The Century City mall, selected for its futuristic appearance, was a primary battleground in the plot. LIFE staff photographer Ralph Crane came to the set and took pictures of the costumed actors in the mall, trying on shoes and making eyes at the lingerie store display, as well as eating in the mess hall with their masks half off. The pictures make for easy laughs, capturing the kind of shenanigans that help liven up a fourth Apes film in as many years.

But when the movie came out, LIFE reviewer Richard Schickel was not amused. In the magazine’s Aug. 11, 1972 issue the critic lumped Conquest in with some other film sequels which hit the screens that summer and said, “They’re not really different from—and certainly not better than—their progenitors. Your response to what went before can safely guide you through, or better yet around, this new batch.”

Conquest was followed by the fifth and final film of the original run in the series, Battle for the Planet of the Apes. After that the franchise took a well-deserved breather on the big screen. In 2001 Tim Burton tried a remake with Planet of the Apes, with only middling results. But a 2011 reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, connected better with audiences, spawning its own run of sequels, though this group was, wisely, little more spaced out. The fourth film of this latest group, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, is slated to come out in May 2024.

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the filming of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, at a mall in Century City, Los Angeles.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post “Planet of the Apes” Goes to a ’70s Mall appeared first on LIFE.

LIFE also had a big story on Marjorie Sutton of Los Angeles. Sutton was a 32-year-old mother of four with an amazingly busy life. Sutton married her husband George when both were in high school—he was 17, she was 16. He worked at his father’s Ford agency, while she had four children and handed the home duties.

In the photo captions in the LIFE archives, Sutton is repeatedly described as the “ideal housewife,” suggesting that was the guiding idea behind the assignment. Though if that’s the case, the magazine’s editors reeled in their assessment a tad before going to press, simply headlining the piece, “Busy Wife’s Achievements.”

However you describe her, the list of activities that Sutton had the time, energy and aptitude for suggest she was some kind of Superwoman:

She is a sponsor of the Campfire Girls, serves on PTA committees, helps raise funds for Centinela Hospitals and Goodwill Industries, sings in the choir at Hollywood’s First Presbyterian, and inevitably is drawn into many of her husband’s civic interests. But Marge Sutton thinks of herself primarily as a housewife and, having stepped from high school into marriage, has made a career out of running her home briskly as well. She does much of the cooking, makes clothes for her four children (ages 6-14) and for herself and, as a hostess, she entertains an endless stream of guests—1,500 a year, she estimates.

If it all sounds a little improbable, it should be noted that Marge did have had a maid helping out. Still, the photos by LIFE’s Ralph Crane show a woman with her hands full. Sutton is seen driving the carpool, shopping for groceries, sewing her children’s clothes, singing in the choir and also serving on the church decorations committee, in addition to caring for her four children and also the family dog.

One photo laden with symbolism shows her driving the family’s 1921 Model T Ford, which the Suttons apparently owned for kicks (Marge is seen driving a regular sedan in the carpool shots). In the Model T, Marge is the one with her hands on the wheel, while her family is either in the seats or standing on the car’s running boards. “She’d be a racer if I let her,” husband George told LIFE.

The most atypical photo of Sutton is one which did not run in the magazine. This picture shows her at night, floating in the pool behind her house, all by herself. It’s the one photo which suggests she might ever grow tired or need a few moments alone.

Marge Sutton, star of a 1956 LIFE story on the ideal housewife.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton drove a 1921 Model T Ford with son Gart beside her, daughter Christie in back, and husband George and children Marshall and Lolly on the running boards, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton with husband George, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton with son and dog, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton drove the high school carpool, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton, star of LIFE story on the ideal housewife, shopping for groceries, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton pinned the hem of her daughter Christies’ dress while her daughter Sally watched, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton with her son in their Los Angeles home, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton helped her daughter Sally with her homework, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton talked about PTA business on the phone while removing a shirt from her son Gart, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton cleaned her son Gart’s fingernails on a Saturday night, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton, wearing a dress she made herself, has a bracelet fastened by husband George as they prepare to go out, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton sings in her church choir, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton, the decorations chairman at her church, worked on the main altar, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton pledged allegiance with her son’s Cub Scout pack, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton and her family dined out at a buffet, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton and her family read the Sunday comics, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton and her four children enjoyed the pool at their Los Angeles home, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton and her family enjoyed the pool at their Los Angeles home, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton and husband George enjoy their time on the tennis court, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton attended her twice-weekly trampoline session with instructor Joe Smith at the YMCA in Inglewood, California. LIFE wrote in 1956 that Sutton’s interest in the trampoline “started during a `slim and trim’ class which she took at the Y to help preserve her size 12 figure.”

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton decorates the Christmas tree, a 16-foot fir that the family cut itself in the San Bernardino Mountains, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton and family decorated their Christmas tree, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton sews and sits with her husband by the fire, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marge Sutton enjoyed a late night swim at her Los Angeles home, 1956.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Meet Marge Sutton, LIFE’s Ultimate Housewife appeared first on LIFE.

A year after the flames were put out and the smoke cleared from the southern California sky, LIFE revisited the scene of the devastation for a “special section” in its July 15, 1966, issue that the magazine called “Watts: Still Seething.” A good part of that special section featured a series of color photos made by Bill Ray on the streets of Watts: pictures of stylish, even dapper, young men making and hurling Molotov cocktails; of children at play in torched streets and rubble-strewn lots; of wary police and warier residents; of a community struggling to save itself from drugs, gangs, guns, idleness and an enduring, corrosive despair.

In that July 1966 issue, LIFE introduced Ray’s photographs, and Watts itself, in a tone that left no doubt that, whatever else might have happened in the months since the streets were on fire, the future of the district was hardly certain, and the rage that fueled the conflagration had hardly abated:

Before last August the rest of Los Angeles had never heard of Watts. Today, a rock thrown through a Los Angeles store window brings the fearful question: “Is this the start of the next one?” It brings the three armed camps in Los Angeles the police, white civilians, the Negroes face to face for a tense flickering moment. . . .
Whites still rush to gun stores each time a new incident hits the papers. A Beverly Hills sporting goods shop has been sold out of 9mm automatics for months, and the waiting list for pistols runs several pages.
Last week a Negro showed a reporter a .45 caliber submachine gun. “There were 99 more in this shipment,” he said, “and they’re spread around to 99 guys with cars.”
“We know it don’t do no good to burn Watts again,” a young Negro says. “Maybe next time we go up to Beverly Hills.”
Watts seethes with resentments. There is anger toward the paternalism of many job programs and the neglect of Watts needs. There is no public hospital within eight miles and last month Los Angeles voters rejected a proposed $12.3 million bond issue to construct one. When a 6-month-old baby died not long ago because of inadequate medical facilities, the mother’s grief was echoed by a crowd’s outrage. “If it was your baby,” said a Negro confronting a white, “you’d have an ambulance in five minutes.”
Unemployment and public assistance figures invite disbelief in prosperous California. In Watts 24% of the residents were on some form of relief a year ago and that percentage still stands. In Los Angeles the figure is 5%.
[It] takes longer to build a society than to burn one, and fear will be a companion along the way to improvements. “I had started to say it is a beautiful day,” Police Inspector John Powers said, looking out a window, “but beautiful days bring people out and that makes me wish we had rain and winter year-round.”

For his part, Bill Ray, a staff photographer for LIFE from the mid-1960s until the magazine’s demise in the early 1970s, recalled the Watts assignment clearly, and fondly:

“In the mid-nineteen-sixties [Ray told LIFE.com], I shot two major assignments for LIFE in southern California, one after the other, that involved working with young men who were volatile and dangerous. One group was the Hells Angels of San Bernardino the early, hard-core San Berdoo chapter of the gang and the other were the young men who had taken part in the Watts riots the year before.
I did not try to dress like them, act like them or pretend to be tough. I showed great interest in them, and treated them with respect. The main thing was to convince them that I had no connection with the police. The thing that surprised me the most was that, in both cases, as I spent more time with them and got to know them better, I got to like and respect many of them quite a lot. There was a humanity there that we all have inside us. Meeting and photographing different kinds of people has always been the most exciting part of my job. I still love it.
Two big differences in the assignments, though, was that I shot the Hells Angels in black and white which was perfect for their gritty world and “Watts: A Year Later” was in color. Also perfect, because Watts had a lot of color, on the walls, the graffiti, the way people dressed and, of course, my group of bombers who liked to practice making and throwing Molotov cocktails [see slides 17, 18 and 19 in gallery].
Those two assignments documented two utterly marginalized worlds that few people ever get to see up close. There was no job on earth as good as being a LIFE photographer.”

The words painted on the grocery store alerted rioters that the stored was African-American owned.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Young men hung out near Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Young men near Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

William Solomon (right, in his home in Watts) commanded a big Watts street gang, which he openly admitted took an active part in the riot. A champion hurdler in high school, he had no job and was on probation for assault. With two followers shown with him, he later helped at a neighborhood association and used his influence to keep order there and, by his interest, give its program a certain prestige in the streets.”

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Fire Last Time: Life in Watts, 1966

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Booker Griffin (yellow shirt) moved in on an argument between students and police who found the youths carrying heavy boards and suspected a gang fight. He calmed both sides.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Making Molotov cocktails, Watts, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Molotov cocktails in Watts, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Molotov cocktails in Watts, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Molotov cocktails in Watts, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LaRoi Drew Ali refused to join any group, but viewed Christianity as a device to keep African-Americans down. “Even if somebody did rise up on Easter,” he said, “it would just be another white man to kick us.”

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Fire Last Time: Life in Watts, 1966

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Watts, Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post The Fire Last Time: LIFE in Watts, 1966 appeared first on LIFE.

Manson himself, convicted of murder via conspiracy (although it was never proved in court that he, personally, killed any of the victims), remains locked up in a California prison, a creature who crawled out from the dark underbelly of the 1960s, unleashed hell, was finally brought to justice and will die behind bars.

But before Manson’s “brood of nubile flower children,” as LIFE magazine put it, set out on their appalling rampage, they plotted, dreamed and — in their own bestial way — lived their lives in places of desolate squalor, soaking up their leader’s toxic fantasy of racial holy war. In Manson’s vision, the Family would rule over a post-apocalyptic America — after riding out the apocalypse itself in a secret city, “the bottomless pit,” beneath Death Valley.

In his own insular, mad vernacular, the killing spree that Manson hoped would be blamed on black militants — sparking the race war that he himself had long prophesied — was known as “Helter Skelter.”

Here, 45 years after the August 1969 murders of Sharon Tate (director Roman Polanski’s wife, who was eight months pregnant); celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring; actor and writer Wojciech Frykowski: coffee heiress Abigail Folger; 18-year-old Steven Parent; and the LaBiancas — LIFE.com presents pictures of the two ranches where the Family spent its final months before and after its campaign of terror.

The Spahn and Barker ranches, isolated dots on the map east of L.A., served as base camps for the Family; and it was at Barker that Manson was finally found and caught by authorities (on suspicion of auto theft, of all things) in October 1969 — inside a 12 x 16-inch cupboard beneath a sink where he had stuffed himself in an attempt to hide. Not long after, as cops began pulling the threads of evidence together, connecting Family members and Manson himself with the murders that cast a bleak light on the worst excesses of the Sixties, the cheap, sordid Manson myth was born.

Charles Manson, Barker Ranch

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Spahn Ranch, 1969

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Spahn Ranch

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Spahn, Manson Family, 1969

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Spahn Ranch, Manson Family

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Spahn Ranch

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Bus on Barker Ranch, 1969

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch 1969

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch, Charles Manson’s hiding place

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch 1969

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Barker Ranch 1969

Vernon Merritt III Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Manson Family, Spahn Ranch, 1969

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Manson Family, Spahn Ranch, 1969

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post The Manson Family’s California Hovels: Scenes From the Bottomless Pit appeared first on LIFE.

From her earliest days as an actress until late in her career when she had, against her will, been cast in the public eye as Hollywood’s ultimate Sex Goddess, Marilyn posed for LIFE magazine’s photographers. Here, LIFE.com presents a gallery of pictures—none of which ran in the magazine—by LIFE’s Ed Clark, a Tennessean with a profound talent for capturing the essence of people, both famous and obscure. His pictures of Marilyn offer a rare glimpse into the early days of an eventual pop-culture icon’s career, when a young actress was blissfully unaware of what the coming years would bring and was, it seems, just happy to be in “the industry” and getting noticed.

[Buy the LIFE book, Remembering Marilyn]

In a 1999 interview with Digital Journalist, Clark described how, in 1950, he received a call from a friend at 20th Century Fox about “a hot tomato” the studio had just signed: one Marilyn Monroe.

“She was almost unknown then, so I was able to spend a lot of time shooting her,” Clark recalled. After all, it was still early in her career, and she’d only just begun to gain attention: Three months before this shoot, she appeared as a crooked lawyer’s girlfriend in The Asphalt Jungle; two months later, she had a small role as an aspiring starlet in All About Eve.

“We’d go out to Griffith Park [in Los Angeles] and she’d read poetry. I sent several rolls to LIFE in New York, but they wired back, ‘Who the hell is Marilyn Monroe?'” (Three years later, Marilyn appeared on the cover of LIFE in a now-famous Clark photo, posing with her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes co-star, Jane Russell.)

Why LIFE never published the gold mine of photos seen in this gallery after Marilyn became a bona fide superstar, however, remains a mystery. The only clue: a brief note about the shoot in the LIFE archives, addressed to LIFE’s photo editor, indicating that “this take was over-developed and poorly printed.”

Whatever the reason, one thing remains perfectly clear: at 24 years old, in 1950, Marilyn Monroe was already something special.

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Marilyn Monroe, 24, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 1950.

Ed ClarkLife Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Marilyn Monroe: Rare Early Photos, 1950 appeared first on LIFE.

In 1966, Charles’s career was on the rebound after a forced hiatus in rehab the previous year for his longtime heroin addiction. (He’d been arrested for possession for the third time in 1965, and agreed to rehab in order to avoid jail time.) After getting clean he reemerged with hits like “I Don’t Need No Doctor,” “Crying Time” and other songs in various genres, including blues-inflected country, that revealed his powers as an entertainer to be not merely undiminished, but perhaps stronger than ever.

LIFE photographer Bill Ray spent a solid month with Charles during this pivotal time in the singer’s career, chronicling performances at celebrated venues like Carnegie Hall as well as hanging out with the legend in the studio, backstage at concerts and on the road and in the air between shows. Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of Ray’s photos many of which never ran in LIFE magazine that reveal a Ray Charles most of us have never seen.

“I was amazed at how he was able to exercise so much control over so many aspects of his life,” Bill Ray said. “The music, the travel, his love life which was definitely complicated. He could sometimes seem cool, calculating, even ruthless in his dealings with people, but part of that was a way to make sure he wasn’t being cheated, or taken advantage of. To me, at least, he was always very warm, very welcoming. And when he got behind that piano and began to sing wow! It was just impossible not to be moved by music that powerful.”

Ray Charles in the driveway of his rambling Los Angeles home with his wife Della and sons Robert, 5, David, 7, and Ray Jr. 11. ‘I don’t need to see them to know what they look like,’ he says. ‘I know my wife is pretty, and I think my sons are pretty good boys.'” Ray and Della divorced in 1977.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles with his son, David, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at home in Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at home in Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at home in Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at home in Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at home in Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at home in Los Angeles, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles and his sons on his tour bus, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles and his sons goof around on his tour bus, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles 1966

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In the early morning at Los Angeles airport, Charles waits and his manager, Joe Adams, prepared to board his plane for a flight to New York.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From his 50-seat private plane, Ray talked to someone at the control tower. He liked to sit up in the co-pilot’s seat and knew so much about the operation of the plane that, in an emergency, he could have taken over. As Charles said: ‘That would really be flying blind, baby.'”

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

To light his cigarette, Charles feels the flame to guide it.”

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles 1966

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles’s tour bus, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Charles played chess on a board with special niches. The white pieces were smaller than the black.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles’s tour bus, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Charles’s chauffeur, Vernon Troupe, led him to the piano in the Los Angeles studio where Charles recorded for his own company, named Tangerine after his favorite fruit.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles and the Raelettes, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles and orchestra, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles in the studio, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles resting before a show, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles 1966

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles before a show, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles before a show, 1966

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles backstage talking with Eric Burdon and the Animals, 1966.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Ray Charles: Photos of a Musical Genius On Stage and Off appeared first on LIFE.