Stage Door was Lucille Ball’s breakthrough film, in which she held her own among a cast of young actresses in New York.
Stage Door was released in 1937, directed by Gregory La Cava and based on a play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman. It was set in a theatrical boarding house in New York, where young actresses, including Terry Randall, played by Katharine Hepburn, and Jean Maitland, played by Ginger Rogers, waited for work and dreamed of success. Lucille Ball played Judy Canfield, a sharp-tongued aspiring actress who provided much of the film’s comedy.
Ball’s Judy was witty, restless and ambitious, and her performance stood out even in a large ensemble. The film was nominated for Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and it gave Ball her most visible role to date, after years of small parts and B pictures at RKO.
Stage Door remains an important film in Ball’s career because it showed that she could be funny and memorable without being the star. It was a step towards the leading roles she would play in the 1940s, and it remains a lively portrait of young women trying to make it on the stage during the Depression.