![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actor S. Z. Sakall "Cuddles" holding shutter release as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-06.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
When Gjon Mili invited celebrities to his studio in 1944 for a session in self-portraiture, the word “selfie” was 70 years from inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary. “Duck face” was nothing more than the mug of a quacking animal, and Kim Kardashian’s father was a newborn baby, 36 years from fathering the future queen of selfies. But one look at the portraits they produced that day, and it’s not hard to imagine the subjects holding an iPhone 6 instead of a remote-controlled shutter release.
Photographic self-portraits date back to 1839, when Robert Cornelius mugged for his camera in the back of his family’s store in Philadelphia. So when Van Johnson and Geraldine Fitzgerald took their own photographs with Mili’s help, they were not pioneers, but participants in the evolution of an art form. And their poses are not so different from those of today’s selfies: Fitzgerald sports a barely-there smirk and Johnson an expression of “gee golly” innocence, actor S.Z. Sakall “cuddles” himself while singer Lauritz Melchior feigns surprise. Their photos make it clear that although the technology we use to capture it has advanced by leaps and bounds, human expression—duck face aside—has changed little over time.
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Photographer Gjon Mili instructing actress Geraldine Fitzgerald on how to take her own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-gjon-mili.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actress Geraldine Fitzgerald holding shutter release as she takes her own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-01.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actor Van Johnson holding shutter release as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-02.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![John Garfield Actor John Garfield posing as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-03.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actress Joyce Reynolds holding shutter release to take her own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-04.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actor Robert Alda posing as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-05.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actor S. Z. Sakall "Cuddles" holding shutter release as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-06.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Actress Larraine Day holding shutter release as she takes her own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-07.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Singer/actor Lauritz Melchior holding shutter release as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-08.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Director Michael Curtiz holding shutter release as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-09.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![MOVIE PEOPLE TAKE OWN PICTURES Makeup artist Perc Westmore posing as he takes his own photograph.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150707-selfies-10.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com