Christmases Past: 1956 and 1957 Photos

Looking at old photographs brings back memories, shows us the world of our past, and reveals things we took for granted.

1956

I had forgotten that Mom decorated the doors and windows with stenciled 'snow' paint. I love the hat with the balls on the ties. The over the shoes snow boots had loads of clasps which I still couldn't manage in kindergarten.

Christmas 1956. My hair was in pigtails. I was five years old. Here I am coloring with stencils. Coloring was one of my favorite activities. The flannel nightgown was a must; our 1830s house had no heating in the upstairs bedrooms!

Skunk and Mouse get an education with my new chalk board. This is one of the few photos that still has good color. Most I converted to black and white. The television was our 'new' one.

Mom was twenty-six years old.

A doll bed. I wonder what doll I put in it? Perhaps the skunk and mouse? Santa on the closet door was Styrofoam with flocked red hat and nose. Mistletoe hung over the door into the kitchen.

Here I am with Dad, aged 27. I have a board game set. A metal doll house is next to Dad. On the left is a 'modern' table holding the creche.

What a mess! I was still an only child and Mom loved Christmas. The toys weren't expensive, but it didn't matter to me.

Mom painted the Tole painted magazine rack next to the chair. Yep, that's real tinsel on a real Christmas tree.

Christmas 1957
I was five years old.

I see a toy ironing board and iron on the right. Next to the chair is a pink suitcase with Tiny Tears and all her clothing and baby things, sitting on a box holding a tea set. Under the tree is my new dress. I am holding my first 'fashion doll', a Miss Revlon. She came with underclothing and two dresses, a belt, a hat, and a purse. I rearranged and made my own style. I liked her in the bra, crinoline, and the belt in her hair, which was perhaps my idea of a ballerina.

A vintage Little Miss Revlon doll with original box

In the photo below you can see Tiny Tears and the tea set.

Miss Revlon and Tiny Tears.

I really liked that fashion doll. Here she has a Pill box hat.

I took the doll with me to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins who lived in the upstairs apartment. Note the old wallpaper border at the top of the wall.

My first dog Pepper sits next to me. I loved that dog! 

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The little modern coffee table of metal and Formica would be very in demand today. Mom's wedding candy dish sits in the middle of the table. There is a heavy white, scalloped edged, glass dish with green interior to the left, and a clear plastic Christmas tree on the right.

Here I am in the new dress. It was brown print with a white bib. Mom and I had matching permanents in a "Bubble cut" so my straight hair was very Shirley Temple curly.

I see a pile of games and books next to the chair. You can see the Tiny Tears in her pink suitcase on the right. The bottom of my stocking can be seen on the wall.

Dad supported us by running the gas station his dad had built in the 1940s. We didn't have much money. But when I saw the ads on television showing poor children of the world I felt very guilty for having so much. I knew I didn't need, or deserve, it all.

1957 Modern Screen: The Stars

What was happening in Hollywood in May, 1957? Quite a bit...Parties and marriages, babies and deaths.

Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher married in Acapulco, commanding four pages of pictures of partying. There were 22 cases of champaign and 15,000 white gladiolas flown in by Eddie. 

Luella Parson's "in hollywood" covered a big party thrown for Merle Oberon's birthday.

Prince Rainier and Grace Kelley celebrated the birth of Princess Caroline by publishing her first photographs.

Bogie had died that January. "The last words he spoke were to his adored Betty--"Good-by, kid." So wrote Louella Parsons in her story about Humphrey Bogart's last days. She goes on to say, "Let me repeat, no scriptwriter could have conceived for Bogey the role he played in the last thirty days of his life."

 

Deborah Kerr's challenge was "can an actress be a good mother?" The article relates Kerr's considering leaving her career for her daughter's well being. Luckily, her husband had filled her loneliness so "now she's learned to give to the very little ones the same fulfillment that a gentle man had brought her when she showed her a love without fear. And she's teaching her children what she herself had never known--how to be alone, and know that you are not alone."

Kerr's then current movie was Hello, Mr. Allison.

Ingrid Bergman was notorious for having a baby before she was married. The only headline this would merit these days would be "congratulations".

Judy Spreckels shared this drawing she made when she met Elvis. It was for sale at the Elvis Presley Fan Club.

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were pregnant. They had married June, 1956.

 "The receptionist was very surprised...Mr. Miller...wasn't grinning. Not that he looked sad, or anything...Marilyn came out. Marilyn was crying. You could see the tears streaming down her cheeks and you could see that her lips were trembling, trembling hard."
"No baby, huh?"
"Sure she'd going to have a baby."
"But she was crying!"

Marilyn had two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy during her marriage to Arthur.

Dennis Hopper's first "complete story" told of his childhood on a farm outside of Dodge with a pig named Porcupine and Puddles the dog. His family moved to Kansas City and then to San Diego where he discovered art. He was star-struck and at age eighteen was in Giant.

"His family disapproved. All this talk about acting and poetry and painting; these things would never bring in any money. They thought, and they told him, that he was going to turn into a bum."

We really liked bad boys. First they called Hopper a rebel. Now we read about Nick Adams was "wild" before he starred in No Time For Sargents. 

Back in Jersey City Adams was Nicholas Adamshock, hanging around pool rooms, hitch-hiking, chasing girls, throwing snowballs at strangers, sneaking into movies--all with his homies. They knocked off a man's hat, for crying out loud, and that's when he discovered they were juvenile delinquents. He flirted with greater danger until he auditioned for a play. Jack Palance got him the part. In 1952 he hitch-hiked to Hollywood where he was in Mr. Roberts, Picnic, and other films.

In 1968 he died of a drug overdose, but some call his death an unsolved mystery. No one knows how he obtained the drugs. His death certificate was changed three times, from homicide to suicide to undetermined.

  

In 1957 the current Hollywood mystery was "what happened to Jean Peters". One day she just dropped out. The long article relates friends glimpses of her here and there. Her New York Times obituary of 2000 relates she had secretly married Howard Hughes!