The precarious state of the population lends a heavier type of nostalgia to this 1944 LIFE magazine story about the joys of abalone diving.

LIFE photographer John Florea tagged along for an abalone expedition at Point Dume, a state beach in Malibu. The hunting party was a glamorous and photogenic one, as it included actor Peter Coe and actresses Martha O’Driscoll and Ramsay Ames.

LIFE wrote glowingly of the prize they sought: “Of all the seafoods that come from the Pacific Ocean, abalone…is probably most prized by Californians….This is partly because of its flavor, like that of a good scallop, and partly because it is hard to get. The abalone is a big stubborn snail that clings to underwater rocks, has to be pried loose with crowbars.”

As the above paragraph made clear, retrieving abalone requires some expertise. For the LIFE story the group of Hollywood actors were led on their quest by veteran abalone fishermen. And it was a good thing. “The girls spent hours diving, tugging and getting their hair wet,” LIFE wrote. “They finally gave up and let the experts supply the food.”

The actors were able to help more with the picnic. The diving was followed by shucking and trimming and breading and frying. Florea’s photos capture every step in this bygone tradition.

California is working to restore the abalone population and there is hope that its red abalone season could return in 2026.

Actors Peter Coe and Martha O’Driscoll watched the hunt for abalone off the California coast, 1944.

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Bill O’Connor handing Martha O’Driscoll two abalones that were freshly plucked from the ocean rocks in Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Martha O’Driscoll and Peter Coe during an abalone dive off Southern California, 1944.

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A crew of abalone divers enjoyed the waves off the Southern California coast, 1944.

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Freshly caught abalone are removed from their shells in preparation for a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Freshly caught abalone are removed from their shells in preparation for a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Freshly caught abalone were trimmed and sliced in preparation for a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The actresses breaded the freshly-caught abalone in preparation for cooking on a California beach, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Ramsay Ames, Martha O’Driscoll and Peter Coe fried abalone steaks during a California beach picnic, 1944.

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Abalone shells at a picnic at Point Dume beach in Southern California, 1944.

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Martha O’Driscoll, Ramsay Ames, and Peter Coe enjoyed their sandwiches of freshly caught abalone in Southern California, 1944.

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Actors Martha O’Driscoll, Peter Coe, and Ramsay Ames during an abalone picnic, Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Martha O’Driscoll, Peter Coe, and Ramsay Ames during an abalone picnic, Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Diving For Abalone: A Vanishing Tradition appeared first on LIFE.

Born William Ivy in Houston, Texas, in 1866, Baldwin adopted his last name from a pair of daredevil brothers he performed with as a young man. Hooked on tightrope walking after a childhood sighting of an impressive wire-walker, Baldwin left home as a young teenager to join a traveling circus. He developed a repertoire of stunts that included parachuting out of hot air balloons and diving off of impossibly high towers. He was also a pioneering aviator, and the first to fly a plane in the state of Nevada, in 1910.

But he is best remembered, in Colorado lore, for his repeated crossings of South Boulder Creek, clad in cloth slippers and carrying a 26-ft. pole for balance. Some attempts nearly took his life, as on one occasion during which unexpectedly persistent gusts of wind forced him to hang from his knees for over an hour. When he finally retired at 82, after the walk photographed by LIFE’s John Florea, it came at the insistence of his family. Baldwin, as befits one who made his fame by walking, would have been happy to keep going.

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

82-year-old tightrope walker Ivy Baldwin rests on a rock at Boulder Dam, Colorado, 1948.

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Baldwin gingerly begins to walk on a tightrope at Boulder Dam, Colorado, 1948.

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Baldwin makes his way across Boulder Dam, 1948.

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Baldwin appears suspended in air as spectators watch from below, 1948.

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Baldwin makes his way to the other side of Boulder Dam, 1948.

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young fans greet Baldwin after his feat, 1948.

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Baldwin talks to the press at Boulder Dam, Colorado, 1948.

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Fans present Baldwin with a celebratory cake, 1948.

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Baldwin looks out across Boulder Dam, 1948.

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The post Old Man and the Wire: When an 82-Year-Old Walked The Tightrope appeared first on LIFE.

For his part, in a 1993 interview with John Loengard, Florea said of the photographs he made of Demler and other prisoners during the liberation of the notorious Stalag 12-A camp: “You don’t know how many times I see those pictures in my mind. I wanted to show how the Nazi bastards what they did to our guys. It was terrible.”

When Florea and troops from the First Army’s Ninth Armored Division came upon Stalag12-A in late March 1945, 19-year-old Pvt. Joseph Demler weighed about 70 pounds. “Skin and bones” is a generous way of describing his physique. His chances of surviving, everyone agreed, were far from good. (An indication of how close to death Demler and the other POWs in the camp’s makeshift hospital were: a soldier in a bunk next to Demler’s was alive when 12-A was liberated but died before he could get a bite to eat.)

Against steep odds, Joe Demler did survive. Today, he lives in a small town in Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, on the western shore of Lake Michigan. He’s retired now, of course, but for 37 years he worked for the United States Post Office. He’s been married to his wife, Loretta, for 63 years. They have two sons and a daughter, and three grandchildren. He’s 88 years old, and will turn 89 on Dec. 7: Pearl Harbor Day.

In the years since the war, he’s led a quiet life. A peaceful life. Which is far more than the 19-year-old Joe Demler, who saw action and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, could have dreamed of.

“When I left Kennedy General Hospital in Memphis, where I went for treatment after leaving Germany,” Demler recently told LIFE.com, “one doctor said to me, ‘Son, you can go home now. You were born again. You can go back and live a normal life.’ And you know, that’s what I’ve tried to do, for all these years.”

It hasn’t been easy “You can never completely forget something that awful,” Demler says of his time in the war but the fact that he came through when so many of his buddies, and countless others he never even knew, perished left him with a certainty that he had to give something back. And he has.

For a while now, Demler has been involved with a nonprofit called Honor Flight, which was created (according to its website) “solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials. Top priority is given to the senior veterans World War II survivors, along with those other veterans who may be terminally ill.”

Discussing an Honor Flight event from just a few weeks ago, Demler says that “when you have 80- and 90-year-old men crying as they tell you that this was one of the greatest days of their life, taking part in Honor Flight well, it makes all the effort that you put into something like this worth it, and then some.”

One regret that he does have: never seeing John Florea again after their one brief, fateful encounter in 1945. “I wish I could have shaken his hand,” Demler says, “and thanked him.”

[Honor Flight, a documentary film by Dan Hayes, in which Joe Demler plays a central role, was released in 2012.]

Joe Demler, ‘Human Skeleton,’ 1945

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

US POW, Stalag 12-A, Limburg, Germany, 1945

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WWII veteran Joseph Demler in 2013

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The post The POW Who Lived: Joe Demler, WWII’s ‘Human Skeleton’ appeared first on LIFE.