--- description: Allan Grant's portraits of the stars of the Fifties' and Sixties' highlight his ability to capture something genuine in Hollywood. title: Allan Grant: LIFE Magazine's Great Chronicler of Hollywood image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6be083cd3b5caf16/69877c1255a859786da85797/150127-allan-grant-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Allan Grant: LIFE Magazine's Great Chronicler of Hollywood by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 12, 2012 2:00 PM CUT  Audrey Hepburn, 1956. Audrey Hepburn, 1956.Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 12, 2012 2:00 PM CUT As a boy, Allan Grant dreamed of becoming an aeronautical engineer. When his career path took a different route, the flying industry’s loss became the photography world’s—and, specifically, LIFE magazine’s—gain. If any photographer ever captured the lighter side of show business, it was the confident New York native who, as a teen, traded a model airplane that he’d built for a pocket Kodak camera, and never looked back.  Wong Maye-E—AP Wong Maye-E—AP A LIFE staffer from 1947 until the late 1960s, Grant covered the entertainment world from the inside. His unique blend of cool appraisal and obvious affection for (most) of his subjects went a long way toward making the stars seem just as quirky and approachable as the rest of us mortals. But he was hardly a sycophantic “celebrity photographer,” and Grant (1919 – 2008) was perfectly aware of his own skills as a photographer, and a newsman. When asked in an early 1990s interview by another long-time LIFE staffer, John Loengard, what kind of photographer he thought he was, Grant replied with a refreshing directness: “I would say a good one, for starters. I stayed \[at LIFE\] for a long time. I was very versatile; I did everything.” That he did. While particularly known for his winning portraits of showbiz royalty—as the pictures in this gallery demonstrate—when called upon Grant was a perfectly adept chronicler of harder news. His portraits of Marina Oswald made shortly after her husband shot President Kennedy, for example, captured a personal side of that epic, era-defining story that few other media outlets could touch. His pictures of atomic tests and, especially, their aftermath in the early 1950s managed to add a human dimension to an issue that frequently felt, by turns, too clinical and too terrifying for the average citizen to grasp. But it was, in the end, Grant’s portraits of the stars of the Fifties’ and Sixties’ that showed his real ability to get close to people, and capture something genuine, if fleeting, about the rich and famous in their unguarded moments. Shortly after Grant died in 2008, Dick Stolley, who was LIFE’s Los Angeles bureau chief in the early ’60s and later served as the magazine’s managing editor, pointed out in a statement that Allan Grant was “very handsome and glamorous, two virtues that made him popular in Hollywood.” Handsome, glamorous _and_ supremely talented. Some guys have all the luck. _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at_ [_@LizabethRonk_](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk "undefined")_._  Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly wait backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre during the 28th Annual Academy Awards, 1956. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Audrey Hepburn, 1956. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Senator Richard Nixon on the roof of his home in Los Angeles, trying to douse fires caused by a brush blaze, 1961. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Dean Martin reads lines with Shirley MacLaine, 1958. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Dean Martin relaxes with his sons at home, 1958. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Angie Dickinson on set of Rio Bravo, 1958. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Kirk Douglas, 1949. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Groucho Marx in rehearsal, 1960. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Chico and Harpo Marx, 1959. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Harpo Marx, 1948. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, 1958. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Paul Newman having make-up removed on the set of The Battler (TV play), 1955. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Buster Keaton and Donald O'Connor rehearse for a movie based on Keaton's life, 1956. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Cecil B. DeMille, Billy Wilder and Gloria Swanson during the filming of Sunset Boulevard, 1949. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  James Dean on location for the movie Giant, 1956. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bob Hope, 1962. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Elizabeth Taylor at a party after winning the Oscar for her performance in BUtterfield 8, 1961. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty at the Academy Awards, 1962. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre during the 28th Annual Academy Awards, 1956. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Dorothy Dandridge at home, 1954. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Dizzy Gillespie during a jam session, 1948. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bob Hope (right) and Frank Sinatra rehearse for The Bob Hope Show, 1962. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Sammy Davis Sr., Sammy Davis Jr. and Will Mastin on stage at Ciro's in West Hollywood, 1955. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bobby Darin in his dressing room, 1959. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Ella Fitzgerald, 1958. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Actress-model Suzy Parker, 1957. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Edith Piaf caught in a montage of expressions and gestures while singing during her performance at New York's Versailles nightclub, 1952. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Shelley Winters in a booth with mirrors, 1949. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Marcel Duchamp with Dada artwork, 1953. Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3683932/allan-grant-life-magazines-great-chronicler-of-hollywood/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3683932/allan-grant-life-magazines-great-chronicler-of-hollywood/"},"headline":"Allan Grant: LIFE Magazine's Great Chronicler of Hollywood","datePublished":"2012-10-12T14:00:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:01.050Z","description":"Allan Grant's portraits of the stars of the Fifties' and Sixties' highlight his ability to get close to people and capture something genuine, if fleeting, about the rich and famous in their unguarded moments.","url":"https://time.com/3683932/allan-grant-life-magazines-great-chronicler-of-hollywood/","keywords":["Hollywood","photography","LIFE Magazine","allan grant"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6be083cd3b5caf16/69877c1255a859786da85797/150127-allan-grant-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ben Cosgrove","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6be083cd3b5caf16/69877c1255a859786da85797/150127-allan-grant-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Audrey Hepburn 1956","caption":"Audrey Hepburn, 1956.","creditText":"Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3683932/allan-grant-life-magazines-great-chronicler-of-hollywood/","name":"Allan Grant: LIFE Magazine's Great Chronicler of Hollywood"}}]}] ```