Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, New York. When she was 3 years old, her father had died, and she moved with her mother and little brother to her grandparents’ house in Celoron, New York. At the age of 12, while auditioning for the chorus line of her stepfathers’ Shriner’s organization, Ball discovered her passion for performing, realizing that this was a great way to earn praise and recognition.
At 17, Ball came to NYC, auditioning for various productions while working as a house model for Hattie Carnegie. At 21, after two years of hiatus due to rheumatoid arthritis, she landed some chorus work on Broadway, using the name Diane Belmont. Afterward, she moved to Hollywood and acted in various minor movie roles. In 1937, at the age of 26, Ball was cast in her first credited part, starring alongside Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn in the film The Three Musketeers. During the 1940s, Ball became known as the current “Queen of the B’s” for starring in numerous B-movies. One of them was the musical Too Many Girls, where she and Desi Arnaz, who already played together in her previous movie, became a couple. They got married that same year.
Between one acting job to another, Ball gained exposure working in radio shows, including The Phil Baker Show and CBS’s My Favorite Husband. Ball’s portray of the wacky wife caught the attention of the producers, who asked her to develop a TV show. Insisting on working with her real-life husband, the network rejected the pilot, claiming that the audience will not believe that a Cuban and a red-haired Caucasian is a couple. Instead, Ball and Arnaz created a vaudeville act, in which she played a housewife who wants to get into her husband’s show. In light of the act’s successes, I Love Lucy got into the CBS lineup. The show was produced by Desilu – the production company that Ball and Arnaz had founded, for which Ball became the first woman to head a TV production company. In I Love Lucy, Ball played a witty housewife who finds creative ways to leave the house. Ball charmed the audience with her range, physical comedy, and timing. Premiered on October 15, 1951, the show immediately became the #1 watched sitcom, with a record of an overall of 67.3 on Nielsen ratings over its six years course. The show was innovative in television broadcasting, being the first production to film before a live studio audience and to use three cameras.
While I Love Lucy was on the air, Ball was also teaching a comedy workshop at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. During the show’s time off, she and Arnaz starred together in two films and produced various movies and TV shows, including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, and Star Trek.
In 1957, after the show ended, 46 years old Ball returned to Broadway and the radio, hosting a radio talk show called Let’s Talk to Lucy. She continued to star in two more successful sitcoms – The Lucy Show (1962-1968) and Here’s Lucy (1968-1974). In 1960, she and Arnaz got divorced, and in the following year, she married her second husband, Gary Morton, who was 13 years younger than her. During the 1980s, Ball performed in various television specials and had a TV comeback with the sitcom Life with Lucy. Ball died at the age of 78 from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, leaving behind her a legacy of joy and laughter, inspiring many comediennes and actresses to follow her path.
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