Lucille Ball

**Lucille Désirée Ball Morton** (6 August 1911 - 26 April 1989) was an American actress, comedian, model, film-studio executive, and producer. She is best known as the star of the sitcoms *I Love Lucy*, *The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour*, *The Lucy Show*, and *Here's Lucy*.

## Early Life

Lucy was born in Jamestown, New York, to Henry and Désirée "DeDe" Ball. They briefly moved to Michigan, then Montana, but when she was three years old, her 27-year-old father died of typhoid fever, and she and her mother moved back to New York. DeDe later married Edward Peterson, a Shriner. When his organization needed female entertainers for the chorus line of their next show, he encouraged his twelve-year-old stepdaughter to audition. While Ball was onstage, she realized performing was a great way to gain praise and recognition.

## Career

At fourteen, Lucy began dating a 21-year-old local hoodlum. DeDe tried to separate them by using Lucy's show biz dreams. Despite meager finances, she arranged for Lucy to go to the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City. Though her instructors felt that she would not be successful, she was determined to prove them wrong. She returned to New York City in 1928 and landed work as a fashion model for Hattie Carnegie and later as the Chesterfield cigarette girl. Using the name Diane (sometimes spelled Dianne) Belmont, she started getting some chorus work on Broadway. Ball was hired but then quickly fired by theater impresario Earl Carroll, from his Vanities, and by Florenz Ziegfeld, from a touring company of Rio Rita.

After a bit part as a Goldwyn Girl in *Roman Scandals* (1933), Lucy moved to Hollywood to appear in films. In 1936, she landed the role she hoped would lead her to Broadway, Julie Tucker in *Hey Diddle Diddle*. Though it received good reviews, problems existed, and it closed after one week. In 1938, Lucy joined the cast of *The Wonder Show*. Though it only lasted one season, it was where she began her fifty-year professional relationship with Gale Gordon.

In 1948, Lucy was cast as wacky wife Liz Cugat in *My Favorite Husband*, a CBS Radio program. The program was successful, and CBS asked her to develop it for television. She agreed, but insisted on working with her real-life husband, Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz. To convince the reluctant executives, the couple toured the road in a vaudeville act with Lucy as the zany housewife wanting to be in Desi's show. The act was a great success, and CBS consented.

Lucy was the first woman in television to be head of a production company: Desilu, the company that Arnaz and she formed to produce the vaudeville tour. Sponsor Philip Morris did not want to show day-old kinescopes to the major markets on the East Coast, yet neither did they want to pay for the extra cost that filming, processing, and editing would require, pressuring Ball and Arnaz to relocate to New York City. Ball and Arnaz offered to take a pay cut to finance filming, on the condition that their company, Desilu, would retain the rights to that film once it was aired. CBS relinquished the show rights to Desilu after initial broadcast, but in 1957, CBS bought the rights back for one million dollars, which provided Ball and Arnaz the down payment for the purchase of the former RKO Pictures studios, which became Desilu Studios.