Note!… Originally created in March of 2020, I’ve updated this post to include a comment by Brett Bayne, which follows:
Hello,
I have just finished reading your fascinating and informative blog post about Ward Moore’s story “Adjustment,” published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and featuring cover art by Frank Kelly Freas. You helpfully included a link to a PDF of the story. Thank you for that. Here’s my question: Is the young woman depicted in the original painting supposed to be Lucille Ball? It sure looks like her!
Let me know your thoughts.
Many thanks,
Brett Bayne in L.A.
I present my thoughts about Mr. Bayne’s question below…!
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Like other science fiction artists, Frank Kelly Freas’ works display a certain style that makes them immediately (well, almost immediately!) identifiable.
Though he was more than capable of rendering the human figure in a purely representative and natural form, the distinctive “quality” of Freas’ compositions seems to lie in the very faces of the central or most prominent figures in his compositions. These are often exaggerated in dimension, proportion, or shape, making them symbolically “fit” the mood of the story, and, the character’s specific role within it.
Case in point, the cover of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for May of 1957, illustrating a scene from Ward Moore’s tale “Adjustment”. The surprised and utterly abashed fellow on the left is “Mr. Squith” (great choice of surname – though “Mr. Squish” or “Mr. Squid” would do just as well!), who, if not a hero in a classical sense – well, he’s no hero, in any sense! – is most assuredly the protagonist, albeit a protagonist of a passive and – to the reader – utterly exasperating sort.
Well. “Adjustment” might have been just a little risque in its day, but in the brittle and tired world of 2020, the tale has an air of quaintness, charm, and even innocence of a sort. Mr. Squith, it turns out, is rather oblivious to the nature of human social interactions, and the cues and signals – spoken and especially unspoken – that pass between people, in effect becoming the tale’s straight man and object of humor.
As for Freas’ art itself?
Well, here’s the cover as published…
…and, below is the cover – from Heritage Fine Auctions – as originally painted. (The painting was sold as part of an auction held on June 27- 28, 2012.)
Though I’m not certain of the details, it seems that the editors of Fantasy and Science Fiction had second thoughts about Freas’ cover as originally created, with Freas adjusting the art for “Adjustment” accordingly. Likewise, the promotional blurb about the magazine itself – which typically appeared on the rear cover, if at all – was strategically located to the front.
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And now for something sort of different. Well, uh, divertingly different… Well. You know.
Yes, even when I created this post four years ago (now being 2024), I was immediately struck by the similarities (exaggerated similarities, but similarities nonetheless) between the “face” (not * ahem * physiognomy) of the woman on Freas’ cover – most immediately attracting the attention and astonishment of our preternaturally naive and (alas) erotically oblivious protagonist, Mr. Squith – and that of Lucille Ball. I didn’t write as much at the time, but this is especially so in light of the pleasing but very generic faces of the bemused ladies at lower left. Mr. Squith’s lady is very much an individual. A recognizable individual. An identifiable individual.
By way of comparison, three pictures of Lucille Ball are shown below.
The verdict? No coincidence.
In other words, “Here’s Lucy!”
“I Love Lucy” 1958 promo image.
New York Post, August 4, 2021: “Rare tapes revealed: Lucille Ball has SiriusXM podcast decades after death”
Cast of I Love Lucy with William Frawley, Desi Arnaz, and Vivian Vance – Undated photo. “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour aired on CBS from 1962 to 1967. … The photo has only a “date use” stamp for 27 April 1989, which is the day after Lucille Ball’s death. The photo was apparently kept in the newspaper’s photo files after it was received and not published in that respective newspaper until after Ball’s death.”
You can read Mr. Squith’s adventure here, and about Lucy Ball at Wikipedia.
Alas, poor, naive Mr. Squith…
March 12, 2020 – 320