I Loved Lucy: My Friendship with Lucille Ball
While Kathleen Brady's outstanding Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball (1994) is still the benchmark for biographies on the red-headed comedienne who ruled the TV airwaves from 1951 through 1974, this slighter memoir, focusing on the last decade of her life, is still a treat for fans who continue to love Lucy. Tannen, a distant relative through marriage, befriended Ball (1911-1989) during the last decade of her life. By this time, Ball was spending most days playing backgammon and confining professional appearances mostly to yearly Bob Hope specials. Whereas Jim Brochu's Lucy in the Afternoon (1990) covered the same ground, Brochu pulled memories from Ball as they toiled over the backgammon table, creating an oral history of her professional and private life. Tannen's portrait of Ball is less reflective on the past, instead concentrating on her frustration at being denied one of the great joys of her life her work because of bad health and poor decisions. Gary Morton is presented as an absentee husband (when not golfing, he's in his study on the phone with friends). His bad career advice leads Ball into two late-in-life disasters: a TV movie (1985's Stone Pillow), which ruined her health, and the poorly conceived TV series Life with Lucy (1986), which, when canceled, convinced her that she no longer had a career or fans who wanted to see her. Tannen believes that this led Lucy to lose enthusiasm for life. This affectionate and intimate but by no means rose-colored portrait presents Ball as a demanding taskmaster at a loss during her twilight years. Fans won't learn much new here, but it's still a worthwhile visit. Photos not seen by PW.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.