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!
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