We see them on their albums’ covers, old rare pictures, and successful movies, but their passports, this is something we definitely haven’t see. before!
It’s interesting how a small -but super important, a piece of paper can remind us that people like Marilyn Monroe were just people who had to travel and needed a passport for it. It’s also interesting how Walt Disney got to smile for his passport picture, while we had to look serious with our hair behind our ears.
From James Joyce to Muhammad Ali and Albert Einstein to David Bowie, here’s a list of passports and other official documents of extremely famous, smart, beautiful and talented people of the past century.
1. David Bowie
Speaking of tamed, does anyone else wonder how hard it was to get glam rocker David Bowie to look so clean and presentable for his passport photo?
2. Johnny Cash
The “Ring of Fire” singer looks like he means business.
3. Walt Disney
Walt Disney’s passport features the signature—here inscribed over a photo of the mustachioed animator whose imagination we have to thank for Mickey Mouse and all his friends—that inspired his iconic company logo.
4. James Joyce
James Joyce’s passport, which was issued to him by the British Consulate in Zurich after he fled Italy upon its entry into World War I, was valid from 1915 and covers almost the entire 7-year period he spent writing his epic, Ulysses. It also claims his long-term partner Nora, featured in a photo with their children, as his “wife”—a sly untruth, as the two weren’t officially married until 1931, long after Joyce was granted his passport.
5. Albert Einstein
The theoretical physicist’s hair is fairly well tamed for his Swiss passport photo, but other photographs of him prove that wasn’t always the case.
6. Muhammad Ali
Ali has surprisingly dainty handwriting for a boxing powerhouse. However, this World Heavyweight Champion proves that penmanship matters.
7. Virginia Woolf
Unlike Zelda Fitzgerald, who appears to have traveled to Paris and back on her husband’s documents, Virginia Woolf seems to have insisted on a passport of her own.
8. Marilyn Monroe
Dated February 8, 1954, this particular legal document of Marilyn Monroe’s serves as a reminder that she was once—very briefly—married to New York Yankees center fielder Joe DiMaggio. It also notes the color of her hair as blonde and her eyes as blue, not that anyone needed to be reminded of that.
