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1950s
Icons
-
Barbie
Doll
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Rock n
Roll -
Elvis
Presley
The Baby Boomers discarded the crooners and made
James Dean,
Elvis Presley & Marilyn Monroe their American Idols
1954
FUTURE
KING
''This
boy
has
something
that
seems
to
appeal
to
everybody,''
said
Marion
Keisker
of
Sun
Records
to
the
Memphis
Press
Scimitar
after
a
young
truck
driver
named
Elvis
Aron
Presley
released
his
first
single
of
''That's
All
Right''
and
''Blue
Moon
of
Kentucky.''
The
studio
was
Memphis
Recording
Service
and
the
results
defined
rock
&
roll
as
we
know
it
1955
Rebel
Without
a
Cause
1955
movie
directed
by
Nicholas
Ray.
Cast
including
Dennis
Hopper,
Sal
Mineo
and
James
Dean
who defined
teen
culture
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50s Vintage
Barbie
Beach
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Vintage
Barbie
Daywear
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Barbie
Glamour
Doll
50s
|
Glamour
Barbie
1950s
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1959, the first Barbie
Doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New
York City. The eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of
blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy
doll in the United States with adult features. The
woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler, who co-founded
Mattel Toys Inc. with her husband in 1945. After seeing
her young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play
make-believe with paper dolls of adult women, Handler
realized there was an important niche in the market
for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the
future.
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 On
this day in 1955, movie star James Dean dies at age 24
in a car crash on a California highway. Dean was
driving his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed "Little
Bastard," headed to a car race in Salinas, California,
with his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich, when they were
involved in a head-on collision with a car driven by a
23-year-old college student named Donald Turnaspeed.
Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital,
where he was pronounced dead at 5:59 p.m. Wuetherich,
who was thrown from the car, survived the accident and
Turnaspeed escaped with minor injuries. No charges
were ever filed against him.
It
started out as an assignment and become a legacy. In 1955
the young Magnum photographer Dennis Stock accompanied
James Dean in New York. The photograph would prove to be the best and
the most intimate portrait of James Dean.
September 30,
1955 James Dean & his mechanic driving his Porsche Spyder
from Hollywood to Salinas late in the afternoon. A young Cal-Poly student turned
left in front of them on his way home to Fresno. The crash
crumpled the Porsche - instantly killing Dean. with The
mechanic (who survived)
by being thrown out of the car.
In Hollywood, the suicide toll has been great. Avid James Dean fans still speculate that his fatal car accident was never an accident but a self destructive reaction to the pressures imposed by
fame.
Having become sullen after losing his lover Pier Angeli to Vic Damone. "Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse," said Dean who was dead within a month of predicting his own demise.
Pier Angeli never really adjusted to Hollywood or to the death of James Dean. A year later, Pier Angeli was found dead. Her suicide induced by a barbiturate overdose was blamed
as she told an interviewer, "I am still in love with Jimmy" and
then blamed Hollywood for the dead of their teen idol |
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February 3, 1959 The day the music died.
On this day in 1959, rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after
takeoff from Mason City on a flight headed for Moorehead, Minnesota.
Investigators blamed the crash on bad weather and pilot error. Holly
and his band, the Crickets, had just scored a No. 1 hit with "That'll
Be the Day."
Tribute
to Buddy Holly
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Iconic photos from the 1955
Seven
Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe have since become synonymous with
image of Monroe.
Even Barbie Doll offered fans a facsimile. However,
the photo on the left by photographer Bernard Brujo did not make the
cut as director Billy Wilder was fearful of having his movie
censored.
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