Why Lucille Ball?

MARTHA GRAHAM SWIRLS towards the camera, her body twisted into an impossible arc of grace, seeming acres of white fabric billowing behind her. Gertrude Stein, draped in heavy black velvet, stares at the camera with a superior mixture of anger and amusement. Edna St. Vincent Millay struts militantly right up to the camera, clutching a placard that says "American Honor Dies With Sacco and Vanzetti!" Georgia O'Keefe will not look at the camera--she gazes instead at the dry colorless earth which stretches for miles in all directions.

Those are a few of the best moments contained in the Life Special Report on "Remarkable American Women, 1776-1976." The issue anthologizes photographs of this country's most prominent women, ranging from Susan B.Anthony to Ma Barker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Calamity Jane, Katharine Hepburn and Mae West. Such an endeavor would seem guaranteed of success, but somehow this issue of Life manages to miss its mark. Too many "remarkable" women have been left out, and those included suffer from the four inches of idiotic copy allotted to each entry.

The editors have tried to explain why in their preface:

It was excruciatingly hard work leaving women out. We started with a list of more than a thousand remarkable women, than narrowed it to 300. Painfully, we worked that down to the 166 presented here.

Don't blame us, we tried hard. No criteria for inclusion are offered. Why Calamity Jane and not Annie Oakley? Why Lucille Ball but not Bette Davis? Why Helena Rubinstein and not Diana Vreeland? And for that matter, why Joan Baez at all? And why is the most written about and talked about women of the present day--Jackie Onassis--not even mentioned once? Perhaps to make room for Shirley Temple and Fannie Farmer. This nit-picking, where-is-my-favorite reaction is the natural result of Life's muddied intentions. These are not the most famous American women (who the hell was Claire McCardell?) nor the most exemplary (witness the inclusions of Lizzie Borden and Hetty Green.) The women have been classified under ten major headings, most rather arbitrary, which just makes for more nit-picking. The editors at Time-Life must have had a hard time deciding whether Ayn Rand was a writer or an intellectual, whether Sarah Caldwell was an artist or "a winner in a man's world," whether Louisa May Alcott was a novelist or a "tastemaker." The difficulties of such judgements should have made one thing very clear to them: that most "remarkable" women are remarkable because they defy these classifications, because they have gone beyond the expected realm of action.

The magazine opens with "Legendary Lives: In unique and varied ways they have extended the boundaries of experience." This is perhaps the most discomfiting segment in the issue; this is also the first and last time you are going to see the biographies of Clare Boothe Luce, Lucretia Mott and Janis Joplin on the same page. The next section, "A Share of the Power," includes portraits of women who have succeeded in traditionally masculine areas: politics, publishing, business, etc. The expressions of these women are frighteningly similar mixtures of ambition, confidence, and cold strength.

WILD, WILD WOMEN" features the notorious lives of Lizzie Borden, Ma Barker, and Carry Nation among others. Those who dutifully did their compulsory summer reading and bought a copy of Ragtime can find a shot of Evelyn Nesbit on the stand at Harry K. Thaw's murder trial and discover what all the fuss was about. Mother's Younger Brother should have stayed in the closet. "Noble Causes" documents political activists from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Angela Davis. This is the only section where the photographs just don't do their subjects justice; of the eighteen women included, all but two are seated quietly, staring passively into space.

The pages devoted to "The Creative Impulse" hold some wonderful portraiture; this is the old Life magazine at its best. Marianne Moore poses hesitantly at the Bronx Zoo, obviously more at home with the elephants behind her than the photographer in front of her. Edith Wharton is draped in elegant furs and lace. Here the magazine begins to make sense. Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp are placed opposite each other; Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and Edna St. Vincent Millay share a page. The bond between these women is a real one of spirit and vision, not some strange stew concocted by the editors at Time-Life.

The magazine progresses through athletes, intellectuals, "tastemaker," and at last to "Footlinghts," women of stage, screen and song. These are women who knew how to play up to the camera, and their portraits are full of a charming vanity. An aging Helen Hayes, bedecked in gold satin, diamond jewelry and long white gloves, sits atop a throne set smack in the middle of Broadway. Mae West--well, Mae West is Mae West, and here she is shown staring, almost licking her lips, at some anonymous specimen of beefcake. Barbra Streisand once again arrogantly displays the-nose-I-wouldn't-get-fixed-but-I-became-a-star-anyway-so-there; Marilyn Monroe cuddles in a vulnerable curl; Josephine Baker gives her best come-hither look, clad only in yards and yards of pearls.

"Remarkable Women" wraps up with some uninspiring shots of feminists and the lavish deification of "five great spirits:" Helen Keller, Clara Barton, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson. Back to the safe and approved, back to the biographies that line the shelves of small-town elementary schools. One hundred and fifteen pages, and Eleanor Roosevelt is still the queen of them all. Oh well.

The real pitfall of this issue is its prose, such as this excerpt from the passage on Bessie Smith:

Yes, she died early, in a car crash. But she lived high and hard and with lots of laughs....Yes, Bessie Smith used to sing, with depth and experience.

Or this revealing psychological insight:

Norma Jean Baker was blond, beautiful, naive, self-mocking and vulnerable. Marilyn Monroe was blond, beautiful, sophisticated and the great American symbol of sexual fantasy. Norma Jean demonstrated her acting ability in the confident way she played the part of Marilyn Monroe--to vast material reward and self-destruction. Marilyn Monroe still glitters on the screen. Norma Jean was found dead of an overdose of sleeping pilles at 36.

But the worst of these little biographies cannot detract from these fine portraits of our finest women. The final page of Life's "Remarkable Women," an Avedon shot of Marian Anderson, is worth the two dollar price alone. A handsome woman of talent and strength sings to the camera, her thick black hair flying in the wind, her nose flaring in effort, her eyes closed in ecstasy. And that is all you need to know.