Awaiting Her Big Break, 1942
As a teen, Ball worked as a model, touting everything from designer couture to cigarettes. But at 19, she was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis and couldn't work for two years. Once she recovered, she began working as an actress on Broadway, and a decade and a half later, she was in Hollywood. Here, Ball looks cautiously over her shoulder at the future in this outtake from John Florea's 1942 photo essay on the entertainer, which described her as being on the brink of fame after a decade of kicking around Hollywood. (This photo, like all the others in this gallery, has never before been published—all are gems left on the cutting-room floor as the magazine edited down its features.) At the time of this portrait, Ball was in the midst of shooting her first major lead in DuBarry Was a Lady, playing the role made famous by Ethel Merman in Cole Porter's hit Broadway musical. Florea also photographed her dancing on the set and bouncing on a trampoline; as it turned out, she had to spend another decade doing fancy footwork before she would vault into immortality on TV.
