The key to setting the record for Free was cutting down on wind resistance. So when the 47-year-old accelerated his Vincent HRD Black Shadow, he positioned his body to be as horizontal as it could. Also, he wore only swim trunks as he whipped across the hard pack of the Bonneville Salt Flats. His plan worked to perfection, setting a record of 150.313 miles per hour.

The AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame calls the picture of Free’s record-setting ride “one of the most famous photos in the history of the sport.” LIFE staff photographer Peter Stackpole’s image of Free is also one of the most popular prints in the LIFE photo store.

In LIFE’s coverage of the event the magazine actually used a different photo, taken from a wider angle. That shot is majestic in its own right, giving more emphasis to the Utah landscape and also the black line that had been painted on the ground for Free to use as a guide.

All the shots in this gallery have their charm. The ones of Free’s friends giving him a push as he started out are pretty classic. The details in Stackpole’s photos are evocative of their era, from Free’s everyman physique to the media coverage of the speed record being dominated by still photography.

Free’s record has long since been broken. The current mark of 376.363 miles per hour was set in 2010 by Rocky Robinson—once again in Bonneville. While in 1948 Free rode a conventional-looking motorcycle, Robinson set his mark in a vehicle that looks more like a two-wheeled car, down to its encased cockpit. This meant that Robinson had no need to strip down to a bathing suit and position his body at an exotic angle, or do anything else that would result in a photo for the ages.

Rollie Free getting ready to break the motorcycle speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rollie Free getting ready to break the motorcycle world’s speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rollie Free getting ready to break the motorcycle world’s speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rollie Free accelerated as he readied to break the motorcycle world’s speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

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Photographers captured Rollie Free breaking the motorcycle world’s speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

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Rollie Free, laying horizontally on his bike to reduce wind resistance, broke the world’s speed record for a motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, September 13, 1948.

eter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rollie Free breaking the motorcycle world’s speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

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Rollie Free on the day he broke the motorcycle world’s speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 1948.

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The post The Greatest Motorcycle Photo Ever appeared first on LIFE.

Fans of the Will Ferrell movie Step Brothers will also note that the island is the site of the movie’s climactic scene, the Catalina Wine Mixer—which is, in fact, a real event. If you don’t believe it, check its official website, which has a page titled The Catalina Wine Mixer is Real.

The island was a regular attraction for LIFE photographers. Ralph Crane, Peter Stackpole and Martha Holmes all had their turn at documenting what made the island so special.

Stackpole’s photos at Catalina became the basis for a big feature in a June 1941 issue. He followed two starlets, Patti McCarty and Betty Brooks on their adventures around the island, and took photos of them playing beach volleyball, posing with a peacock, and riding a glass-bottomed boat to look at the abundant sea life.

The photo from Holmes and Crane, taken in 1946 and 1959, respectively, capture the same holiday spirit. The final photo in this collection shows the Catalina Casino (not a gambling establishment but a picturesque nightlife spot on the water), which is still in operation today, and is one of the attractions that continues to inspire Californians to take that ferry across the channel.

Actresses Betty Brooks and Patti McCarty rode a motorboat at Catalina Island, 1941.

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Young actresses Betty Brooks and Patti McCarty played volleyball at Catalina Island, 1941.

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Starlet Betty Brooks played volleyball during a visit to Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Betty Brooks and Patti McCarty encountered a white peacock at Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Starlets Patti McCarty and Betty Brooks rode a glass-bottomed boat as part of a visit to Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

On Catalina Island, young actresses Patti McCarty and Betty Brooks return to their hotel for a rest before dinner, 1941.

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Catalina Island, 1946.

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Catalina Island, 1946.

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Catalina Island, 1946.

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Horseback riding at Catalina Island, July 1946.

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A couple enjoyed the port view of Avalon Bay at Catalina Island, 1946.

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Catalina Island, 1959.

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Catalina Island, 1959.

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Catalina Island, 1959.

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Catalina Island, 1959.

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The post Catalina Island: A California Classic appeared first on LIFE.

In 1948 LIFE wrote about one such stunt, taken on by Virginia Taylor of Pasadena. She went a week without talking in order to win $1,000. While that sounds manageable enough—these days people pay good money to go on silent retreats and not speak for that long—the show that ran the contest, People Are Funny, escalated the drama with another condition. Taylor would be monitored for the week by a young actress who would be living in the Taylor home—one who could talk to her husband when she could not.

And the actress sounded like she was ready to have fun with it. Here is how LIFE’s described the contest in its Jan. 17, 1949 issue:

The week of Dec. 14 to 21 was a grueling one for Mrs. Charles R. Taylor of Pasadena, California. Radio’s give-away craze, so desperate that recently everything from Adolphe Menjou to $1,000 worth of books has been pressed on winners, made her the victim of its most frantic stunt to date. If Mrs. Taylor could refrain from talking for the entire week, the program People Are Funny would pay her $1,000. But if so much as one word passed her lips, the $1,000 would go to a very attractive movie bit player, Maralyn Peterson, whom the program had sent not only to keep tabs on Mrs. Taylor but also to entertain Mr. Taylor. “This’ll be a snap,” said Maralyn beforehand, “and besides I’ve brought along a black silk neglige.”

Yes, that’s right, she was bringing a black negligee. One can imagine how that detail sparked the imaginations of listeners to this popular show—a slinky temptress gads about while the housewife must hold her tongue!

LIFE staff photographer Peter Stackpole was there to document the week, and while negligee was nowhere to be seen, he did capture a couple photos of the actress chatting up the husband while Virginia Taylor say by looking helpless. Stackpole’s photos from Taylor’s week of silence also showed her being teased by family members, communicating with a chalkboard, and, strangely enough, taking the stage with her church choir but keeping silent all the while. LIFE said “her narrowest escape was when she almost began singing in church.”

For her week of silenece was rewarded with “two crisp $500 bills,” LIFE wrote. Peterson earned $150 for playing the apple in the garden of Eden. Stackpole’s photos showed the two women “burying the hatchet” afterward and celebrating their bounty.

Taylor’s first words after winning: “I can’t think of a thing to say.”

Virginia Taylor wore tape on her mouth (which she would later take off) during the first day of a challenge in which she stayed silent for a week to win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock948.

Marilyn Peterson (right) lived in the home of Virginia Taylor to see if Mrs. Taylor could keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (left) sat quietly in a beauty shop while attempting to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right), who was trying to keep silent for a week to win $1000 from a radio show, sat by while her husband got to know Maralyn Peterson, the actress that the radio show People Are Funny had assigned to shadow the Taylors and monitor Virginia’s silence, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (left) wrote messages for Marilyn Peterson to relay on phone; Mrs. Taylor was attempting to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, while Peterson was her monitor,1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right) communicated with a door-to-door saleswoman using a slate and chalk during her attempt to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (center) read the newspaper sulkily in the background while husband Charles chatted with Marilyn Peterson, an actress who was living with the couple to make sure Mrs. Taylor remained silent for one week while attempting to win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right) resisted the temptation to talk to fellow church members during her efforts to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (second from left) in church while attempting to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right) was teased by relatives during her efforts to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor tried to deal with her nephew without talking while she was trying to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (left) communicated with her husband, a plumbing salesman, using sign language during her attempt to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Art Linkletter (center) with Virginia Taylor (right) during his radio program People Are Funny, for which he challenged her to stay silent for a week in order to win $1,000 in 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (center), her husband (right) and Marilyn Peterson celebrated after Mrs. Taylor won $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny for keeping silent for one week, 1948. LIFE described this scene as Taylor and Peterson “burying the hatchet.”

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Reality Radio Challenge: Keeping Your Mouth Shut For $1000 appeared first on LIFE.

The actress, born Bettyjane Greer, had actually been in LIFE magazine twice before that ’47 cover. In 1942 she appeared, unnamed, as one of three women modeling the uniforms of the W.A.A.C.s, the new all-female military unit that came into being during World War II. She got the modeling job because her mother worked in the War Department. The very businesslike picture, included in this story, is not the sort of photograph that you would necessarily expect to draw attention to a young woman—but it hit the radar of singer Rudy Vallee. According to the magazine, Vallee “tried unsuccessfully to worm Miss Greer’s address out of LIFE.” He did connect with Greer eventually when she came to Hollywood, resulting in a brief marriage between the two. She and Vallee separated after three months. The uniform modeling job, which also made it to newsreels, had led to a screen test with David O. Selznick, reported LIFE. But “Miss Greer signed up elsewhere, however—with Howard Hughes.”

In its 1947 story LIFE described her audition for Hughes:

She prepared for her first interview with Mr. Hughes by carefully learning the script with which she had heard he tested all aspiring stars. It was a comedy, The Awful Truth, and, because Howard Hughes is a little deaf, Miss Greer read it at the top of her lungs.

Hughes was charmed. And this is when the noir aspects of Greer’s story really took hold. Greer not only signed with Hughes but for time was in a relationship with the eccentric billionaire. She eventually bought her way out of Hughes’ contract and caught on with RKO. LIFE wrote about Greer again for a story about starlets in training, and that studio soon gave Greer the female lead in Out of the Past. By that time she was also married to attorney Edward Lasker, and seemingly set up for superstardom.

But then who should come out of Greer’s past but Howard Hughes, now feeling jealous toward Greer. He bought RKO, which meant that Hughes now controlled her contract. “He said to me, while you are under contract to me, you will never work,” Greer recounted in an interview decades later. “And I said, `But that will be the end of my career.’ And he said, “I guess it will, won’t it?”

Hughes didn’t completely end her career, but he put a damper on it at a time she should have been reaching new heights. Eventually Greer got herself out of her RKO contract and returned to regular work, including multiple appearances in the 1950s on The Ford Television Theatre. And she enjoyed a late-career revival in the 1980s, including an appearance in Against All Odds, the 1984 remake of Out of the Past that starred Jeff Bridges and featured Greer as the mother of the movie’s female lead, played by Rachel Ward. Greer also had a six-episode run on the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest, and appeared in three episodes of the David Lynch television show Twin Peaks.

She died in 2001 of complications from cancer, just shy of her 77th birthday.

Jane Greer modeled the uniforms for the new WAAC units in LIFE, 1942.

Charles Steinheimer/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This montage was the opening photo of a LIFE story on actress Jane Greer in a 1947 issue of LIFE; the caption said that she was “dreaming that she is pursued by the men she has been bumping off all day on the movie set.”

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Actress Jane Greer, 1947.

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Actress Jane Greer, 1947.

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Actress Jane Greer (C) performing in scene from the 1947 movie Out of the Past with actors Steve Brodie (left) and Robert Mitchum.

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Actress Jane Greer, 1947.

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Actress Jane Greer, 1947.

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Actress Jane Greer acting like drunken type, 1947.

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Jane Greer on set of The Company She Keeps, 1950.

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Jane Greer (left), with Jeff Bridges and Swoosie Kurtz, costars in the 1984 film Against All Odds, which was a remake of Greer’s 1947 classic Out of the Past.

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The post Jane Greer: The Actress Whose Career Howard Hughes Tried to Quash appeared first on LIFE.

But in 1947, when the women of a California chapter of the WCTU tried to make a statement by invading bars in Pasadena, the organization was already on its way to becoming a historical novelty. LIFE magazine opened its story on the bar invasion with the comment “These marching grandmothers will seem strange to many younger Americans. But to older people, who can recall the violent days of hatchet-wielding, saloon-smashing Carry Nation, they will seem like nothing more than a wisp out of the past.”

Here’s how LIFE, in its issue of May 19, 1947, described what happened when this era of WCTU women decided to infiltrate the Pasadena bar scene:

They urged barkeepers to seek “more honorable” jobs. They pointed out possible law violations to proprietors. They pleaded with customers to sign no-drink pledges. At one bar they found a mother with her daughter, embraced the mother and prayed for her. Later the mother joined them in singing Onward Christian Soldiers.

While the women of the WCTU found some success that day, the photographs by LIFE staff photographer Peter Stackpole capture reactions from the bar denizens that range from annoyance to indifference. The LIFE story concluded by recounting a scene from a story by American humorist Finley Peter Dunne, in which one character praises a man who drinks moderately, and another responds “What’s his name? What novel is he in?”

Today the WCTU still carries on, though it’s national membership has dwindled to around 5,000. Alcoholics Anonymous, meanwhile, counts a membership of around 2 million.

Women’s Christian Temperance Union members singing “Dry, Clean California,” 1947.

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A scene from a meeting of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in southern California, 1947.

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Members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in California, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women’s Christian Temperance Union members brought their message of alcohol abstinence to bars in Pasadena, Calif., 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union displayed a wrecked car to advocate against the dangers of drinking, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women’s Christian Temperance Union members brought their message of alcohol abstinence to bars in Pasadena, Calif., 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women’s Christian Temperance Union members brought their message of alcohol abstinence to bars in Pasadena, Calif., 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women’s Christian Temperance Union members invaded a bar in Pasadena, Calif., while customers remain indifferent, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Women’s Christian Temperance Union member tried to get a bar partron to sign non-drinking pledge, Pasadena, Calif., 1947.

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A bar patron downed his drink while Women’s Christian Temperance Union members looked for converts at a bar in Pasadena, Calif., 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union brought their message of alcohol abstinence to bars in Pasadena, Calif., 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post For Some, Dry January Was Never Enough appeared first on LIFE.

The USC chapter of Delta Delta Delta sorority staged an annual Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast, a tradition that began in 1923. The defining moment of the breakfast, as documented LIFE in its issue of July 23, 1945, was when seniors who had become engaged during the school year stepped through a giant ring of pansies. The significance of the pansy is that it was the official flower of the sorority.

In 1945 LIFE’s Peter Stackpole was there to capture this photogenic moment— which doesn’t seem to have actually been photographed all that often. All these years later, Stackpole’s pictures of women stepping through the pansy ring are among the few that crop up if you search for images of the breakfast online.

The ceremony is a throwback to a time when the average age of marriage for women was a shade under 22. The average actually dipped even lower in the immediate post-World War II years before climbing steadily to its current level, which is just above 28 years old. LIFE reported that at the 1945 Tri-Delt breakfast, a remarkable 48 girls passed through the ring. “Several had already been married but, romantically, did not want to miss the ceremony,” LIFE said.

The Tri-Delt tradition continued for some time—this photo from 1965 shows a ceremony that looks exactly what Stackpole captured. Today the pansy remains the official Tri-Delt flower and the celebration carries on in name, except it now honors graduating seniors, rather than just young women with rings on their fingers. But on the Instagram feed for the USC Tri-Delts, while there are plenty of pictures of sorority sisters enjoying their lives, it seems that the giant ring of pansies did not make it to the age of social media.

Sorority sisters picked pansies at the Los Angeles Country Club the day before USC’s Tri-Delt Pansy breakfast, 1945.

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The Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Virginia Erickson, engaged to Clair Fledderjohn, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Eileen Nilsson, engaged to Davis de Aryan, walked through a ring of flowers at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Betty Hildreth, who married a naval ensign that March, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Marilyn Faris, engaged to Lt. Bill Osborn, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Dora Meredith, engaged to Captain C.B. Hopkins, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Phyllis Dixon, engaged to Davis Lavelle, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Virginia Luff, engaged to Lt. Elwood Laine, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Helen Taylor, engaged to Lt. Bob Fogwell, walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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An engaged or married senior sorority sister walked through a ring of pansies at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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Clair Eder, engaged to Clifford Barnes, walked through a ring of flowers at the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast at USC, 1945.

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USC student Ethel Stevens took a pansy bath during the Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast weekend, 1945.

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The post An Instagram Moment, Pre-Instagram: The Tri-Delt Pansy Breakfast appeared first on LIFE.