VERTÈS / BALL

July 9, 1944

On July 9, 1944 it was reported that Lucille Ball was the first Hollywood star to pose for noted artist Marcel Vertès. His paintings of Ball were used for publicity surrounding MGM’s Meet The People. 

Marcel Vertès (born Marcell Vértes, August 10, 1895 – October 31, 1961) was a French costume designer and illustrator of Hungarian origins. He won two Academy Awards (Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design) for his work on the 1952 film Moulin Rouge (not the version that featured Lucille Ball in 1934). Vertès is also responsible for the original murals in the Café Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel in New York City and for those in the Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

Vertès

at the Oscars with Lucille Ball’s friend and co-star Ginger Rogers. 

October 1936 feature on

Vertès. 

Meet the People directed by Charles Reisner and starring Lucille Ball, Dick Powell, Virginia O’Brien and Bert Lahr. The film takes its title from a successful Los Angeles musical revue, which ran on Broadway from December 25, 1939 to May 10, 1941. Although the film premiered in Los Angeles in June 1944, it did not open wide until September 1944 in New York City. 

Some posters mixed

Vertès’ portraiture with caricatures by Al Hirschfeld, perhaps to tip off audiences that the film was a comedy. Although Hirschfeld had done a caricature of Ball the previous year of Thousands Cheer. 

Vertès’

portrait of Ball was also used on the cover of MGM’s Lion’s Roar, an exhibitor magazine not available to the general public. 

The video rights were sold to Warner Brothers, who issued this special edition DVD.