22/12/2025
Of all the Slim Aarons shots that make the Instagram circuit, this 1954 photo of Christmas in the Hollywood Hills may be the most iconic.
Titled “Christmas Swim” the image is entirely in keeping with the photographer’s enduring mission to capture ‘attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.’
In this instance, the attractive person was Slim’s wife, Rita, who was captured luxuriating in a pool, surrounded by baubles, in front of a Christmas tree with the Hollywood sign in the distance. Yet the reality behind the lens was far less glamorous. As the couple’s daughter, Mary Aarons, later recalled: ‘It was a really cold, really dirty pool and because they wanted everything to line up just right, he made her stay in there a really long time.’
Slim’s lens immortalized everyone from Princess Grace of Monaco to Hollywood icons like Clark Gable and Van Heflin – but his most cherished muse was always his wife.
