At a glance
- Lucille Ball was born on August 6, 1911, and would go on to create one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time, I Love Lucy.
- I Love Lucy ran on CBS from 1951 until 1957, followed by The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour from 1957 until 1960, The Lucy Show from 1962 until 1968, and Here’s Lucy from 1968 until 1986. Later that year, Life With Lucy was launched but was cancelled shortly thereafter.
- Lucille married Desi Arnaz in 1940, and they had two children, Lucie and Ricky.
- Over the course of her career, Lucille also appeared in over 80 movies.
Adored, incomparable comedienne Lucille Ball died more than 37 years ago. In the second issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly ICONS, writer Katie Ekberg took a detailed look at her incredible life and legacy. And she revealed the hidden truth beneath the headlines. We revisit that story here.
America’s favourite sitcom
At its peak between 1951 and 1952, CBS network’s I Love Lucy was hailed as the most popular TV show of all time. It starred married duo comedienne Lucille Ball and Cuban bandleader and musician Desi Arnaz.
The series changed the Monday night habits of Americans. Between 9 and 9.30pm, taxis disappeared off the streets of New York, and the Marshall Fields department store (owned by US President JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy Snr) in Chicago hung up a notice which informed: “We love Lucy, too, so from now on we will be open Thursday nights instead of Monday.”
Telephone calls across the whole of the US dropped during the show’s half-hour screening. So too did the water flush rate, as families sat glued to the hilarious antics of Lucille and Desi.
So imagine the alarm: when, in May 1952, Lucille discovered she was pregnant for a second time, Desi went to their TV bosses and announced the end of I Love Lucy.
Lucille’s first pregnancy with daughter Lucie Desiree Arnaz, born on July 17, 1951, in the midst of making the pilot, had been extremely difficult. She was four months pregnant when the couple received the news they had been waiting for as long as they had been together: Their own show.
But they had been waiting equally long for a baby. Years of marriage had not borne fruit, and Lucille had already had at least two miscarriages. With an alarmingly tight deadline for the pilot and pregnant Lucy having to take it easy (not ideal for an actress who did all her own stunts), they toyed with turning down the show. Luckily, in the end they said yes.
Making history
They were reluctant to repeat those risks with a second treasured baby on the way. But when faced with Desi and Lucille’s possible departure, head writer and producer Jess Oppenheimer had a brainwave. “I wouldn’t say this to any other actress in the world,” he told them, “but why don’t we continue the show and have a baby on TV?”
Elated but concerned, Desi said, “Do you think we could? Would it be in good taste?” revealed Lucille in her posthumous autobiography, Love, Lucy.
“We’ll call the CBS censor and see,” said Jess. The only stipulation from the network was that the writers use the term “expecting,” not “pregnant”!
It was an agreement that would make screen history. It was the first time ever on television or stage that an actress played herself “expecting”.
One million people sent congratulations on the news of a new baby, and 7000 letters and 1000 telegrams arrived at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. Desi Jnr (Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV) was born on the same day that the screen character Lucy Ricardo gave birth to Ricky Ricardo Jnr. A staggering 44 million people tuned in.
Breaking up on screen
In both good times and bad, art imitated life.
In her posthumous autobiography Love, Lucy, the actress revealed that the screen audience knew that she and Desi had argued and separated in real life, and these scenes were written into the characters of the Ricardos – Ricky, a Cuban bandleader, and Lucy, an ambitious actress. People watching live in the front row of the bleachers would pull out hankies and weep with them; such was the connection between actors and audience.
While they were workshopping the show, Desi sang out. “She tries so hard. She can’t dance, she can’t sing. She’s earnest and pathetic. Oh, I love Lucy!” he crooned. While it sounds sexist now, no one was complaining. Both the name of the show and its premise were firmly set.
But the parallels between the show and real life were too close. And in the end, down-to-earth Lucille wanted out of the limelight. She also wanted out of the marriage, as party-animal Desi soaked up the spotlight.
All these stories and, indeed, Lucille’s revelatory book, may never have surfaced had it not been for those two babies, Lucie and Desi, who, following the death of their mother on April 26, 1989 (their father had died in 1986), were put in charge of her estate.
Both parents had been remarried for more than 20 years. Desi’s wife, Edie, died the year before he did, while Gary Morton, Lucille’s second husband and the children’s stepfather, was still alive at the time. He died in 1996.
An unexpected discovery
“For any children tending to an estate is an unwelcoming process,” writes Broadway alum, singer, performer, and director Lucie in the book’s foreword.
“We did it twice, within three years, and these were no ordinary parents. An old hatbox with a rusted zipper, filled with greying white gloves, without fingertips, which you’d assume was ‘Toss it’ material, hardly worthy of the thrift-shop pile, becomes a priceless item worn by my mother on I Love Lucy. Every seemingly trivial possession became instant memorabilia.
“One day, when her attorney was searching through legal documents, he hit gold. There, in a dusty box of tapes, he uncovered what turned out to be a never-before-published autobiographical work of our mother’s. It was written in first person and spanned Mom’s life up to 1964.”
The package, from Betty Hannah Hoffman, was postmarked in 1966. As Lucie read it, she began to cry. “So many people, including myself, had tried to tell this story, but up until that moment I never knew my mother had written about her own life.” Her brother, Broadway performer and percussionist Desi Arnaz Jr, wept, too.
Lucille’s life… in her own words
But more emotion was to come. They discovered that Mrs Hoffman had taped all her interviews, so they could hear their mother in the 20-odd hours of recording. Finally locating Mrs Hoffman, Lucie discovered she had worked with her mother on the recordings for two years, but that Lucille was afraid of hurting people who were still alive, especially Desi Snr.
“She was afraid that all Mrs Hoffman would want to do was to dwell on the “D” words [drinking, dames, and the divorce].
“The project was shelved. Even in 1989, when my husband and our children spent Easter with Mom and Gary in Palm Springs, she was telling us how she had finally agreed to do an ‘as-told-to’ autobiography. Either she had forgotten about the 300-page head start, or figured it would be easier to start from scratch.”
Lucille was a natural writer, and the transcripts literally speak for themselves in this funny, pithy, honest, unsentimental book. Critics and fans went wild when Love, Lucy was published.
“It’s a shock to hear the gleeful, guileless voice of ‘America’s favourite redhead’ ring out with such vitality,” wrote The New York Times Book Review.
The birth of an icon
Lucille Ball was born on August 6, 1911, in her grandparents’ apartment in Jamestown, New York, delivered by her grandmother Flora Belle Hunt. Her mother, Desiree, known as DeDe, married Bell Telephone Company lineman Henry Durrell Ball at 17. He moved the family to Montana for work and later to Michigan.
“DeDe says I got my sense of humour from him,” recalls Lucille in Love, Lucy. She added he “roughhoused her” as he might a son – tossing her to the ceiling, catching her a few feet from the floor.
It’s easy to see how Lucille Ball had a reputation as the girl who would do anything. “My willingness to be shot down a steamship funnel goes back to my happiest days with my father.”
But tragedy struck when Henry caught the “grippe” (influenza) in the snow of Michigan as foreman of the telephone line crew. It turned into typhoid fever. He died when Lucille was four and while DeDe was pregnant with their son, Fred. The family returned to Jamestown.
“The Hunts had lost their own son, Harold, at the age of 18, and when Desirée presented them with a grandson on July 17, 1915, they were deeply gratified.
When she announced that she would christen him Frederick, after Grandpa Hunt, they were beside themselves. To all appearances, Lucille was once again in an affectionate and secure household,” wrote Stefan Kanfer in his 2003 Lucille Ball biography Ball of Fire.
No easy childhood
“Lucille had been struck two terrible and inexplicable blows. As she interpreted them, a beloved father had abandoned her without so much as a goodbye. Five months later, she had been displaced by a wailing rival who absorbed 100 per cent of her mother’s love and attention.”
At first, she was sent to live with Aunt Lola, whom she adored, but it all changed again when DeDe married Ed Peterson, a young metal polisher. Adds Stefan, “Lucille assumed that Ed would slide into her father’s place and make the family whole again. Her dreams were shattered when she took his hand on the wedding day and asked, ‘Are you our new daddy?’
“Peterson frowned down and pulled loose from her grip. ‘Call me Ed.’ He moved his new wife to Detroit, leaving Fred with his grandparents and little Lucille to live with his very strict parents.”
In her autobiography, Lucille seemingly bears no grudges. Mrs Peterson taught her how to garden and was actually fond of her, she says. And, when reunited with her mother – the whole family, including her beloved grandparents and aunt, lived together – she saw a mother whose advice she treasured. “It is salty, sensible, and never one-sided.”
DeDe sold hats, and Aunt Lola worked in a beauty shop where Lucille helped out. She was nicknamed “Lucille-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-now?”, while her little brother was “Frit-zie boy.”
Lucille before I Love Lucy
It was a schoolteacher who first encouraged Lucille to go on stage. But at John Murray Anderson/Robert Milton Theater School in New York, classmates ridiculed her Midwestern accent. That teacher deemed her unable to dance or sing. A fellow student called Bette Davis confirmed the school’s belief, Lucille recalled.
But she determined to survive the put-downs. One director told her, “Forget it. You’re a nice kid, but you just don’t have it. Why don’t you go to Montana and raise a big family?”
Landing the role of Chesterfield cigarette girl in 1933, after a painting of Lucille in flowing chiffon (with two wolfhounds “for class”!) was chosen to be printed on its packs, her face and figure were posted on a giant billboard in New York.
When Sam Goldwyn was looking for a dozen well-known poster girls to promote the Eddie Cantor movie Roman Scandal in 1933, Lucille was in.
The girl slaves were left hanging from a rotunda, chained by their wrists, sometimes until 3am, while slave traders with black whips walked around below. But in true optimistic “Lucy” style, she remembers mostly the terrific food.
When she rented a little white bungalow at the studio where Ginger Rogers was another starlet, kindness and sound maternal advice came from Ginger’s mother, Lela, who managed a repertory company and had influence at the studio. “She was the first person to see me as a clown with glamour.”
Then in 1937 Lucille landed a sizeable role in Stage Door, with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.
How did Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz meet?
At RKO, Lucille was known as the girl who never complained. There was no complaining when Lucille, 28, met new 23-year-old sensation Desi Arnaz, star of Too Many Girls, ‘the Latin-It supremacy on Broadway’.
Born with a silver spoon – at 16 he had his own speedboat and motorcar – Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was an heir to the Bacardi rum fortune on his mother, Dolores Acha y de Socias’, side. The family owned ranches, a palatial home, and a vacation mansion on a private island in Santiago Bay, Cuba. But in 1933, they lost everything in the Cuban Revolution.
Desi was romantic and liked to party. Lucille was level-headed and never drank or spent too much. But they shared humour and hard work, and moved to the San Fernando Valley to a ranch with chickens, cats, and dogs.
The couple’s home-movie nights and costume parties were legendary. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were among the swarm of pals who were hosted withold-fashioned food and fun, and held a champagne party at Chasen’s restaurant in Hollywood for Lucille and Desi’s wedding in 1940.
MGM was looking for an actress to take Ethel Merman’s stage role in a movie version of the comedy Du Barry Was A Lady (1943). Lucille’s facial expressions and comic talents were put to use as May Daly, where coatroom attendant Louis (Red Skelton) is in love with nightclub singer May (Lucille). When Louis downs a drugged drink, he wakes believing he is King Louis XV and she is Madame Du Barry. Lucille was now in the company of Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Joan Crawford.
Changing her style
“They changed my hair to a lighter ‘tango’ red and took it from long and loose to up and lacquered. I hated it. I had to take the crust off at night by cracking it with a hairbrush,” she recalled.
Louis B. Mayer had left his wife and moved to a Beverly Hills mansion, where he and other wife-deserting moguls gambled and played. Desi went right along with it. “I told Desi it was alright for some executive,” said Louis. “But no one approves of an actor enjoying wild parties; it shows up immediately in the face before a camera.”
She was Coca-Cola to his rum. “The studio wanted me to appear at bosses’ dinner parties and entertain them in return. They didn’t approve of the image I created alone at the ranch in dungarees caring for dogs, cats, and chickens.”
Moving from Queen of the Bs
In his book The Great Movie Stars, The Golden Years, the late David Shipman observed, “In Miss Ball’s case, with her gleaming red hair, she looked a dream in Technicolor, as was proved for the second time when she took over from a pregnant Lana Turner in Best Foot Forward (1943).”
In 1945, she landed her next part in Without Love, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. And then she was cast in Ziegfeld Follies, alongside Lena Horne and Fred Astaire. “It was so star-studded,” she said. “I ended up doing nothing but cracking a rhinestone whip over eight black panthers. It was such a stupendous production involving so many egos and temperaments.”
During the summer of 1944, Desi had stopped coming home. They discussed divorcing (they didn’t finally divorce until 16 years later).
Landing a role on the radio show My Favourite Husband with Richard Denning for CBS, she was the perfect choice for the bank president’s wacky wife. The network wanted her to transfer it to the small screen, but Lucille only wanted to do it with Desi.
It would become the precursor to their own show. But not before they set up their own company, Desilu Productions, in 1950. I Love Lucy debuted on October 15, 1951. When asked why she had made it where other girls failed, she replied, “Maybe because they turned down more jobs and I did the opposite. As a result, I’ve never been out of work in this town.”
Lucille appeared in over 80 movies during her career.
The start of something incredible
The couple accepted an offer from MGM for a joint US$250,000. (When last with the studio, Lucille was on $3000 a week and Desi $650.) And in 1954, Judy Garland’s ex-husband Vincente Minnelli directed them in The Long, Long Trailer. It was a comedy David described as having “gorgeous moments.”
Television continued for Lucille’s solo. “Whenever she spoke of retiring, the networks just came up with bigger and bigger offers. Everyone really did love Lucy, even in a flop Broadway musical Wildcat in 1961,” observed David.
In 1957, Desi and Lucille bought RKO, and it became Desilu Studios. The couple divorced in 1960. In 1962, Lucille, who had married comedian Gary Morton in 1961, bought Desi’s share of the studio. This made her the first woman to head a major studio. It also made her one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. She eventually sold the company to Gulf-Western in 1967 for a then-jaw-dropping US$17 million.
Funny girl forever
In 1968, Lucille and Henry Fonda joined forces. They played a widow and widower in Yours, Mine and Ours, with a blended family of 18 kids between them.
“She was never better, never funnier, and the film went on to make a small fortune,” noted David.
I Love Lucy ran on CBS from 1951 until 1957. It was followed by The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour from 1957 until 1960. The Lucy Show went from 1962 until 1968, and Here’s Lucy from 1968 until 1986. Later that year, Life With Lucy was launched. But a new generation of viewers was not interested, and it limped away after two months. The “worst flop of the season”, according to Variety.
When did Lucille Ball die?
Lucille died on April 26, 1989, after undergoing heart surgery. In an obituary in The New York Times, Peter Flint wrote of the “elastic-faced, husky-voiced national institution … noted for impeccable timing, deft pantomime and an endearing talent for making the outrageous believable.”
William S. Paley, chairman of CBS at the time, added, “Lucille Ball will always be the first lady of CBS. Lucy’s extraordinary ability to light up the screen and brighten our lives is a legacy that will last forever.’’
And indeed it has. In the 2021 biopic Being the Ricardos, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, as Lucy and Desi, took audiences through a week of filming the iconic sitcom, set against the backdrop of professional and personal crises. The following year, comedienne Amy Poehler released her own documentary, Lucy and Desi.
“How can it get better than this?” daughter Lucie asked Entertainment Tonight at the time about the renewed interest in her parents. “They’re not reinvented, but rediscovered and re-appreciated.”
Even in death, Lucille Ball continues to touch a whole new audience.
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