His connection at age fifteen with L.A.'s most notorious gangster, his sinister lifestyle while working for a renowned private investigator, Johnny Ortiz's exciting life involved close friendships with Hollywood superstars and sports champions. In Palm Springs he mingled with the Rat Pack; in Las Vegas he attended celebrity-ridden parties; in Los Angeles the saloons he owned became a hangout for sports figures and famous actors. Champions worked out at his legendary Main St. Gym and most of Hollywood's top boxing movie gym scenes were filmed there including the first three Rocky movies. In his revealing reminiscences Ortiz fondly relates previously untold stories of celebrities including Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Henry Fonda, Antonio Banderas, Woody Harrelson, Robert Mitchum, Lynda Carter, Olivia De Havilland, Bette Davis, Jackie Gleason, Ben Johnson, Dorothy Lamour, Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Lenny Bruce, Cliff Gorman, Phil Crosby, and John Drew Barrymore, along with sports icons like Muhammad Ali, O.J. Simpson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Rocky Marciano, and Joe Louis. Johnny Ortiz has been a fighter, trainer, manager, boxing historian and a twelve year host of his own radio show. He is a longtime member of the Screen Actors Guild, has numerous TV and film credits, and is also an accomplished stage actor. In 1999, he completed his role opposite Antonio Banderas and Woody Harrelson in the film, Play It To The Bone. In 2001, director Michael Mann cast him in the Will Smith movie, Ali.

To launch our new line of LIFE books celebrating legendary figures in our world, who better than Clint Eastwood? He is an icon among icons, a titanic figure in movie history still going strong at age 82. The recent dustup over his "Halftime in America" ad during the Super Bowl only confirms how large Eastwood looms in the American imagination: He is a Will Rogers or John Wayne walking among us. Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born in San Francisco, and nothing about him might have presaged his future except for rugged good looks. Those alone were enough to get him a supporting role in the TV series "Rawhide" in 1959. LIFE magazine was a weekly chronicler of Hollywood at the time, and we have been on the Eastwood case ever since: the spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, etc.); the Dirty Harry movies; the directorial efforts, beginning with Play Misty for Me and right up through Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino; even the sideline jobs-his love of jazz piano and his career as a composer; his nonpartisan mayoralty of his chosen California town, Carmel-by-the-Sea. LIFE has visited Eastwood at home and even played golf with him on his own course overlooking the Pacific, and this will be an up-close-and-personal look at a man who is, perhaps as much as any American, too often seen as mere symbol. LIFE's new book series, ICONS, will present the famous in a way that allows our readers to know these people-often in a way they had never known them before.

"Eyes of Fire " is a book about more than painting icons inspired by historical Byzantine methods and historically accurate materials. It is an in-depth study on the evolution of religious arts and iconography, with a strong focus on sharing such a wealth of knowledge in the field with others, keeping these artistic traditions alive."Eyes of Fire" is a book about groundbreaking personal transformation, achieved through experiencing Icons. It is as much about spiritual strength and power as it is about the timeless artistry and passion of religious Icons as seen through the eyes of a contemporary painter and Iconographer.

Two brothers begin to wonder if it is their mother's unusual cooking that is attracting the aliens that keep showing up at their house.

Beyond biography: a legendary performer's legacy of symbolism

Rieff articulates a comprehensive, typological theory of Western culture. Using visual illustrations, he contrasts the changing modes of spiritual and social thought that have struggled for dominance throughout Western history.

Psychotherapist & author Gary Vitacco-Robles reframes & redefines the fascinating woman behind the iconic image through an analysis of her psyche and an appreciation of her film & stage performances.