Aarons said combat had taught him the only beach worth landing on was "decorated with beautiful, seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun.
In California, he shot his most praised photo, Kings of Hollywood, a 1957 New's Year's Eve photograph depicting Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart relaxing at a bar in full formal wear.
"[1][3] An oft-cited example of this approach is his 1970 Poolside Gossip[4] shot at the Kaufmann Desert House designed by Richard Neutra, with owner Nelda Linsk as one of the models in the photo.
After his death, in 2006, his widow and daughter learned the truth that Aarons had grown up in a poor immigrant Yiddish-speaking family, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Several documentary interviewees postulate that if Aarons's true origins had been known, his career would have been unlikely to succeed, within the restricted world of celebrity and WASP privilege his photography glamorized.