Life -- February 14, 1949

I have a copy of Life magazine from February 14, 1949, the week I was born. The cost was 20¢. The cover is a black and white back-lit close-up profile of Viveca Lindfors, an attractive (in that 1940s way) young woman who I have never heard of. The relatively brief (pages 76-78) photo story (all Life stories are photo stories), “The Sad Short Story of Viveca Lindfors,” says that despite “a beautiful home, two lovely children, [and] $2,000 a week,” she was “unhappy in Hollywood.” Seems Viveca had left Sweden for America in 1946, following fellow Swedes Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman. But she got miscast in several not-very-good movies and was “fed up” and wanting to return to Sweden. The final line of the story is prototypic Hollywood: “There is always the chance that someone will offer her a good and rewarding role in Hollywood, where even sad storied have happy endings.” (I googled Viveca Lindfors, and was surprised  to learn that she did stay in the U.S., and did end up playing in a number of movies, TV shows, and plays, though I’m not sure any could be called “rewarding.”)

The featured story in the magazine that week was the second installment of “The War Memoirs of Winston Churchill” (pages 39-52, 55-56, 61-62). Churchill was still a major figure in World War II, and publishing his memoir must have been a coup four years after the end of the war.

I knew that I had been born in a snow storm, but according to the article “West Fights Worst Winter In History” (pages 19-23), “In the mountains and on the Great Plains snow had been falling with few letups since Nov. 18.” Most of the dramatic photos – a buried farm, a crashed plane, a marooned couple, marooned sheep – are from Nebraska, but that was just three or four latitudes north of the hospital where I was born. If there’s any significance to the weather that accompanies one’s birth affecting the outcome of one’s person or life, then I’ll bet there’s plenty to mine in that “worst winter in history.”

Another feature story, “Hard Times On Broadway” (pages 87-95), reports that “Too many actors with too few jobs dream and scrabble to keep sock and buskin together.” (I had to google “sock and buskin” to learn that they refer to the two Greek symbols for comedy and tragedy, respectively.) Apparently “not even one out of five of Actors Equity’s 6,000 members [had] theater jobs,” and “Producers who put on 300 plays a season 20 years ago now put on a bare 90.” Ironically, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman – maybe the greatest American drama – had opened a few days before this issue hit the stands, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific – one of the greatest musicals – was to open three weeks later.

I don’t know much about sports in the post-WWII years, but I would have thought that during the winter, basketball would be dominant. I would have been wrong. The only sports story is “Two-Mile Thriller” (pages 67-70), about the Millrose Games, an indoor track meet in Madison Square Garden. Belgium’s Gaston Reiff won the two-mile run, usually “the dullest event on the program,” but that night it “turned out to be the thriller of the evening.” But “U.S. distance-racing prestige was upheld . . . by Don Gehrman,” who “nipped Holland’s Willy Slykhuis at the tape in a 4:09.5-minute mile.” 

As ghostly intriguing as the articles are, though, it’s the many ads – probably half of the magazine comprises ads – that are haunting. An ad for Camel cigarettes reports that “In a recent 30-day test of hundreds of Camel smokers, noted throat specialists reported NOT ONE SINGLE CASE OF THROAT IRRITATION due to smoking CAMELS!” and that “MORE DOCTORS SMOKE CAMELS than any other brand.” Cannon Percale Sheets ask the question “Can wives work money-miracles today?” and answers, “Miracles can happen!” because “Your favorite Cannon Percale Sheets are now COMBSPUN . . . combed till only the long, smooth fibers remain!” Armour offers “8 ideas for better eating – morning, noon and night! . . . All 8 of them – in this free bacon recipe folder!” (Apparently “better eating” didn’t mean healthier eating back then.) 

“Quick, Ladies! Here’s a bargain that’s a beauty” is a headline that draws attention. It turns out to be an offer for “Lovely, all-purpose precision-ground SCISSORS!” for “Only 50¢ (regular value $1.00 or more) AND THE LABELS FROM 2 CANS OF FAMOUS Pard Swift’s Dog Food.” Boasts an ad for Playtex: “It took a research group of chemists, physicists and fashion girdle designers to develop the revolutionary New PLAYTEX Living Girdle.” (It would take them another 60 years to develop Spanx.) The Pacquins Hand Cream ad goes the celebrity endorsement route: “Metropolitan Opera Star Risë Stevens says: ‘for dream hands, Cream your hands.’” (No comment.) A full-page ad for Old Gold cigarettes shows a pack of the cigarettes at the top, and a woman in an apparent snowfall below, and between, the only text: “For a TREAT instead of a TREATMENT . . . light an Old Gold.” (I have no idea what that might mean. I suppose it could refer to lung cancer, but I don’t think so.) I thought the promise in the Firestone ad sounded like fun – “Now you can modernize your car with Firestone SUPER-BALLOONS” – until I read further to discover it wasn’t balloons at all but rather tires.

This is the world I was born into. I have no memory of it, of course. But I do have this issue of Life. And I’d like to think that as my father was in the waiting room that snowy, cold February Sunday morning, smoking his doctor-approved Camels, this is what he was reading.