Television comedienne and film actress, born in Celaron, New York, USA. Leaving school at age 15 to become a stage actress, her early efforts were unsuccessful and she turned to modeling (as Diane Belmont) which led to her first film role, in Roman Scandals (1934). She appeared in many later films and radio shows, but only gained real success in 1951 when she teamed up with her Cuban-born, bandleader husband, Desi Arnaz, to play the zany middle-class couple, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo in television's prototypical situation comedy I Love Lucy. With near perfect timing and a genius for ad-libbing, the redhaired Ball cruised through 179 episodes of the original sitcom as a ditzy housewife. The 1953 episode in which she gave birth to Little Ricky, filmed to coincide with delivery of her real-life son, was said to have attracted more viewers than the concurrent inauguration of President Dwight D Eisenhower. Desilu Productions, which she and Arnaz founded (1950), was a successful independent producer of television shows before Gulf-Western acquired it. After divorcing Arnaz (1960) she appeared on Broadway in Wildcat (1961), then played solo in two other successful sitcoms, The Lucy Show (19628) and Here's Lucy (196873). She continued to appear on television specials almost to her death.
| Lucille Ball | |
|---|---|
| Lucille Ball | |
| Born |
August 6, 1911 Jamestown, New York |
| Died |
April 26, 1989 Beverly Hills, California |
| Spouse | Desi Arnaz, Gary Morton |
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an iconic American actress, comedian and star of the landmark sitcom I Love Lucy, a four time Emmy Award winner (awarded 1953, 1956, 1967, 1968) and charter member of the Television Hall of Fame. Ball, known as the "Queen of Comedy," was also responsible with her then-husband, Desi Arnaz, for the foundation of Desilu Studios, a pioneering studio in American television production in the 1950s and 60s.
Biography
Early life and career
Ball was born to Henry Durrell Ball (1887–1915) and Desiree "DeDe" Eveline Hunt (1892–1977) in Jamestown, New York and grew up in the adjacent small town of Celoron, a suburb of Jamestown. While DeDe Ball was pregnant with her second child, Frederick, Henry Ball contracted typhoid fever and died in February 1915.
After her father died, Ball and her brother Fred were raised by her working mother and grandparents.
In 1925 after a romance with a local bad boy (Johnny DeVita), Ball decided to enroll in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts with her mother's approval. Ball went home a few weeks later when drama coaches told her that she "had no future at all as a performer". Ball was signed to MGM in the 1940s, but she never achieved great success in films.
In 1940, Ball met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz while filming the film version of the Rodgers and Hart stage hit Too Many Girls. Ball and Arnaz connected immediately and eloped the same year, garnering much press attention. Arnaz and Ball frequently argued, especially over his indiscretions with other women, but they always made up in the end. However, shortly after Ball obtained an interlocutory decree, she reconciled with Arnaz again.
In 1948, Ball was cast as Liz Cugat (later "Cooper"), a wacky wife, in My Favorite Husband, a radio program for CBS.
In response to these accusations, Arnaz quipped: "The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that's not legitimate." Ball survived this encounter with the HUAC, naming no names.
I Love Lucy and Desilu
The I Love Lucy show was not only a star vehicle for Lucille Ball, but a way for her to try to salvage her marriage to Desi Arnaz, which had become badly strained, in part by the fact that each had a hectic performing schedule which often kept them apart. Ball was the first woman in television to be head of a production company: Desilu, the company that she and Arnaz formed. (After buying out her ex-husband's share of the studio, Ball functioned as a very active studio head.)
Desilu and I Love Lucy pioneered a number of methods still in use in television production today.
Desilu produced several other popular shows, most notably Make Room for Daddy, Our Miss Brooks, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Untouchables, I Spy, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible.
Ball's instincts with business were often astonishingly sharp, and her love for Arnaz was passionate, but her relationships with her children were sometimes strained. Vance said, following her first meeting with Ball, "I'm going to learn to love that bitch."
On July 17, 1951, just one month shy of her 40th birthday and after several miscarriages, Ball gave birth to her first child, Lucie Desiree Arnaz. A year and a half later, Ball gave birth to her second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known as Desi Arnaz, Jr. When he was born, I Love Lucy was a solid ratings hit, and Ball and Arnaz wrote the pregnancy into the show (indeed, Ball gave birth in real life on the same day that her Lucy Ricardo character gave birth).
By the end of the 1950s, Desilu had become a large company, causing a good deal of stress for both Ball and Arnaz; However, until his death in 1986, Arnaz would remain friends with Ball. Indeed, both Arnaz and Ball spoke lovingly of each other after the breakup.
The following year, Ball married comedian Gary Morton, a Borscht Belt stand-up comic who was twelve years younger than she. Morton told interviewers at the time that he had never seen Ball on television, since he was always performing during primetime. Ball immediately installed Morton in her production company, teaching him the television business and eventually promoting him to producer. Morton also played occasional bit parts on Ball's various series.
Following I Love Lucy, Ball appeared in the Broadway musical Wildcat, which was a wildly successful sell-out that ended up losing money and closing early when Ball became too ill to continue in the show. She made a few more movies (including Yours, Mine and Ours, and the musical Mame), and two more successful long-running sitcoms for CBS: The Lucy Show (1962–68), which costarred Vance and Gale Gordon, and Here's Lucy (1968–74), which also featured Gordon, as well Lucy's real life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. In 1982, Ball 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. However, her 1986 sitcom comeback Life With Lucy (costarring her longtime foil Gale Gordon and co-produced by Miss Ball, Gary Morton, and former actor Aaron Spelling) was a critical and commercial flop which was canceled less than two months into its run by ABC.
The failure of this series was said to have sent Ball into a serious depression, and other than a few miscellaneous awards show appearances, she was absent from the public eye for the last several years of her life.
Lucille Ball died on April 26, 1989, of a ruptured aorta at the age of 77 and was cremated.
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