Has any other pinup artist embraced the cigarette as much as Bolles? He used it as a prop in his second magazine cover, published by Judge way back in 1914, over than a decade before any cigarette company dared show a woman smoking in a magazine ad. Bolles himself didn't smoke but he did advertising art for cigar and cigarette companies and was so particular about how his girls wielded their smokes that he once had is son-in-law sit for him so he could get it just right for a Film Fun cover. George Petty made a lot more money than Bolles putting his girls in cigarette ads but you'll never find a single one of them taking a puff, Petty didn't think it was lady-like. What a hypocrite!
Our fun loving covergirl is the actress, Sally O'Neil. She'd been in the movies since the mid 20's but at the time this cover appeared in 1930 her film career was nearing its end. Apparently, Sally had a strong Jersey twang that didn't suit her well with the advent of the talkies. The pronouncement that the cover was "specially posed" was a fabrication, as was a painfully contrived interview with her printed in this issue. There was little chance a famous star, or even a Hollywood hopeful, would tromp up two stories to Bolles' studio located in the midst of the magazine publishing district in New York. Bolles instead relied on stock studio photos to complete this cover as well as others that the editors of Film Fun had been occasionally experimenting with since 1928 (However, Enoch's daughter once told me that Lupe Velez actually did sit for her cover, which makes sense as it is far and away the best of the series).
Bolles could do fine likenesses and completed three standard portrait covers for a couple other movies magazines but they were time consuming, and there were plenty of other illustrators who did nothing but specialize in portrait covers for the likes of Photoplay and its competitors. And frankly, Bolles' portrait covers don't have that spark his original creations do. I think the editors of Film Fun came to realize this as well and soon after this cover, ended the experiment. Thankfully!
