LIFE With Elizabeth II: Rare and Classic Photos of the Queen
LIFE With Elizabeth II: Rare and Classic Photos of the Queen
2 minute read
Queen Elizabeth II ("a little fagged after four days of royal touring," as LIFE put it in its Dec. 7, 1953, issue) prepares to speak at University of the West Indies, Jamaica, 1953.Cornell Capa—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Anyone who has remained in power for longer than many people remain alive — even if that power is far more symbolic than practical — is worth paying attention to. And when it comes to England’s Elizabeth II, paying attention is something the world has been doing for a long, long time.
“Her current Majesty,” TIME’s Belinda Luscombe once noted, “is very likely the most portrayed woman on the planet. Billions of stamps, millions of coins and notes and hundreds of thousands of postcards bear her likeness. Her face, especially in profile, is recognized in every English-speaking land and is ubiquitous in several. Hers is not the exotic, come-hither face of a Marilyn or an Angelina. It’s the face of distant historic authority, a literal figurehead, having no real power but oodles of symbolic supremacy.”
Here, LIFE.com offers a series of informal portraits of the Queen, including several that never ran in the magazine. And while some of these images do convey “oodles of symbolic supremacy,” it’s also worth noting that, in at least a few of these shots, there’s also a flicker of something that one hardly ever associates with Elizabeth: namely, a quite self-aware and yet wry sense of fun.
Now that’s something to celebrate.
Princess Margaret (left), the future Queen Elizabeth II (third from left) and the Queen Mother (third from right) with the Grenadier guards on the occasion of Princess Elizabeth's birthday, 1942.David E. Scherman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II ("a little fagged after four days of royal touring," as LIFE put it in its Dec. 7, 1953, issue) prepares to speak at University of the West Indies, Jamaica, 1953.Cornell Capa—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II watches a University of Maryland vs. University of North Carolina football game at Maryland's Byrd Stadium during her 1957 official visit to the United States.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth with Prince Charles and Elizabeth II at Princess Margaret's wedding, 1960.Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II speaking at a State Dinner in Ghana, 1961.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II shakes hands with a well-wisher while standing next to the General and Governor of Bermuda, Sir Alexander Hood, 1961.Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II upon her arrival in India in 1961, the first British monarch to visit since George V in 1911. Hank Walker—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II during a visit to Sudan, 1964.John Loengard—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II in Ethiopia, 1965.John Loengard—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II in Ethiopia, 1965.John Loengard—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II in Ethiopia, 1965.John Loengard—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II (right) and Prince Philip on a tour of Trinidad and Tobago, 1966.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II during her 1966 tour of the Caribbean.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
