Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando in a publicity shot for the 1953 film, "The Wild One".



Original B&W photo.

Bill Shankly

Bill Shankly, most famous as the manager who rebuilt Liverpool Football Club into a major force in English football, pictured here in 1937, while he was a player for Preston North End.


Original B&W photo.

William Russell as Sir Lancelot

William Russell, best known for being part of the original cast of Doctor Who, in his first big television role, the lead in "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot", in 1956.
Although made for a British audience, the series was shown on NBC, one of the major broadcast networks in the USA, a very rare occurrence, and the last fourteen of the thirty half-hour episodes were shot in colour, though they were only seen in black and white in Britain.

Consequently, there were enough colour pictures for reference for me to colour this informal "between takes" shot.


Original B&W photo.

Karel Hynek Mácha

When I saw this drawing of the Czech romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha, I was struck by how much it looked like a photograph, apart from the pencil lines. The artist, Jan Vilímek, wasn't even born until nearly a quarter of a century after Mácha died, so how accurate it is I don't know. Even so, it's a superb and natural looking portrait. Doubtless some purists will object to my reworking of this drawing, but I think it only emphasises how good the original was, and the original still exists, so nothing is lost.



Original drawing.

John Wayne

When Marion Mitchell Morrison was young, he had a dog called Duke, and was given the nickname "Little Duke". When he started acting in movies, he used the name Duke Morrison until he got his first leading role in "The Big Trail" in 1930, the year this photo was taken, and he became known as John Wayne.


Original B&W photo.

Lucille Ball

When she started her acting career, in the 1930s, Lucille Ball bleached her naturally brown hair blonde, as in this photo. She later dyed it red to stand out from the many other blonde actresses in Hollywood.

Original B&W photo.

Quagga

Equus quagga quagga was a sub-species of the plains zebra of South Africa that went extinct in the wild by 1878, and completely extinct in 1883, when the last captive Quagga died in Amsterdam Zoo. This 1870 photo shows the only Quagga, a mare at London Zoo, to be photographed.

 


Original B&W photo.

Dalek Invasion of Earth

One of the early scenes in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode took place in Trafalgar Square. The location was also used prominently in the second Dalek story, "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", in 1964.


Original B&W photo.

Tasmanian Tiger

The last known Thylacinus cynocephalus in existence died in 1936, at Hobart Zoo. This photo is, as far as I can ascertain, that animal, and I think it dates from 1933.

Most commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger, because of the stripes, it's sometimes called the Tasmanian Wolf, as it has dog-like features. In fact, it was neither, but a marsupial that had evolved to fill a similar ecological niche to those creatures.


Original B&W photo.

Dalekmania!

The anticipation for tonight's 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who extends across the globe but, in the 1960s, the hysteria was just as intense, albeit a bit more local, as this photo from the '60s shows.


Original B&W photo.

C. S. Lewis

Another famous person to die on November 22nd 1963 was author and Christian apologist Clive Staples Lewis, most famous for his "Chronicles of Narnia". This photo was from 1947, when Lewis was 50.


Original B&W photo.

Aldous Huxley

The most famous death on the 22nd of November 1963 was undoubtedly that of John F. Kennedy, but the author of Brave New World, Aldous Leonard Huxley also died on this day.


Original B&W photo.

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington, seen here around 1895, was born into slavery in 1859. By the end of his life, in 1915, he had been an educator, an author, an orator, and an advisor to presidents of the United States.

 

 


Original B&W photo.

Sherpa Tenzing

Tenzing Norgay, better known to many as Sherpa Tenzing. He and Edmund Hillary were the first two men known to have climbed to the summit of Mount Everest. Hillary tends to get most of the credit, but that was not the intention of any of the other members of the expedition, and its leader, Colonel Hunt, insisted at the time that "They reached it together, as a team."


Original B&W photo.

Edmund Hillary

Edmund Percival Hillary c1953, the year he climbed Mount Everest as part of a team led by John Hunt. He and Tenzing Norgay were the first men recorded to have reached Everest's summit, on the 29th of May, 1953.


Original B&W photo.

Lawrence Oates

Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913, probably in 1911.

His last words, before he died, in 1912, were recorded by Captain Scott as "I am just going outside and may be some time." Scott added in his diary, "We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman."



Original B&W photo.

Scott of the Antarctic

Robert Falcon Scott in 1905, five years before he set off on his last expedition to Antarctica during which, after being beaten to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition, he died in 1912.


Original B&W photo.

Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen. around 1909, shortly before setting out on the expedition to the South Pole, in competition with the ill-fated Captain Scott.


Original B&W photo.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the 19th President of the United States, pictured here some time during the 1870s, probably during his presidency.


Original B&W photo.

James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield in 1870, while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was later to become the 20th President of the United States, but was assassinated after only 200 days, the second shortest term in history.


Original B&W photo.

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in 1922.


Original B&W photo.

Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, a Conservative politician and statesman served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from July 1902 to December 1905.

He is best remembered for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, during his time as Foreign Secretary in David Lloyd George's wartime coalition government. This laid the ground for the later creation of the state of Israel.



Original B&W photo.

Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge

Princess Mary Adelaide Wilhelmina Elizabeth of Cambridge, first cousin to Queen Victoria, being a granddaughter of George III , and the mother of George V's queen, Mary,

In later life, Mary Adelaide devoted her life to charity,  one of the earliest royals to support a wide range of charitable organizations.



Original B&W photo.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria

As well as being Empress of Austria, Elisabeth was Emperor Franz Joseph's queen consort of Hungary, and the coronation, on the 8th of June 1867, was commemorated with this photo.


Original B&W photo.

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, in 1898. In that year his wife and Empress of 44 years, Elisabeth, was assassinated by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni.


Original B&W photo.


I think this 1910 oil painting, from which I took the colours, may well have been based on the 1898 photo. Note the extra medals in the painting.