Ball, Lucille (1911-1989)
Almost fifty years after I Love Lucy first aired on television, the image of "Lucy" is still omnipresent in U.S. culture. In movies, on television, and emblazoned on various merchandise such as lunchboxes, dolls, piggybanks, and calendars, the zany redhead with the elastic face is an industrial and cultural institution. But beyond simply an image, Lucille Ball was, without a doubt, the first woman of television and the most adored American female comic of the twentieth century. However, the comedienne's struggling years as a model, dancer, and "B" movie actress are often forgotten in the light of her international fame that came at the age of 40.
As a 15-year-old Ball left her family in upstate New York to study acting in Manhattan. Although she acquired skills in acting, dancing, and modeling, she did not find any real success until she landed a job as a chorus girl in Eddie Cantor's 1933 film Roman Scandals. A talented and beautiful woman with a slim body and large blue eyes, Ball's star potential was recognized by a number of studios. Goldwyn was the first to sign her as a contract player after her turn in Cantor's film. Disappointed by the bit parts with little to no dialogue offered by Goldwyn, Ball soon left for RKO where her 1937 performance in Stage Door with Katherine Hepburn attracted the attention of studio heads. Consequently over the next few years, Ball won significant roles in films such as Go Chase Yourself (1938), Too Many Girls (1940), and The Big Street (1942), carving out a small career for herself in "B" pictures. She also found her future husband, Desi Arnaz, during her time in Hollywood when she starred alongside him in the film Too Many Girls (1940). Yet, by the mid-1940s, after switching studios once again (this time to MGM), it became apparent to both Ball and her studio that she did not fit the mold of a popular musical star or romantic leading lady. So, the platinum blonde glamour girl began the process of remaking herself into a feisty redheaded comedienne.
In 1948, Ball was cast as Liz Cooper, a high society housewife on CBS radio's situation comedy My Favorite Husband —a role that would help form the basis of her "Lucy" character. The show attracted a significant following and CBS offered Ball the opportunity to star in a television version of the program in 1950. But, concerned with what damage the new job might do to her already tenuous marriage, Ball insisted that Arnaz be cast as her on-screen husband. Network executives initially balked at the idea claiming that Arnaz lacked the talent and other qualities necessary to television stardom. However, after Ball rejected CBS's offer and took her and Arnaz's act on the vaudeville circuit to critical acclaim, the network finally backed down agreeing to sign the couple to play Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. But, Arnaz and Ball were able to finagle not only contracts as co-stars, but they also procured ownership of the programs after their initial airing. The unexpectedly large profits that came from the show's syndication, foreign rights, and re-runs enabled the couple to form their own production company, Desilu, which eventually produced such hit shows as Our Miss Brooks, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Untouchables.
On October 15, 1951 I Love Lucy was broadcast for the first time. The show focused primarily on the antics of Lucy, a frustrated housewife longing to break into show business and her husband Ricky, a moderately successful Cuban bandleader. Supported by co-stars William Frawley and Vivian Vance, playing the Ricardo's best friends and neighbors, along with the talents of My Favorite Husband writers Jess Oppenheimer, Carroll Carroll, and Madelyn Pugh, Ball and Arnaz's program quickly topped the ratings. Much of I Love Lucy's success was credited to Ball's incredible timing and endlessly fascinating physical finesse. Able to project both the glamour of a former film star as well as the goofy incompetence of an ordinary (albeit zany) housewife, Ball proved that vaudeville routines could be incorporated into a domestic setting and that a female comedian could be both feminine and aggressively physical. She accomplished this, at least in part, by choreographing every move of her slapstick performances and accumulating a series of goofy facial expressions that were eventually cataloged by the writings staff under such cues as "light bulb," "puddling up," "small rabbit," and "foiled again."
Lucille Ball In the spring of 1952, I Love Lucy set a rating record of 71.8 when Ball's real-life cesarean delivery of her and Arnaz's son occurred on the same day as the on-air birth of Lucy Ricardo's "little Ricky." Expertly exploiting the viewer's conflation of Ball and Arnaz's private life with that of the Ricardo's, the couple managed to achieve television super stardom through the event and appeared on the covers of Time, Life, and Look with their son and daughter (Lucille Arnaz was born in 1951) over the next year. But, not all the press attention was positive. Accused of being a communist in 1953, Ball was one of the only film or television stars to survive the machinations of the HUAC investigations. Explaining that she registered as a communist in 1936 in order to please her ailing socialist grandfather, she claimed that she was never actually a supporter of the communist party. Thousands of fans wrote to Ball giving her their support and the committee eventually backed down announcing that they had no real evidence of her affiliation with the party. The crisis passed quickly and Lucy remained the most popular comedienne of the 1950s.
After divorcing Arnaz in 1960 and buying out his share of Desilu, Ball became the first woman to control her own television production studio. During the 1960s she produced and starred in The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, and Here's Lucy. By the mid-1970s she had begun to appear in television specials and made-for-television movies, and by 1985 had garnered critical praise for her portrayal of a homeless woman in the drama Stone Pillow. But it was her brilliantly silly, mayhem-making Lucy character that lingered in the minds (and merchandise) of generations of television audiences even after her death in 1989.
Further Reading:
Andrews, Bart. Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel. New York, Dutton, 1976.
Arnaz, Desi. A Book by Desi Arnaz. New York, Morrow, 1976.
Ball, Lucille with Betty Hannah Hoffman. Love, Lucy. New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1996.
Brady, Kathleen. Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball. New York, Hyperion, 1994.
Brochu, Jim. Lucy in the Afternoon: An Intimate Memoir of Lucille Ball. New York, William Morrow, 1990.
Oppenheimer, Jess with Gregg Oppenheimer. Laughs, Luck … and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time. Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University Press, 1996.
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