The Best October Covers from 80 Years of 'Parade'

Marlon Brando, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and a hat juggler are among our favs.

Parade magazine has had the finger on the nation's pulse since 1941. We take a look back at covers past in the latter half of October.

October 23, 1949: Trixie the Hat Juggler

Trixie La Rue, a star attraction at the “Howdy Mr. Ice” show in New York, doesn’t just juggle (hats, plates, bouncing balls)—she does it on ice skates! Trixie learned her art from her juggling stepfather, Oscar Frisky.

October 24, 1954: Marlon Brando as Napoleon

Screwball or genius? That is the question posed in this Parade magazine cover story about 30-year-old controversial actor Marlon Brando. “There are two schools of thought about this handsome, 5-foot-10 hunk of masculinity,” writer Lloyd Shearer opined. “Bud,” as some friends and fans quoted in the article call him, wowed with his amazing performances (“If he’s not a genius, then I’ve never seen one,” said On the Waterfront director Elia Kazan) and with his hijinks (lighting a sweater on fire in a department store) and “disreputable” dress (so bad Hollywood restaurants wouldn’t serve him). The “screwball-genius” label stuck with Brando his entire life.

October 28, 2001: We Choose Honor

Six weeks after 9/11, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel reflected on our response as a nation. “The American people did not bend,” he said. “Even when faced with the murderous madness of criminals, and in the presence of the silent agony of their victims, it is incumbent upon us to choose between escape and solidarity, shame and honor. The terrorists have chosen shame. We choose honor.”

October 25, 1953: Is He Laughing?

Whenever you see a cat laughing, says photographer Walter Chandoha, who took Parade’s cover shot, they are simply yawning or meowing. But, he admitted to Parade, cats sometimes do seem to smile.

October 23, 1977: I Flew With Superman

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Mort Weisinger! As editor (from 1940 to 1970) of the world-famous comic book, Weisinger plotted Superman’s adventures and went along—vicariously—for the ride. But he admits in this story for Parade that he was jealous of the hero. “I resented basking in reflected glory,” he said.

October 31, 1976: Ford and Carter Talk About Themselves

Published the weekend before the presidential election, this Parade cover story sought to reveal the candidates’ hopes for themselves and for the nation. Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter spoke of his commitment to civil rights and the environment and said of himself, “I’m a careful planner. I have a scientific and engineering background. I’m an administrator. I’m a quiet person and determined.” He listed these flaws: stubborn, impatient with inattention to duty, demanding, not inclined to compliment. Republican candidate President Gerald Ford admitted, “I probably don’t come down hard enough on people. . . . I’m very tolerant of human errors.” But several advisers interviewed called him a “decent, honest and trustworthy man”; a man willing to listen to and consider multiple opinions. Ford may have put his finger on the reason that he went on to lose the election: “I think the biggest problem is we have not sold the things we’ve done as effectively as we should.”

October 26, 1980: Frightening Fashions You Can Create

At publication time, movieland’s most renowned designer, Edith Head, had dressed the stars for more than 50 years—everyone from Bette Davis to Grace Kelly. The legend created imaginative costumes for Parade readers, including pirates and ghosts and devils made of found objects. Head ends her article with a prediction about the trick-or-treaters of 1980: “Some young witch or ‘Wookiee’ will start designing Hollywood’s future costumes. I can feel it in my bones, and I can’t wait.” Head died October 24, 1981.

October 26, 1947: Harvest and Halloween

That’s Jerry Travis, 9, of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, amid the cornstalks on the cover of Parade magazine in a photograph by Samuel Myslis. The corn harvest was down that year, thanks to bad weather, Parade reported, but “even so, there will be plenty of dried cornstalks and ripened ears of corn to go with the pumpkins, black cats and witches—the traditional symbols of Halloween.”

October 29, 1944: Introduction to Halloween

What were four Allied servicemen (a Canadian, and Englishman and two Frenchmen) doing at a Halloween party in New York? Who really knows, but it made a good Parade cover story as “pretty Rita Daigle” (our cover girl) and her friends introduced the men to bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving and other Halloween customs.

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