I'm ready for my close-up.

Original caption:  “Gary Cooper’s first published attempts at drawing in years–Barbara Stanwyck is the subject.” Dated January 27, 1942

Lucille Ball (1942) 

Dietrich in The Lady is Willing (1942)

Rita Hayworth on the set of My Gal Sal (1942)

Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers in Once Upon a Honeymoon, 1942

Joan Crawford caught in a yawn on the set of They All Kissed the Bride, 1942

Maureen O’Hara in The Black Swan (1942).

Joan Crawford and co-star Allen Jenkins in a scene from They All Kissed the Bride (1942), in which Joan’s “uptight” and no-nonsense businesswoman character inadvertently wins a feverish jitterbug contest–and then collapses from exhaustion.

For the “drunk” dance on Holiday Inn (1942), Fred Astaire had two drinks of bourbon before the first take and one before each succeeding take. The seventh and last take was used in the film. (x)

Bette Davis publicity portrait for In This Our Life, 1942

The Major and the Minor (1942) dir. Billy Wilder

Bette Davis on the set of Now, Voyager 1942