Elvis Presley and Carolyn Jones in “King Creole” (1958)

King Creole is a 1958 American musical drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the 1952 novel A Stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins. Produced by Hal B. Wallis, the film stars Elvis Presley, Carolyn Jones, Walter Matthau, Dolores Hart, Dean Jagger, and Vic Morrow, and follows a nineteen-year-old (Presley) who gets mixed up with crooks and involved with two women.

Hal Wallis acquired the rights to A Stone for Danny Fisher in February 1955 for $25,000, with the intention of giving the lead role of a New York boxer to either James Dean or Ben Gazzara. The role was originally written for Dean, but the project was cancelled after his death in 1955. In January 1957, following the success of an off-Broadway stage version of the story, Presley was suggested as a possible replacement. After negotiations were completed, the character of Fisher was changed from a boxer to a singer and the location was moved from New York to New Orleans.

Wallis selected Michael Curtiz, a noted director of the Hollywood studio system whose works included The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy and Casablanca. Curtiz decided to shoot the film in black and white for dramatic ambiance and to give the streets a film noir appearance. He also selected an experienced cast to support Presley, including Walther Matthau and Carolyn Jones, as well as Dolores Hart, Presley’s co-star in the 1957 film Loving You. Curtiz instructed a “taken aback” Presley to lose fifteen pounds and shave his sideburns for the role, both of which Presley did.

On December 20, 1957, a month before filming was due to begin, Presley received his draft notice. Presley and Paramount had to request special permission to defer Presley's enlistment to allow him to finish the film. Both pointed out to the draft board that a delay in filming would cost them a large sum of money invested in the pre-production of the film. On December 27, Presley received a 60-day deferment.

Filming took place between January 20 and March 10, 1958, mostly at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, California, and on location in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana, while the scene of the bayou was filmed at Lake Pontchartrain. During filming, Presley was constantly moved to avoid the crowds of fans who came to see him on location, which delayed the film-making. Wallis had rented a house for Presley’s privacy, and a second one after one of his assistants noticed that the back of the houses in the block led to the back of the houses on the adjacent street. To escape from the crowds, Presley would climb to the roof of one house and cross over onto the roof of the other. After a fan discovered his path, he resided on the tenth floor of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which was rented for the whole cast.

Before filming began, Curtiz was convinced that Presley would be a “conceited boy,” but after a few weeks of working together, he described Presley as a “lovely boy” who would go on to be a “wonderful actor.” Presley, after seeing an early copy of the finished film, thanked Curtiz for giving him the opportunity to show his potential as an actor; he would later cite Danny Fisher as his favorite role of his acting career. Fourteen days after the completion of King Creole, Presley was officially inducted into the U.S. Army.

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Bill Gates Being Hit in the Face With a Pie in 1998

Although he’s not the only bigwig to be the targeted with pastry — other notables include pundit Ann Coulter and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman — the pie-ing of then-Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was especially stunning, if only because his assailant scored a bullseye.

In Brussels, Belgium in February 1998 to meet with business leaders, Gates was hit in the face with a cream pie when writer Noël Godin and “his group” had ambushed him.

The New York Times reported it was Godin’s idea, and that his co-conspirators waited for Gates to pass by on the street, holding hidden tarts in camera bags and under their coats. The Times wrote that Godin had previously successfully pied 22 people. The publication also reported part of the reason Gates was chosen to be pied was because Godin felt Gates “chooses to function in the service of the capitalist status quo, without really using his intelligence or his imagination.'”

In the aftermath of the pie throwing, Gates declined to press charges. The Tampa Bay Times reported Gates had commented that “one of the worst things about this whole thing was that the pie wasn’t even that tasty,” according to a Microsoft spokeswoman at the time.

Unique Photographs Capture Everyday Life in China During the Decades Following the Cultural Revolution

In 2009, Thomas Sauvin stumbled upon discarded film negatives he could purchase by the kilogram. The French national was alerted to them by a man in Beijing, who was collecting trash that could be melted down to extract silver nitrate — a substance that could be sold onto chemists and laboratories.

“He developed a network of people who collected negative films, X-rays, CDs, and anything else that contained silver nitrate,” Sauvin told the ABC. “Once he gathered everything, he put them in a pool of acid, and waited for silver nitrate to emerge — it looked just like gunpowder.”

At the time, Sauvin didn’t anticipate his initial discovery was going to launch a photography project with more than 800,000 images — he simply wanted to save the negatives from destruction. “So I made a deal with him to buy the negatives by the kilo,” Sauvin said. “I bought my first bag in May 2009.”

And in the process, Sauvin has incidentally archived one of the world’s biggest shifts — the rise of modern China and the country’s first forays into capitalist consumer culture. His collecting of ‘found’ Chinese photography has turned into the Beijing Silvermine.

Found, or vernacular photography refers to photographs captured by everyday people that were shot with no explicit artistic or commercial intent. And it’s these found photos that have led Sauvin to launch photobooks, exhibitions, and a popular Instagram account.

Sauvin, who has lived in China on and off since his school exchange in 1999, told the ABC that it was by chance that the Silvermine documented this period. “They were shot mostly between 1985 to 2005, because 1985 is when analogue photography started being accessible to everyday people in China, and 2005 is when digital photography started taking over,” Sauvin said.

What’s resulted is an archive packed full of candid portraits of people interacting with China’s newly reformed economy.

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35 Beautiful Photos That Defined Wedding Styles in the Early 1990s

In the early 1990s, wedding styles were influenced by the fashion trends of the late 1980s. Wedding dresses often featured puffy sleeves, high necklines, and voluminous skirts, reminiscent of the “princess bride” look. Ivory and champagne were popular color choices for dresses, and lace detailing was common. Bridesmaids’ dresses often followed similar styles but in coordinating colors. Men typically wore classic tuxedos or suits, sometimes with tails for a more formal touch.

Overall, the early 1990s wedding style was still somewhat traditional but with a touch of romantic flair, with ceremonies typically held in churches or other religious venues, followed by receptions featuring dinner, dancing, and perhaps a tiered wedding cake.

Here is a set of beautiful photos from Flickr members that shows what wedding styles looked like in the early 1990s.

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Amazing Photos of the 1935 Lincoln K Convertible Roadster

During the Great Depression, the US automobile market faced challenges, especially luxury car manufacturers. However, Edsel Ford was determined to steer the Ford Motor Company through the economic storm by supporting the upscale Lincoln brand. Lincoln Motor Company boldly introduced its prestigious model, the Lincoln K Convertible Roadster, targeting sophisticated motorists who already owned multiple Lincolns.

This new model, featuring a lightweight design based on a shortened 135-inch wheelbase, emphasizing its spaciousness, ease of handling, and swift acceleration.

The K Convertible Roadster boasted smooth shifting, flexible springs, and modern beauty without any compromise. Exceptional in every aspect, this luxury vehicle came with a substantial base price of $4,600, catering to those with substantial financial means.

Here below is a set of amazing photos of the 1935 Lincoln K Convertible Roadster.

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20 Amazing Photographs of “The First Lady of Song” Ella Fitzgerald on the Stage

Dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.

Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman. (Or rather, some might say all the jazz greats had the pleasure of working with Ella.)

She performed at top venues all over the world, and packed them to the hilt. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal range. They were rich and poor, made up of all races, all religions and all nationalities. In fact, many of them had just one binding factor in common – they all loved her. Here are some amazing vintage photographs of “The First Lady of Song” performing on the stage in the 1950s and 1960s:

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Portrait of 15-Year-Old Mark Twain by GH Jones in 1850

Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain (1835–1910), age 15 holding metal type in a composing stick that spells out his first name. He understood that the photographic printing process reversed the contents of an image in the same way backwards moveable type was reversed in printing to give clear copy.

Portrait of Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain as a young man holding a printer’s composing stick with letters SAM, 1850.