bed, 1948.

Allan Grant/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Absurdist comedian Fred Allen with his wife Portland, 1940.

Nina Leen/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actor Dustin Hoffman napping in a brass bed at home, 1969.

John Dominis/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Celebrities in Bed appeared first on LIFE.

Here, a fond look back at some of the 20th century’s biggest, brightest entertainers, in the friendly confines of their own homes.

Marilyn Monroe at her Hollywood home in 1953.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen and his first wife, TV actress Neile Adams, dress for a warm day at their Hollywood home in 1963.

John Dominis; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jayne Mansfield combed her hair while bathing in the pink carpeted bathroom of her home, known as “The Pink Palace,” in Los Angeles, 1960.

Allan Grant; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Jacksons (clockwise left to right: Jackie, Marlon, Tito, Jermaine, and Michael) join parents Joe and Katherine in their backyard in Encino, California in 1970.

John Olson; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Vivien Leigh at home with her Oscar for Gone With the Wind, 1940.

Peter Stackpole; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Paul Newman cooked eggs for Anthony Perkins in Newman’s kitchen in 1958 in Hollywood.

Leonard McComb; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, whose marriage would last 50 years (until his death in 2008), shared a laugh as they dressed in their Hollywood home in 1959.

Gordon Parks; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren picked flowers at the Italian villa she shared with producer Carlo Ponti in 1964.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Bette Davis and her Pekingese, Popeye the Magnificent, at home in Beverly Hills in 1939.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Maureen O’Hara relaxed at home in Los Angeles in 1946.

Peter Stackpole; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Liberace danced on top of the keys of his piano-shaped pool in California in 1954.

Loomis Dean; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Oscar-winning actress Claudette Colbert posed in a two-piece evening dress in front of the fireplace in her home in Los Angeles’ posh Holmby Hills neighborhood in 1939.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ricky Nelson sat on the diving board of his family’s pool in Hollywood in 1958.

Hank Walker; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Greer Garson sits her living room at home in Los Angeles’ exclusive Bel Air neighborhood, picking out records to play in April 1943, a month after her Best Actress Oscar victory for Mrs. Miniver.

Peter Stackpole; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sisters and frequent rivals Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland shared a family moment as they looked out over Beverly Hills from Fontaine’s home in 1942.

Bob Landry; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Carole Lombard drank a cup of coffee and talked on the telephone at her Hollywood home in October 1939.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE at Home With Showbiz Superstars appeared first on LIFE.

“Eisie must have shot thousands of pictures of me that no one ever saw,” Loren told LIFE.com, fondly recalling her camera-toting “shadow.” Here, LIFE.com presents a series of Eisenstaedt’s finest portraits of Loren, made at the very height of her international fame.

“When I met Eisie,” Loren recalled, “it was really a love at first sight. He became my shadow. But he never tried to interfere in my life. No, he just kept on shooting and smiling, and was happy just to be with me like I was to be with him! I miss him. He couldn’t do any wrong to me. I trusted him so much. He’s one of those who doesn’t grow on trees, as my friend Cary Grant used to say.”

Asked by LIFE.com about the qualities Eisenstaedt brought out in her that other photographers did not, Loren  said: “That I was a girl, joyful for her life, because she accepted anything that came with her work. Just being really, completely happy. Yes.”

Loren appeared on LIFE’s cover seven times through the 1950s and ’60s.

“At that time,” she said, “when LIFE magazine came out every week, it was something very important for a career the best thing that could happen to an actress. It was something unbelievable. Everybody talked about it a story in LIFE magazine, with a cover.”

In the summer of 1964, Eisenstaedt visited Loren and her husband, Carlo Ponti, at the home Ponti had spent years restoring: an opulent, ancient, 50-room villa in Marino, Italy. Several of the pictures he made there are featured in this gallery. And although Loren loved the house—at the time of Eisenstaedt’s visit, she called living there “bliss”—it was sold around the time of Ponti’s death, in 2007.

“This is something I don’t like to live with—sad memories,” she confided. “Life gets very hard when you lose someone so important to you, and you don’t need to be surrounded by the memories all the time, which are so strong and hit you in the most unexpected moments. We had a great, great love. The more I go on without him, the more I miss him. It was a great feeling it was great in life and it was great in our work.”

Asked if she ever tires of fame, Loren broke into a musical laugh.

“Are you kidding? I think it’s wonderful. [Fans] smile at me like I was a member of their own family. It’s a great feeling. In a sense, when I am at home I feel lonely because I miss my husband. But when I am outside, I have great big families around me all the time.”

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

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, Italy, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 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, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, Italy, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The 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, 1962

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren on her bed in her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren in her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren in her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren picking roses at her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren at home, 1964

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and LIFE’s Eisenstaedt during a boating jaunt off the coast of Naples, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Sophia Loren: Classic Photos of a Movie Star appeared first on LIFE.

Here, LIFE.com offers a gallery of some of moviedom’s most celebrated (and gorgeous) young talents on the very brink of life-altering fame, from Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn to Kim Novak, Ann-Margret, Liz Taylor, Rita Moreno, Barbra Streisand, Catherine Deneuve and others who would go on to dazzle audiences for years. 

Marilyn Monroe posed in 1947. The next year, she’d get a six-month Columbia Pictures contract.

J. R. Eyerman/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Seen here in a 1954 photo that ended up on the cover of LIFE, Rita Moreno debuted on Broadway at 13 before making it big years later in the film version of West Side Story.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Rita Moreno, 1954.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

.Kim Novak, 1954

J. R. Eyerman/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Kim Novak, 21, posed with crystal figurines in 1954. The Chicagoan started off as Miss Deep Freeze for a local refrigerator company, and was recruited by Columbia Pictures to be a more manageable replacement for Rita Hayworth.

J. R. Eyerman/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor in 1947, at age 15.

J.R. Eyerman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren posed in 1957, the year she began to make a name for herself in America in such movies as Boy on a Dolphin (her U.S. debut) and Legend of the Lost.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Audrey Hepburn in 1951—two years before her film breakthrough in Roman Holiday—posing under a theater marquee for the stage version of Gigi.

Time Life Pictures/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Catherine Deneuve in 1961, at age 18.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Margarita Carmen Cansino, soon to be Rita Hayworth, modeled tennis fashions in 1939. After her small turn in Only Angels Have Wings that year, fan mail started pouring in. She was soon a major star.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Cyd Charisse, seen here in 1945, was best known for her dancing roles opposite Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Nineteen-year-old Ann-Margret belted out a tune during a screen test for the movie State Fair in 1961.

Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Esther Williams, the famed synchronized swimmer (seen here in 1943), got her start in movies when MGM wanted a female sports star to rival Fox’s figure skater, Sonja Henie.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Eva Marie Saint opened a prop door during a TV shoot at NBC studios in 1947. The Newark, N.J.-born actress started her career as an NBC page.

Andreas Feininger/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Eva Marie Saint (in 1949) got her film break in 1954’s Oscar-winning On the Waterfront.

Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Jeanne Crain took a bubble bath for her role in the movie Margie in 1946.

Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda was a well-regarded actress by the time this shot was taken in 1959, when she was 22, but it took the screwball Western Cat Ballou (1965) to turn her into a movie star.

Allan Grant/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda, 1959.

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The actress Gene Tierney posed in 1941. Best remembered for 1944’s Laura, Tierney left New York’s socialite life to be an actress.

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Mickey Rooney kissed co-star Judy Garland at the premiere of Babes in Arms in 1939. The two starred in nine movies together, among them the popular Andy Hardy series.

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Barbra Streisand sang in the musical that was her Broadway debut, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, in 1962.

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Shirley MacLaine sang on the TV program Shower of Stars in 1955.

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Debbie Reynolds, circa 1950. She’d won a film contract just two years earlier, after winning the Miss Burbank pageant at age 16.

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Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews ran lines in My Fair Lady rehearsals, 1956. Though the stage musical helped launch Andrews’ career, she was replaced in the big-screen version by Audrey Hepburn.

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