30 Stunning Photos of Classic Beauties in the 1930s and '40s Taken by László Willinger

Born 1909 in Berlin, Germany or Budapest, Hungary, Jewish-German photographer László Willinger was most noted for his portrait photography of movie stars and celebrities starting in 1937.

Classic beauties taken by László Willinger

Willinger established photographic studios in Paris and Berlin in 1929 and 1931 respectively, and at the same time submitted his photographs to various newspapers as a freelance contributor. He left Berlin in 1933, settling and working in Vienna, where he began to photograph such celebrities as Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Pietro Mascagni, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Max Reinhardt.

Willinger crossed into the United States in 1937 and resided in Los Angeles, California. After establishing a studio in Hollywood, California, he became a frequent contributor to magazines and periodicals, providing magazine cover portraits of some of the most popular stars.

Willinger was also one of the first Hollywood photographers to experiment in the use of color. He died of heart failure in 1989 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 80.

These stunning photos of classic beauties are part of his work that Willinger took in the 1930s and 1940s.