Lucille Ball

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive. She was recognized by ''Time'' in 2020 as one of the most influential women of the 20th century for her work in all four of these areas. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She earned many honors, including the Women in Film Crystal Award, an induction into the Television Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Ball's career began in 1929 when she landed work as a model. Shortly thereafter, she began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name Diane (or Dianne) Belmont. She later appeared in films in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles, with lead roles in B-pictures and supporting roles in A-pictures. During this time, she met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz, and they eloped in November 1940. In the 1950s, Ball ventured into television, where she and Arnaz created the sitcom ''I Love Lucy''. She gave birth to their first child, Lucie, in 1951, followed by Desi Arnaz Jr. in 1953. They divorced in March 1960, and she married comedian Gary Morton in 1961.

Ball produced and starred in the Broadway musical '' Wildcat'' from 1960 to 1961. In 1962, she became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu Productions, which produced many popular television series, including '' Mission: Impossible'' and ''Star Trek''. After ''Wildcat'', she reunited with ''I Love Lucy'' co-star Vivian Vance for ''The Lucy Show'', which Vance left in 1965. The show continued, with Ball's longtime friend and series regular Gale Gordon, until 1968. Ball immediately began appearing in a new series, ''Here's Lucy'', with Gordon, frequent show guest Mary Jane Croft, and Lucie and Desi Jr.; this program ran until 1974.

Ball did not retire from acting completely, and in 1985 she took on a dramatic role in the television film '' Stone Pillow''. The next year, she starred in '' Life with Lucy'', which, unlike her other sitcoms, was not well-received; it was canceled after three months. She did not appear in film or television roles for the rest of her career and died in 1989, aged 77, from an abdominal aortic aneurysm brought about by arteriosclerotic heart disease. After her death, the American Comedy Awards were officially dubbed "The Lucy" after her.

Early life

Lucille Désirée Ball was born on Sunday, August 6, 1911, at 69 Stewart Avenue in Jamestown, New York, the first child and only daughter of Henry Durrell "Had" Ball, a lineman for Bell Telephone, and Désirée Evelyn "DeDe" (née Hunt) Ball. Her family belonged to the Baptist church. Her ancestors were mostly English, but a few were Scottish, French, and Irish. Some were among the earliest settlers in the Thirteen Colonies, including Elder John Crandall of Westerly, Rhode Island, and Edmund Rice, an early emigrant from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Her father's Bell Telephone career frequently required the family to move during Lucy's early childhood. The first was to Anaconda, Montana, and later to Trenton, New Jersey. On February 28, 1915, while living in Wyandotte, Michigan, Lucy's father died of typhoid fever aged 27, when Lucy was only three years old. At that time, DeDe was pregnant with her second child, Fred Ball (1915–2007). Lucille recalled little from the day her father died, except a bird getting trapped in the house, which caused her lifelong ornithophobia.

Ball's mother returned to New York, where maternal grandparents helped raise Lucy and her brother Fred in Celoron, a summer resort village on Chautauqua Lake. Their home was at 59 West 8th Street (later renamed Lucy Lane). Also living in the house were Ball's aunt and uncle, Lola and George Mandicos, and their daughter, Lucy's first cousin Cleo. Having grown up with Lucy, Cleo would later work as a producer on several of Lucy's radio and television programs, and Lucy also introduced Cleo to her second husband, the ''Los Angeles Times'' critic Cecil Smith.

Ball loved Celoron Park, a popular amusement area at the time. Its boardwalk had a ramp to the lake that served as a children's slide, the Pier Ballroom, a roller-coaster, a bandstand, and a stage where vaudeville concerts and plays were presented.Higham, C. (1986). ''Lucy: The Life of Lucille Ball'', New York: St. Martin's Press.

Four years after Henry Ball's death, DeDe married Edward Peterson. While they looked for work in another city, Peterson's parents cared for Lucy and Fred. Ball's step-grandparents were a puritanical Swedish couple who banished all mirrors from the house except one over the bathroom sink. When Lucy was caught admiring herself in it, she was severely chastised for being vain. She later said that this period of time affected her deeply, and it lasted seven or eight years.

When Lucy was 12, her stepfather encouraged her to audition for his Shriners organization that needed entertainers for the chorus line of its next show. While Ball was onstage, she realized that performing was a great way to gain praise. In 1927, her family was forced to move to a small apartment in Jamestown after their house and furnishings were sold to settle a legal judgment.

Career

Early career

In 1925, Ball, then only 14, started dating Johnny DeVita, a 21-year-old local hoodlum. Her mother was unhappy with the relationship, and hoped the romance, which she was unable to influence, would burn out. After about a year, her mother tried to separate them by exploiting Ball's desire to be in show business. Despite the family's meager finances, in 1926, she enrolled Ball in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts, in New York City, where Bette Davis was a fellow student. Ball later said about that time in her life, "All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened." Ball's instructors felt she would not be successful in the entertainment business, and were unafraid to directly state this to her.

In the face of this harsh criticism, Ball was determined to prove her teachers wrong and returned to New York City in 1928. That same year, she began working for Hattie Carnegie as an in-house model. Carnegie ordered Ball to bleach her brown hair blond, and she complied. Of this time in her life, Ball said: "Hattie taught me how to slouch properly in a $1,000 hand-sewn sequin dress and how to wear a $40,000 sable coat as casually as rabbit."

Her acting forays were stilled at an early stage when she became ill with rheumatic fever and was unable to work for two years.

1930s

In 1932, she moved back to New York City to resume her pursuit of an acting career, where she supported herself by again working for Carnegie and as the Chesterfield cigarette girl. Using the name Diane (sometimes spelled Dianne) Belmont, she started getting chorus work on Broadway, but it did not last. Ball was hired â€” but then quickly fired â€” by theater impresario Earl Carroll from his ''Vanities'', and by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. from a touring company of '' Rio Rita''.

After an uncredited stint as a Goldwyn Girl in '' Roman Scandals'' (1933), starring Eddie Cantor and Gloria Stuart, Ball moved permanently to Hollywood to appear in films. She had many small movie roles in the 1930s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, including a two-reel comedy short with The Three Stooges ('' Three Little Pigskins'', 1934) and a movie with the Marx Brothers (''Room Service'', 1938). Her first credited role came in '' Chatterbox'' in 1936. She also appeared in several Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers RKO musicals: as one of the featured models in ''Roberta'' (1935), as the flower shop clerk in ''Top Hat'' (1935), and in a brief supporting role at the beginning of ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936). Ball played a larger part as an aspiring actress alongside Ginger Rogers, who was a distant maternal cousin, and Katharine Hepburn in the film ''Stage Door'' (1937).

In 1936, she landed the role she hoped would lead her to Broadway, in the Bartlett Cormack play '' Hey Diddle Diddle'', a comedy set in a duplex apartment in Hollywood. The play premiered in Princeton, New Jersey, on January 21, 1937, with Ball playing the part of Julie Tucker, "one of three roommates coping with neurotic directors, confused executives, and grasping stars, who interfere with the girls' ability to get ahead". The play received good reviews, but problems existed with star Conway Tearle, who was in poor health. Cormack wanted to replace him, but producer Anne Nichols said the fault lay with the character and insisted the part needed to be rewritten. Unable to agree on a solution, the play closed after one week in Washington, D.C., when Tearle became gravely ill.

Like many budding actresses, Ball picked up radio work to supplement her income and gain exposure. In 1937, she appeared regularly on ''The Phil Baker Show''. When its run ended in 1938, Ball joined the cast of ''The Wonder Show'' starring Jack Haley. There began her 50-year professional relationship with the show's announcer, Gale Gordon. ''The Wonder Show'' lasted one season, with the final episode airing on April 7, 1939.

1940s

During Ball's time at MGM in the 1940s, silent film star Buster Keaton and director Edward Sedgwick became her friends and comedic mentors, sharing their experiences with practical comedy and prop work. In 1940, Ball starred in '' Dance, Girl, Dance'' and appeared as the lead in the musical '' Too Many Girls'', where she met and fell in love with Cuban band leader Desi Arnaz, who played one of her character's four bodyguards in the movie. Ball signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1940s, but never achieved major stardom there. She was known in Hollywood circles as "Queen of the Bs (B-movies)" â€“ a title previously held by Fay Wray and later more closely associated with Ida Lupino and Marie Windsor â€“ starring in a number of B-movies, such as '' Five Came Back'' (1939).

In 1942, Ball starred opposite Henry Fonda in ''The Big Street''. MGM producer Arthur Freed purchased the Broadway hit musical play '' Du Barry Was a Lady'' (1943) especially for Ann Sothern, but when she turned down the part, that role went to Ball, Sothern's real-life best friend. In 1943, Ball portrayed herself in '' Best Foot Forward''. In 1945, she appeared in a brief but prominent role in a dance sequence in ''Ziegfeld Follies''. In 1946, Ball starred in ''Lover Come Back'' and the film noir '' The Dark Corner''. In 1947, she appeared in the murder mystery ''Lured'' as Sandra Carpenter, a taxi dancer in London. In 1948, Ball was cast as Liz Cooper, a wacky wife in '' My Favorite Husband'', a radio comedy for CBS Radio. (At first, the character's name was Liz Cugat; this was changed because of confusion with real-life bandleader Xavier Cugat, who sued.)

1950s

''My Favorite Husband'' was successful, and CBS asked Ball to develop it for television. She agreed, but insisted on working with her real-life husband, Arnaz. CBS executives were reluctant, thinking the public would not accept an Anglo-American redhead and a Cuban as a couple. CBS was initially unimpressed with the pilot episode, produced by the couple's Desilu Productions company. The pair went on the road with a vaudeville act, in which Lucy played the zany housewife, who wants to get into a Cuban band leader's (Arnaz's) show. The tour was a hit, and CBS put ''I Love Lucy'' into their lineup.

''I Love Lucy'' ran on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, and was not only a star vehicle for Lucille Ball, but also a potential means for her to salvage her marriage to Arnaz. Their relationship had become badly strained, in part because of their hectic performing schedules, which often kept them apart, but mostly due to Desi's attraction to other women.

For the production of ''I Love Lucy'', Ball and Arnaz wanted to remain in their Los Angeles home, but prime time in Los Angeles was too late to air a major network series live on the East Coast; broadcasting live from California would have meant giving most of the TV audience an inferior kinescope picture, delayed by at least a day. Sponsor Philip Morris pressured the couple into relocating, not wanting day-old kinescopes airing in major East Coast markets, nor did they want to pay the extra cost that filming, processing, and editing would require. Instead, the couple offered to take a pay cut to finance filming on better-quality 35 mm film, on the condition that Desilu would retain the rights of each episode once it aired. CBS agreed to relinquish the post-first-broadcast rights to Desilu, not realizing they were giving up a valuable and enduring asset. In 1957, CBS bought back the rights for $1,000,000 ($ in today's terms), financing Ball and Arnaz's down payment for the purchase of the former RKO Pictures studios, which they turned into Desilu Studios.

''I Love Lucy'' dominated U.S. ratings for most of its run. An attempt was made to adapt the show for radio using the "Breaking the Lease" episode (in which the Ricardos and Mertzes argue, and the Ricardos threaten to move, but find themselves stuck in a firm lease) as the pilot. The resulting radio audition disc has survived, but never aired.

A scene in which Lucy and Ricky practice the tango, in the episode "Lucy Does The Tango", evoked the longest recorded studio audience laugh in the history of the show â€” so long that the sound editor had to cut that section of the soundtrack in half. During the show's production breaks, Lucy and Desi starred together in two feature films: '' The Long, Long Trailer'' (1954) and '' Forever, Darling'' (1956). After ''I Love Lucy'' ended its run in 1957, the main cast continued to appear in occasional hour-long specials under the title '' The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour'' until 1960.

Along the way, Ball created a television dynasty and achieved several firsts. She was the first woman to head a TV production company, Desilu, which she had formed with Arnaz. After their divorce in 1960, she bought out his share and became a very actively engaged studio head. Desilu and ''I Love Lucy'' pioneered a number of methods still in use in TV production today, such as filming before a live studio audience with more than one camera, and distinct sets, adjacent to each other. During this time, Ball taught a 32-week comedy workshop at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. She was quoted as saying, "You cannot teach someone comedy; either they have it or they don't."

Desilu produced several other popular shows, such as '' The Untouchables'', ''Star Trek'', and '' Mission: Impossible''. Ball sold her shares of the studio to Gulf+Western in 1967 for $17,000,000 ($ in today's dollars), and it was renamed Paramount Television.

1960s and 1970s

The 1960 Broadway musical '' Wildcat'' ended its run early when producer and star Ball could not recover from a virus and continue the show after several weeks of returned ticket sales. The show was the source of the song she made famous, "Hey, Look Me Over", which she performed with Paula Stewart on ''The Ed Sullivan Show''. Ball hosted a CBS Radio talk show entitled ''Let's Talk to Lucy'' in 1964–65. She also made a few more movies including '' Yours, Mine, and Ours'' (1968), and the musical ''Mame'' (1974), and two more successful long-running sitcoms for CBS: ''The Lucy Show'' (1962–68), which costarred Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon, and ''Here's Lucy'' (1968–74), which also featured Gordon, as well as Lucy's real-life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. She appeared on the Dick Cavett show in 1974 and discussed her work on ''I Love Lucy'', and reminisced about her family history, the friends she missed from show business, and how she learned to be happy while married. She also told a story about how she helped discover an underground Japanese radio signal after accidentally picking up the signal on the fillings in her teeth.

Ball's close friends in the business included perennial co-star Vivian Vance and film stars Judy Garland, Ann Sothern, and Ginger Rogers, and comedic television performers Jack Benny, Barbara Pepper, Ethel Merman, Mary Wickes, and Mary Jane Croft; all except Garland appeared at least once on her various series. Former Broadway co-stars Keith Andes and Paula Stewart also appeared at least once on her later sitcoms, as did Joan Blondell, Rich Little, and Ann-Margret. Ball mentored actress and singer Carole Cook, and befriended Barbara Eden, when Eden appeared on an episode of ''I Love Lucy''. Ball was originally considered by Frank Sinatra for the role of Mrs. Iselin in the Cold War thriller '' The Manchurian Candidate''. Director/producer John Frankenheimer, however, had worked with Angela Lansbury in a mother role in '' All Fall Down'', and insisted on having her for the part.

In 1979, Ball signed a deal with NBC under Fred Silverman's watch after 28 years of working with CBS in order to deal with new comedy specials, but only one was aired as part of an agreement.

Ball was the lead actress in a number of comedy television specials to about 1980, including ''Lucy Calls the President'', which featured Vivian Vance, Gale Gordon, and Mary Jane Croft, and ''Lucy Moves to NBC'', a special depicting a fictionalization of her move to the NBC television network. In 1959, Ball became a friend and mentor to Carol Burnett. She guested on Burnett's highly successful CBS-TV special '' Carol + 2'' and the younger performer reciprocated by appearing on ''The Lucy Show''. Ball was rumored to have offered Burnett a chance to star on her own sitcom, but in truth, Burnett was offered (and declined) ''Here's Agnes'' by CBS executives. She instead chose to create her own variety show due to a stipulation that was on an existing contract she had with CBS. The two women remained close friends until Ball's death on April 26, 1989, which was Carol's birthday. Ball sent flowers every year on Burnett's birthday.

Aside from her acting career, Ball became an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge in 1979.

1980s

During the 1980s, Ball attempted to resurrect her television career. In 1982, she hosted a two-part '' Three's Company'' retrospective, showing clips from the show's first five seasons, summarizing memorable plotlines, and commenting on her love of the show.

In 1983, Lucille Ball and Gary Morton partnered to set up a film and television production house at 20th Century Fox that encompassed film and television productions as well as plans to produce plays.

Ball starred in a 1985 dramatic made-for-TV film about an elderly homeless woman, '' Stone Pillow'', which received mixed reviews, but had strong viewership. Her 1986 sitcom comeback '' Life with Lucy'', costarring her longtime foil Gale Gordon and co-produced by Ball, Gary Morton, and prolific producer Aaron Spelling, was canceled less than two months into its run by ABC. In February 1988, Ball was named the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year.

In May 1988, Ball was hospitalized after suffering a mild heart attack. Her last public appearance, just one month before her death, was at the 1989 Academy Awards

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