March 15, 1956: "My Fair Lady" & "Forbidden Planet" Premiere

March 15, 1956, 70 years ago: The musical My Fair Lady premieres at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York. Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) based it on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, itself based on a Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he had carved.

Rex Harrison plays Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor in 1912 London, who bets that he can take Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl one step ahead of homelessness, played by Julie Andrews; and, within six months, pass her off as a Duchess at a ball.

Eliza's Cockney accent makes this the greatest challenge of Higgins' career. He accepts her offer of 1 shilling, thinking it as being like 60 or 70 pounds from a millionaire. In 2026 money, that 1 shilling would be about £8.00, or about $11.20. In contrast, £60 would be about £9,000, or about $12,600.

Ultimately, Eliza applies herself out of spite, because Higgins is a misogynist and an elitist who pushes her so hard. Or, as the man himself puts it, "I find the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. And I find that the moment I make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical." 

Spoiler alert: Higgins was already selfish and tyrannical, as seen in his first song, a bigoted piece that asks, "Why can't the English learn to speak?" In it, he insults the Cockneys of London's East End, Yorkshiremen, Cornishmen, the Scots and the Irish, remarking, "There even are places where English completely disappears: Well, in America, they haven't used it for years!"

Act I of the play is about Eliza's transformation. Act II is about her reaction to it, and Higgins' reaction to that. In the original play, Pygmalion, she chooses to marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a well-to-do, well-meaning but not very bright young man who fell for her before the transformation was complete, an "I knew you when" situation.

In the musical, she goes back to Higgins, who will always see her as the flower girl that she was. The play was written for pre-World War I Britain by the egalitarian, socialist Shaw; the musical was written for post-World War II, male-dominant America.

The musical won 6 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and Best Actor for Harrison. It was filmed in 1964, by director George Cukor for Warner Brothers, and won 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, and Best Actor for Harrison.

Audrey Hepburn replaced Andrews as Eliza, because Cukor didn't want an actress who had never acted in a film before. Well, Hepburn became the latest actress to get her singing dubbed by Marni Nixon, and was beaten out for Best Actress by... Andrews, for her 1st film role, Mary Poppins, in which she spectacularly did her own singing.

The Mark Hellinger Theatre was at 237 West 51st Street. In 1989, the building was converted, or so to speak, into The Times Square Church, and is still in use as such today.

George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, Stanley Holloway (Eliza's father, Alfred, in both musical and film) in 1982, Robert Coote (who appeared in the musical as Colonel Hugh Pickering, the linguist who bets that Higgins can't do it, but nonetheless stands up for Eliza) also in 1982, George Cukor in 1983, Alan Jay Lerner in 1986, Frederick Loewe in 1988, Wilfrid Hyde-White (Pickering in the film) in 1991, Audrey Hepburn in 1993, Jeremy Brett (Freddy in the film) in 1995, and John Michael King (Freddy in the musical) in 2008. As of March 15, 2022, Julie Andrews is still alive.

*

Also premiering on March 15, 1956 was the film Forbidden Planet, directed by Fred M. Wilcox. This is the first science fiction film in which humans are depicted traveling in a starship of their own creation, rather than aliens coming to Earth. It is also the first science fiction film set entirely on another world in interstellar space, far away from the planet Earth.

By calling that planet "Altair IV," meaning the 4th planet revolving around the star that Earth astronomers have named Altair, it established the sci-fi concept of doing that for planets, most often used in the Star Trek mythos.

The film marked the debut of Robby the Robot, who would become a science fiction icon, mainly because it was cheaper to put an unknown actor in an already-built robot suit than to design and operate a working robot, or even to make a new robot suit.

Forbidden Planet owes much to William Shakespeare's last great play, The Tempest, with Walter Pidgeon's Dr. Edward Morbius standing in for the wizard Prospero, Anne Francis' Altaira for Miranda, and Robby for Caliban.

It also owes much the writings of psychologist Carl Jung, then still alive. Jung had written of a "collective unconscious." In the film, Dr. Morbius swears he is not the villain, but he proves to be an unwilling one, as his unconscious mind was the main threat. Science fiction had already, in print, tried to challenge the ideas of good and evil, showing that what appears to be the hero might not be, and what appears to be the villain might not be.

And the film reminds us all that Leslie Nielsen, here playing Commander John Adams, was once a great dramatic actor. I am serious, and don't call me "Shirley."

March 15, 1926: Norm Van Brocklin Is Born

March 15, 1926, 100 years ago: Norman Mack Van Brocklin is born in Parade, South Dakota, and grows up in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, California. He left high school to enter the U.S. Navy during World War II, and starred at the University of Oregon, before playing for the Los Angeles Rams, debuting with them in 1949.

This led to perhaps the NFL's 1st great "quarterback controversy," as the Rams already had Bob Waterfield, who had already led them to the NFL Championship in 1945, their last season in Cleveland. In 1949, Waterfield started 11 of 12 games, and the Rams reached the NFL Championship Game, but lost it to the Philadelphia Eagles. In 1950, Van Brocklin started 7 games, Waterfield 5, and again, they reached the Championship Game, losing it to the Cleveland Browns. Both times, Waterfield started, but Van Brocklin did play.

In 1951, Waterfield started 10 games, Van Brocklin only 2. One of those was on September 28, against the woebegone football version of the New York Yankees. He completed 27 of 41 passes for 554 yards. Despite all the advances in the passing game over the last 75 years, that is a single-game record that still stands. Once again, the Rams reached the Championship Game. Once again, head coach Joe Stydahar, previously a Hall of Fame lineman with the Chicago Bears, named Waterfield the starter. This time, the Rams beat the Browns.

In 1952, Van Brocklin started 7 games, Waterfield 5. Waterfield then retired. Van Brocklin got them back to the Championship Game in 1955. In 1958, he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles. In training camp in 1959, a young tackle was injured, and Van Brocklin taught him how to watch film. That tackle never played a down of pro ball, but a coach was born that day: John Madden. He also tutored the Eagles' young backup quarterback, future Hall-of-Famer Christian "Sonny" Jurgensen.

I think that's Ray Nitschke,

the Packers' Hall of Fame linebacker, behind him.

In 1960, Van Brocklin led the Eagles to a 12-2 record, winning the NFL Championship Game over the Green Bay Packers, 17-13 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. This made him the 1st quarterback to lead 2 different teams to the NFL title. There have been 2 since: Peyton Manning and Tom Brady *.

After that game, Van Brocklin retired as a player, and, with Eagles head coach Buck Shaw also retiring, fully expected to be named head coach. He wasn't, and 1960 remained their last NFL Championship for 57 years. The Curse of the Dutchman? Oddly, when they won again in the 2017 season, it was in part because they had to change quarterbacks late in the season, as Carson Wentz got hurt, and Nick Foles led them the rest of the way.

For the 1961 season, Van Brocklin was named the 1st head coach of the expansion Minnesota Vikings, leading them through 1966. He tutored their 1st starting quarterback, future Hall-of-Famer Fran Tarkenton. From 1968 to 1974, he coached the Atlanta Falcons. He never reached the Playoffs as a coach.

Tarkenton and Van Brocklin

He died on May 2, 1983, only 57 years old, after battling brain cancer: After leaving the hospital, he said he got a brain transplant: "They gave me a sportswriter's brain, to make sure I got one that hadn't been used." A 9-time Pro Bowler, he is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Oddly, neither the Rams nor the Eagles have retired his Number 11.

March 15, 1946: The Arrest of "Axis Sally"

March 15, 1946, 80 years ago: Mildred Gillars, the Nazi propagandist known as "Axis Sally," is arrested.

She was born in Portland, Maine on November 29, 1900, and grew up in Bellevue, Ohio, about halfway between Cleveland and Toledo. He studied drama at Ohio Wesleyan University, dropped out to move to New York, and her level of success in theater suggested she shouldn't have dropped out.

She moved to Paris and Algiers, and got a job as an English teacher at the Berlitz School in Berlin in 1934. When the Nazis started World War II in 1939, the U.S. government told its citizens to leave all German territories. Her fiancé was a German citizen, who said if she went home, he would divorce her for abandonment, and, under German law, she would get nothing. She stayed. He was sent to the Eastern Front, where he died for his Fatherland.

Gillars was working as an announcer for German State Radio. At first, her broadcasts weren’t political, but did start with the words, "This is Berlin calling." In 1942, she started fooling around with the program director, Max Koischwitz, who had lived in the U.S. and even became an American citizen, but was deported after his rabid anti-Semitism went too far.

Together, they launched a new show called Home Sweet Home, with Mildred as co-star, to broadcast Nazi propaganda. She told U.S. soldiers things like how their wives and girlfriends were finding men who were 4-F in the Army medical offices but 1-A in bed. She told the boys their girls wouldn't want them when they came home, especially "if you boys get all mutilated, and do not return in one piece."

Once, while on the air, she called herself "the Irish type... a real Sally." Often called "The Bitch of Berlin" by the G.I.s, she was "Axis Sally" from then on.

The tide turned in 1944. On June 6, the D-Day invasion came. On August 25, Paris was liberated. And on August 31, Max died of tuberculosis. Mildred was alone, and, as it turned out, she couldn't do the broadcasts very well when she did them alone. She made her last broadcast on May 6, 1945, 2 days before V-E Day.

She stayed in Berlin, but U.S. authorities tracked her down, and arrested her on March 15, 1946. It took until January 25, 1949 for her trial to begin. Her lawyers said that, while her broadcast stated unpopular opinions, they did not amount to treasonable conduct, and that she was under the "hypnotic influence" of Koischwitz -- who, of course, was dead, and thus unable to defend himself against that charge, regardless of whether it was true.

But with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) having recorded her broadcasts, the evidence against her was conclusive enough to convict her of one count of treason on March 10. She was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison, and fined $10,000.

She served 12 years in prison, and was paroled. Having converted to Catholicism in prison, she returned to Ohio, and taught German, French and music at a Catholic girls' high school. But she never renounced her Nazi beliefs. Certainly, unlike Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a.k.a. "Tokyo Rose," she was no victim of circumstance: Mildred Gillars chose to be a Fascist pig. Axis Sally joined her Führer in the ultimate bunker on June 25, 1988, at the age of 87, long forgotten.

Actress Meadow Williams financed the 2021 film American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally, and played the title role. Al Pacino played her defense attorney. This time, he did not tell the court, "This whole trial is out of order!"

Vance the Bully's Flunky

Look, at this point, to paraphrase the opening of the TV show Castle, there are two kinds of people: Psychopaths, and people who want Donald Trump out of the Presidency.

The problem is, that would leave "JD Vance," as he currently writes his name, with no periods on the initials, like CC Sabathia, as President. And, given who he owes, the tech bros, he might be as problematic as Trump, who owes the Russians and the Saudis.

But check out the pictures above. The picture on the left makes him look like one of the flunkies that always hung around school bullies. Those bastards always had them. Remember? Scut Farkas of A Christmas Story had two of them, and Biff Tannen of Back to the Future had three. Two or three was standard for them.

Vance is a flunky to Trump the bully. As are Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Pete Hegseth, etc.

But those flunkies never managed to succeed the bully. Even in Heathers, it didn't quite work. Then again, that film's real villain was also named J.D.

Vance is a complete phony, always re-inventing himself to please whoever can help him. That's one thing he has in common with Trump: Trump takes the last thing somebody told him that he liked -- whether it's "Wind power causes cancer," or "The immigrants are eating the dogs, they're eating the cats," or something else that's too fucking stupid to take seriously -- and then he tells the media, often preceding it with, "You know, a lot of people are saying... " when he only heard it from one person.

The current rumor is that the Republicans will wait to allow Trump to be removed through impeachment sometime after the midpoint of his term, January 20, 2027, so that the conditions of the 22nd Amendment will allow Vance -- who, at age 42, would be the youngest President ever, breaking Theodore Roosevelt's record, as long as he takes office before June 20, 2027 -- to run for a full 1st term in 2028 and a full 2nd term in 2032.

The problem with that is, the Democrats are almost certainly going to take the House of Representatives in this November's election. They have a much less likely chance of taking the Senate. But impeachment not long after the change of power on January 3, 2027 seems likely. Would they get enough Republican Senators to make 67, a 2/3rds majority, to remove him at that point? Or would they rely on the Cabinet to invoke Article 4 of the 25th Amendment, and remove him for unfitness, when Trump seems to have built a Cabinet based on loyalty, to guard against that very possibility?

We will see.

March 12, 1956: The Southern Manifesto

Southern Senators, led by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina

March 12, 1956, 70 years ago: The Declaration of Constitutional Principles is signed, by 19 members of the U.S. Senate and 82 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all from States that had been in the Confederate States of America.

Since there was not a goddamned thing about it that was constitutional, it became known as the Southern Manifesto, allowing people on the right side of the struggle for civil rights to do what these rednecks had been doing to them for years: Comparing them to Communists.

The main author was Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In 1948, as his State's Governor, he had briefly left the Democratic Party to run as the nominee for President of the States' Rights Party. From that point onward, Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights were known as "Dixiecrats."

It was written in response to the unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, 2 years earlier, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

The Declaration included these words: "The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law."

This was a bald-faced lie: The decision was warranted, and it was a strike against naked power, in the form of "Jim Crow" laws that overturned established law.

It also said: "The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the States."

This was true, but it covered up the text of the 14th Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This is known as the Equal Protection Clause.

It also said: "This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding."

This was a lie: There had not been friendship. And the Court's decision didn't create confusion; it clarified the law.

Three Democratic Senators from Southern States did not sign: Albert Gore and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and the Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas. In the House, 16 of 21 Democrats from Texas refused to sign it, including the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, and a future Speaker, Jim Wright. Also refusing to sign were 3 of the 11 Democrats from North Carolina; and 1 of the 7 from Florida, Dante Fascell.

The following year, Thurmond launched the longest filibuster the Senate had yet seen, in a vain attempt to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, he became the 1st Dixiecrat to switch to the Republican Party. There would be many more.

Thurmond turned out to be the last-serving member who signed the Southern Manifesto, serving until 2003, shortly after his 100th birthday, and dying a few months later. The last surviving signer was Richard Poff of Virginia, who died in 2011.

The last-serving member who refused to sign was Jack Brooks of Texas, who served until 1994. The last surviving refuser was the aforementioned Jim Wright, who died in 2015.

March 11, 1996: The Montreal Forum Closes

Five Montreal Canadiens legends. Left to right:

Guy Carbonneau, Guy Lafleur, Jean Béliveau,

Maurice Richard and Pierre Turgeon.

March 11, 1996, 30 years ago: The last hockey game is played at the Montreal Forum, the greatest of all hockey arenas.

It had opened on November 29, 1924. The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Toronto St. Patricks, the team that would become the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-1. Billy Boucher scored the arena's 1st goal. He was 1 of 4 brothers in the NHL. Frank was the original star of the New York Rangers. Georges "Buck" Boucher starred for the Ottawa Senators. Frank and Buck both made the Hockey Hall of Fame. Billy was known for his rough play with the Canadiens, and Bobby Boucher (not to be confused with Adam Sandler's character in The Waterboy) barely played in the NHL, also for the Canadiens.

Originally, the Forum wasn't meant to be the Canadiens' home. It was meant to be the home of the Montreal Maroons, a newly-founded team, while the Canadiens continued to play home games at the Mount-Royal Arena. The Maroons' 1st game at the Forum came on December 3, but they lost to the Hamilton Tigers, 2-0.

The Maroons won the Stanley Cup in 1926. For the next season, the Canadiens moved in, and the Forum was busier than ever: Its 9,300 seats played host to the Canadiens or the Maroons every Thursday and Saturday, the Quebec Senior Hockey League on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the Quebec Junior Hockey League on Mondays, the Bank League on Tuesdays, and the Railways and Telephone League on Fridays.

The Canadiens' famed "CH" logo has confused people for over a century. It is short for the team's official name, le Club de hockey Canadien. Madison Square Garden president George "Tex" Rickard, boxing promoter and founder of the Rangers, probably without knowing the truth, told a reporter that the "H" stood for "Habitant," a term used to describe farmers in early Quebec. Ever since, the Canadiens have been known as Les Habitants, or the Habs for short. The chant became, "Go, Habs, go!"

The Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 1916 and 1924, before the Forum opened. They won it in 1930 and 1931, led by Howie Morenz, the man eventually known as "the Babe Ruth of Hockey." In 1937, Morenz broke his leg during a game, was hospitalized, and died of a heart attack in the hospital. A benefit game was played at the Forum, between a combined team of Canadiens and Maroons against a team made up of players from the rest of the League. A few months later, at the end of the 1937-38 season, the Maroons went out of business, due to the Great Depression.

In 1942, Maurice Richard arrived on the Canadiens' roster. "The Rocket" led them to 8 Stanley Cups. In 1953, along came Jean Béliveau, and he led them to 10. Richard's last 5 and Béliveau's 1st 5, from 1956 to 1960, were the only instance ever of 5 straight Cup wins.

They followed the 1955 season, in which an incident in Boston led to Richard's suspension for the Playoffs, which led to a riot inside the Forum that spilled out into the streets. French-Canadians, for whom the Canadiens, and Richard in particular, were a point of pride were angry at Clarence Campbell, the NHL's Anglophone President, suspending him, thinking he was trying to fix the Cup for an Anglophone team. Richard went on radio and told the fans to stop, that he would take his punishment, support the team to win the Cup this time, and play to win it in the future.

They lost the Finals to the Detroit Red Wings, but with Richard joined by his brother Henri, Béliveau, defenseman Doug Harvey and goalie Jacques Plante, won those next 5 Cups. Henri actually topped his brother, and Béliveau, by being a member of 11 Cup-winning teams. In all of North American sports, only Bill Russell of the NBA's Boston Celtics matched Henri Richard's 11 World Championships.

In 1968, the Forum was seriously renovated, and expanded, to a seating capacity of 16,259, plus 1,700 in standing room, for a total of 17,959. The support poles were removed. One thing that was retained: Whereas most arenas used a horn to signal the end of a period, the Forum used a high-pitched siren, which was kept after the move to the Bell Centre.

In 1972, the Forum hosted the 1st game of the 8-game "Summit Series" between Canada and the Soviet Union, which the Soviets won in a 7-3 shocker. Canada would win the series with dramatic wins in Moscow in Games 6, 7 and 8.

From 1976 to 1979, the Canadiens had a run of 4 straight Cups, led by a slew of Hall-of-Famers: Forwards Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Steve Shutt and Jacques Lemaire; defensemen Larry Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe; and goaltender Ken Dryden.

Between them, Morenz, Maurice Richard, Béliveau and Lafleur were, effectively, the Mount Rushmore of hockey. They were a foursome that could only be matched in North American sports by the Yankees' Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. (The Celtics? Bill Russell and Larry Bird, but who are the other two? Bob Cousy and John Havlicek? Not the same. No football team can match it, either.)

From 1956 to 1979, the Canadiens won 15 of the 24 available Stanley Cups. Their 1979 Cup was their 22nd, matching the Yankees for the most World Championships in North American sports. They won a 23rd in 1986 and a 24th in 1993. The Yankees didn't win their 24th World Series until 1998, surpassing them with a 25th in 1999.

In the 1976 Olympics, the Forum hosted basketball, boxing, volleyball, handball, and gymnastics, including Nadia Comaneci registering the 1st perfect 10 in Olympic history -- 7 of them.

The Beatles played the Forum on September 8, 1964. Other notable concerts there included Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975, Bob Marley in 1978, and, all in separate shows in 1981, Rush, Queen, and the Jacksons.

But there was only so much that could be done with a 1924-built arena. So construction began on a new arena. And on March 11, 1996, the Forum's final game was played, against the Dallas Stars. They were chosen as the opponent because their Captain was a former Canadiens' Captain, Guy Carbonneau. Maurice Richard, Béliveau and Lafleur participated in a ceremonial puck-drop with Carbonneau and Canadiens Captain Pierre Turgeon.

Turgeon opened the scoring, Mark Recchi made it 2-0, Derian Hatcher got the Stars on the board, Saku Koivu scored, and the last goal at the shrine of hockey was scored by... Andrei Kovalenko, a Russian right wing of Ukrainian descent, at the 13:56 mark of the 3rd period. Final score: Canadiens 4, Stars 1.

In the Canadiens' locker room, replicated at the new arena, the lockers were topped by the faces of the team's members of the Hockey Hall of Fame. On each side, one in English and one in French, are words from Canadian Army doctor John McCrae's World War I poem In Flanders Fields: "To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high." (En Francais: Nos bras meurtris vous tendent le flambeau; a vous toujours de la porter bien haut.)

After the last game at the Forum, a symbolic torch was passed from the earliest living Canadiens Captain, Butch Bouchard, to each succeeding Captain: Bouchard, Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau, Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer, Serge Savard, Bob Gainey, Carbonneau, up to Turgeon. (Kirk Muller and Mike Keane, each serving as Captain between Carbonneau and Turgeon, were playing with other teams, and thus unavailable.)

When Rocket Richard, the most popular player in Canadien history, was introduced, he got a standing ovation that brought him to tears. Given the uniform number he made famous, it was appropriate that it lasted for 9 minutes.

The Canadiens played an away game on March 13, a 1-1 draw with the New Jersey Devils at the Meadowlands, before going back to Montreal to play the 1st game at the Molson Centre, since renamed the Bell Centre, about a mile to the east, in Centre-Ville (downtown). In a special pregame ceremony, Turgeon took the torch from the last game, and lit a new one inside the arena. With Vincent Damphousse scoring the 1st and 3rd goals in the new arena, the Canadiens beat the New York Rangers, 4-2.

Over the next 4 years, a construction company owned by 1950s Canadien Hall-of-Famer Dickie Moore converted the Forum into retail space, including a shopping mall and a movie theater. A small bleacher section, and a bench with a statue of Maurice Richard, are roughly where center ice was. 

The repurposing of the Forum helped to inspire a similar construction job at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, after it closed in 1999. Those arenas still stand, unlike the other "Original Six" arenas: The old Madison Square Garden was torn down in 1968, the Olympia Stadium in Detroit in 1986, the Chicago Stadium in 1995, and the Boston Garden in 1998.

March 10, 1936: Dorothea Lange's Photo of Florence Owens

March 10, 1936, 90 years ago: The San Francisco News publishes Migrant Mother, a photograph by Dorothea Lange. It becomes one of the foremost images of the Great Depression.

Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn was born on May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey, and grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. When she was 7 years old, she contracted polio, which left her with a permanent limp on her right leg. When she was 12, her father left the family, and she took her mother's maiden name, Lange.

In spite of her poor background, she was admitted to Columbia University, and became a photographer. In 1920, she married the noted western painter Maynard Dixon, with whom she had 2 sons. Her photography studio in San Francisco supported her family for the next 15 years. But at the onset of the Great Depression, she turned her lens from the studio to the street, including this one, in San Francisco in 1933, titled White Angel Breadline. (The White Angel wasn't the name of the soup kitchen, it was the nickname of the woman who ran it.)

She was hired to take pictures for the Farm Security Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs. In 1935, she divorced Dixon, and a few weeks later, married Paul Schuster Taylor, a professor of economics at the University of California.

For the next 5 years, they traveled through the California coast and the Midwest, documenting rural poverty, in particular the exploitation of sharecroppers and migrant laborers. Taylor interviewed subjects and gathered economic data, while Lange produced photographs and accompanying data.

Her work was distributed to newspapers across the country, and the poignant images became icons of the era. None more so than Migrant Mother.

Florence Leona Christie was born on September 1, 1903, somewhere in Oklahoma, while it was still a Territory. Both her parents were of Cherokee descent. As with Lange, her father left the family. At 17, she married Cleo Owens, a Missouri farmer. Like many farmers in the South and Midwest, as depicted on John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and the film based on it, they moved to the Sacramento Valley in California, where they became migrant farmers. In 1931, Cleo died of tuberculosis. At the time, Florence was pregnant with their 6th child.

In 1933, she had a 7th child (the father is not publicly known), returned to Oklahoma for a time, and then was joined by her parents as they migrated to Shafter, California, near Bakersfield. There, she met Jim Hill, with whom she eventually had an 8th, a 9th and a 10th child. She said: "I worked in hospitals. I tended bar. I cooked. I worked in the fields. I done a little bit of everything to make a living for my kids."

On March 6, 1936 -- the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo, not that Florence and her kids cared enough to "Remember the Alamo" -- they were on U.S. Route 101, heading for Watsonville, "where they had hoped to find work in the lettuce fields of the Pajaro Valley." The car's timing chain snapped, and they coasted to a stop just inside a pea-pickers' camp in Nipomo. They were shocked to find as many as 3,500 people camping there. The crops had been destroyed by freezing rain, leaving them without work or pay.

While Jim Hill, her partner, and 2 of her sons went into town to get parts to repair the car, she and some of the children set up a temporary camp. As she waited, Dorothea Lange drove up, and started taking photos of Florence and her family, 7 pictures in 10 minutes. Two of the photos, which were not published, showed Florence breast-feeding a child. Her note on the best-known picture read, getting the month wrong: "Destitute peapickers in California; a 32 year old mother of seven children. February 1936."

Dorothea said, "I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food."

Troy Owens, one of Thompson's sons, disputed this: "There's no way we sold our tires, because we didn't have any to sell. The only ones we had were on the Hudson, and we drove off in them. I don't believe Dorothea Lange was lying. I just think she had one story mixed up with another. Or she was borrowing to fill in what she didn't have."

Four days later, The San Francisco News published the picture, labeling it Migrant Mother. Dorothea sent the photos there before even sending them to the Resettlement Administration. Within days, the pea-picker camp received 20,000 pounds of food from the federal government. Just their luck, Florence and her family had moved on by the time the food arrived.

The family settled in Modesto, California in 1945. After World War II, Florence met and married hospital administrator George Thompson. This brought her far greater financial security than she had previously enjoyed.

As Lange was funded by the government when she took the picture, the image was public domain, and she was not entitled to royalties. However, the picture did help make her a celebrity, and earned her "respect from her colleagues." She continued to work for the federal government through World War II, then taught photography in the San Francisco Bay Area. She died of cancer on October 11, 1965, at age 70.

Roy Stryker, Dorothea's boss at the Farm Security Administration in 1936, called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era. But the Mother's identity was lost until 1978, when Emmett Corrigan of the Modesto Bee tracked her down. He quoted her as saying, "I wish she hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."

Florence Owens Thompson, 1978

Florence Owens Thompson, as she was known by then, died on September 16, 1983, of heart trouble, in Scotts Valley, California, across the State from San Francisco, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world. She was 80.