MODELS’ GOAL ~ STARDOM!

July 19, 1940

Hollywood is the mecca of all beautiful models who sooner or later turn their pretty faces westward in search of fame fortune and cinematic stardom. 

Few of the pulchritudinous legion however attain their goals and the majority of them — after various and invariable discouraging encounters with casting offices — return to the ways of toothpaste exploitation and cigaret ads. 

So it’s news in Hollywood when an ex-model makes good, even though her success presages a new invasion of hopeful beauties determined to become stars. 

Most famous of the modeling crew who have successfully bridged the gap between the still and the motion picture cameras are Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and the current ‘oomphatic’ Miss Ann Sheridan. (1)

And now lovely Lucille Ball has joined their ranks. Sveltely glamorous in every respect and favored with a fortunate abundance of dramatic ability, Miss Ball steps into her first major starring role in R-K-O Radio’s “Dance, Girl, Dance” in which she shares leading honors with Maureen O’Hara and Louis Hayward. 

The part is a culmination of nearly five years of toil in the cinema capital to which she was imported by Samuel Goldwyn to adorn his production of “Roman Scandals.” (2)

As the then-current Chesterfield girl, Lucille was among a group of famed poster maidens given bit roles in the film. Of all the proud beauties assembled for this picture, she is the only one still appearing on the silver screen, noticeably, at least. (3)

Film fans will remember the eye-filling Miss Ball for her captivating performances in such cinematic hits as “Stage Door,” “That’s Right, You’re Wrong,” “The Joy of Living,” “Having Wonderful Time,” and “You Can’t Fool Your Wife.” 

Each part marked a step up the ladder to Hollywood heights in the course of a career that was everything but comet-like. Perhaps the secret of her success lies in the fact that Lucille aspired to be an actress before she became a model. 

Born in Butte Mont. where her father was an electrical engineer (4), Lucille developed drama proclivities while a high school student in Jamestown N.Y. where the family moved when she was still an infant. 

Her mother, a concert pianist, had high hopes that her attractive daughter would follow in her footsteps. So following her graduation from high school, Lucille was enrolled at the Chautauqua Institute of Music. 

The lure of the footlights, however, proved too strong and, abandoning her music career, Lucille entered the John Murray Anderson Dramatic School in New York. She studied there for a year and a half. 

Her first chance at fame in the theater came when she joined an itinerant stock company which presented its scanty repertoire in the hinterlands of the east. (5)

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FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) Norma Shearer (1902-83) said about her modeling career: “I could smile at a cake of laundry soap as if it were dinner at the Ritz. I posed with a strand of imitation pearls. I posed in dust-cap and house dress with a famous mop, for dental paste and for soft drink, holding my mouth in a whistling pose until it all but froze that way."  Shearer won an Oscar in 1930.  She never acted with Lucille Ball. 

Joan Crawford (1905-77) was born Lucille LeSeuer. Her early career goal was to become a dancer. Before acting took the spotlight, Crawford modeled fashions. She won an Oscar in 1945. She guest-starred as herself on a 1968 episode of “The Lucy Show.” 

Ann Sheridan (1915-67) was born Clara Lou Sheridan. In March 1939, Warner Bros. announced Sheridan had been voted as the actress with the most "oomph” in America and tagged "The Oomph Girl" — a sobriquet which she reportedly loathed. Sheridan was a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940s. She appeared with Lucille Ball in 1934′s “Murder at the Vanities”. 

(2) Lucille Ball arrived in Hollywood in 1933, so it was closer to seven years, not five. 

(3) Of the seven ‘poster girls’ chosen in New York to appear in “Roman Scandals”, all were known for their print ads promoting products: Katherine Mauk (Lucky Strike), Rosalie Fromson (Pond’s), Mary Lange, Vivian Keefer (Listerine), Barbara Pepper (Gotham Hosiery), Theo Phane, and Lucille Ball (Chesterfield).  Aside from Ball’s meteoric career, only her friend and colleague Barbara Pepper came close to achieving fame – much of it due to Ball’s influence. She would go on to appear in hundreds of films and television shows. Pepper became best known for playing Florence Ziffel on the TV series “Green Acres.”

(4) As most now know, Ball invented parts of her past during her early career. She was not born in Butte, but in Jamestown. Her father was a telephone lineman, not an electrical engineer. 

(5) This is a very vague reference to the more shadowy aspects of Lucille Ball’s past.  Except for school shows and backyard performances, there is no record of any legitimate theatrical performances before 1937. 

The headline form July 19, 1940 was that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for an unprecedented third term as President.  Henry A. Wallace was selected as his running mate. FDR also won a fourth and fifth term, although he died only a few months into his fifth term.