Rudy Vallee

Time commissioned this charcoal sketch of singer-actor Rudy Vallee, but it never appeared in print for unknown reasons. Over the years, many unpublished cover artworks accumulated in Time’s storage bins. When this sketch was made, Vallee was enjoying success as a bandleader and radio crooner, and his records were top sellers among the young smart set. He was also just breaking into movies; his filmography runs from 1929 to 1976 and includes such classics as I Remember Mama (1948) and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1967). Samuel J. Woolf, who made this drawing, was one of Time’s earliest and most prolific contract artists in the late 1920s and 1930s.