Age, Biography, and Wiki
Lucille Ball was born on August 6, 1911, in Celoron, New York, and passed away on April 26, 1989, at the age of 77. She is celebrated for her groundbreaking work in television, particularly as the star of the iconic sitcom "I Love Lucy" and her role as a pioneering female executive in Hollywood.
| Occupation | Executives |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 6 August 1911 |
| Age | 113 Years |
| Birth Place | Jamestown, New York, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Leo |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 26 April, 1989 |
| Died Place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Details about Lucille Ball's exact height and weight are not widely documented, but she was known for her slender figure and vibrant stage presence, which contributed to her success as a model and actress early in her career.
On April 18, 1989, Ball was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after experiencing chest pains. She was diagnosed with a dissecting aortic aneurysm near her heart and underwent a 7-hour surgery to repair her aorta and successfully install an aortic valve replacement.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Lucille Ball was married to Desi Arnaz, her co-star from "I Love Lucy," from 1940 until their divorce in 1960. Following her divorce, she married Gary Morton in 1961, and they remained together until her death in 1989.
Her father's Bell Telephone career frequently required the family to move during Lucy's early childhood. The first was to Anaconda, Montana, and later to Trenton, New Jersey. On February 28, 1915, while living in Wyandotte, Michigan, Lucy's father died of typhoid fever aged 27, when Lucy was only three years old. At that time, DeDe was pregnant with her second child, Fred Ball (1915–2007). Lucille recalled little from the day her father died, except a bird getting trapped in the house, which caused her lifelong ornithophobia.
Ball's mother returned to New York, where maternal grandparents helped raise Lucy and her brother Fred in Celoron, a summer resort village on Chautauqua Lake. Their home was at 59 West 8th Street (later renamed Lucy Lane). Also living in the house were Ball's aunt and uncle, Lola and George Mandicos, and their daughter, Lucy's first cousin Cleo. Having grown up with Lucy, Cleo would later work as a producer on several of Lucy's radio and television programs, and Lucy also introduced Cleo to her second husband, the Los Angeles Times critic Cecil Smith.
Four years after Henry Ball's death, DeDe married Edward Peterson. While they looked for work in another city, Peterson's parents cared for Lucy and Fred. Ball's step-grandparents were a puritanical Swedish couple who banished all mirrors from the house except one over the bathroom sink. When Lucy was caught admiring herself in it, she was severely chastised for being vain. She later said that this period of time affected her deeply, and it lasted seven or eight years.
In 1925, Ball, then only 14, started dating Johnny DeVita, a 21-year-old local hoodlum. Her mother was unhappy with the relationship, and hoped the romance, which she was unable to influence, would burn out. After about a year, her mother tried to separate them by exploiting Ball's desire to be in show business. Despite the family's meager finances, in 1926, she enrolled Ball in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts, in New York City, where Bette Davis was a fellow student. Ball later said about that time in her life, "All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened." Ball's instructors felt she would not be successful in the entertainment business, and were unafraid to directly state this to her.
Like many budding actresses, Ball picked up radio work to supplement her income and gain exposure. In 1937, she appeared regularly on The Phil Baker Show. When its run ended in 1938, Ball joined the cast of The Wonder Show starring Jack Haley. There began her 50-year professional relationship with the show's announcer, Gale Gordon. The Wonder Show lasted one season, with the final episode airing on April 7, 1939.
In 1942, Ball starred opposite Henry Fonda in The Big Street. MGM producer Arthur Freed purchased the Broadway hit musical play Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) especially for Ann Sothern, but when she turned down the part, that role went to Ball, Sothern's real-life best friend. In 1943, Ball portrayed herself in Best Foot Forward. In 1946, Ball starred in Lover Come Back and the film noir The Dark Corner. In 1947, she appeared in the murder mystery Lured as Sandra Carpenter, a taxi dancer in London. In 1948, Ball was cast as Liz Cooper, a wacky wife in My Favorite Husband, a radio comedy for CBS Radio. (At first, the character's name was Liz Cugat; this was changed because of confusion with real-life bandleader Xavier Cugat, who sued. )
My Favorite Husband was successful, and CBS asked Ball to develop it for television. She agreed, but insisted on working with her real-life husband, Arnaz. CBS executives were reluctant, thinking the public would not accept an Anglo-American redhead and a Cuban as a couple. CBS was initially unimpressed with the pilot episode, produced by the couple's Desilu Productions company. The pair went on the road with a vaudeville act, in which Lucy played the zany housewife, who wants to get into a Cuban band leader's (Arnaz's) show. The tour was a hit, and CBS put I Love Lucy into their lineup.
I Love Lucy ran on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, and was not only a star vehicle for Lucille Ball, but also a potential means for her to salvage her marriage to Arnaz. Their relationship had become badly strained, in part because of their hectic performing schedules, which often kept them apart, but mostly due to Desi's attraction to other women.
Ball's close friends in the business included perennial co-star Vivian Vance and film stars Judy Garland, Ann Sothern, and Ginger Rogers, and comedic television performers Jack Benny, Barbara Pepper, Ethel Merman, Mary Wickes, and Mary Jane Croft; all except Garland appeared at least once on her various series. Former Broadway co-stars Keith Andes and Paula Stewart also appeared at least once on her later sitcoms, as did Joan Blondell, Rich Little, and Ann-Margret. Ball mentored actress and singer Carole Cook, and befriended Barbara Eden, when Eden appeared on an episode of I Love Lucy. Ball was originally considered by Frank Sinatra for the role of Mrs. Iselin in the Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate. Director/producer John Frankenheimer, however, had worked with Angela Lansbury in a mother role in All Fall Down, and insisted on having her for the part.
The following year, Ball starred in the Broadway musical Wildcat, co-starring Keith Andes and Paula Stewart. It marked the beginning of a 30-year friendship with Stewart, who introduced Ball to second husband Gary Morton, a Borscht Belt comic 13 years her junior. Morton and Ball married on November 19, 1961. According to Ball, Morton claimed he had never seen an episode of I Love Lucy due to his hectic work schedule. She immediately installed Morton in her production company, teaching him the television business and eventually promoting him to producer; he also played occasional bit parts on her various series. They had homes in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, California, and in Snowmass Village, Colorado.
Ball was outspoken against the relationship her son had with actress Patty Duke. Later, commenting on when her son dated Liza Minnelli, she said: "I miss Liza, but you cannot domesticate Liza."
Three memorial services were held for Ball. She was cremated, and the ashes were originally interred at Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, where her mother was also buried. In 2002, Ball's and her mother's remains were re-interred at the Hunt family plot at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown, New York, in accordance with Ball's wishes to be buried near her mother. The remains of her brother, Fred Henry Ball, were also interred there in 2007.
Ball received many tributes, honors, and awards throughout her career and posthumously. On February 8, 1960, she was given two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: at 6436 Hollywood Boulevard, for contributions to motion pictures; and at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard, for her contribution to the arts and sciences of television. In 1964, Ball and her second husband Morton attended "Lucy Day", a celebration in her honor held by the New York World's Fair.
Acting on advice given to her by Norman Vincent Peale in the early 1960s, Ball collaborated with Betty Hannah Hoffman on an autobiography that covered her life until 1964. Her former attorney found the manuscript, postmarked 1966, while going through old files. He sent it and the tapes of interviews, conducted by Hoffman and used to write the manuscript, to Lucie and Desi Jr., who had been put in charge of their mother's estate. It was subsequently published by Berkley Publishing Group in 1997. The book was released on audio through Audible on July 9, 2018, read by her daughter.
Ball was portrayed by Sarah Drew in the play I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, a comedy about how Ball and her husband battled to get their sitcom on the air. It premiered in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018, co-starring Oscar Nuñez as Desi Arnaz, and Seamus Dever as I Love Lucy producer-head writer Jess Oppenheimer. The play was written by Oppenheimer's son, Gregg Oppenheimer. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a serialized version of the play in the UK in August 2020, as LUCY LOVES DESI: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, starring Anne Heche as Ball. In January 2023, L.A. Theatre Works mounted a 22-city U.S. national tour of the play (as LUCY LOVES DESI: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom), starring Ellis Greer as Ball.
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| Husband | Desi Arnaz (m. 1940-1960) Gary Morton (m. 1961) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of her death in 1989, Lucille Ball's net worth was approximately $60 million, which is equivalent to about $125 million in today's dollars when adjusted for inflation. Her wealth was largely due to her clever business decisions, including retaining ownership rights to "I Love Lucy" and her success with Desilu Productions.
For the production of I Love Lucy, Ball and Arnaz wanted to remain in their Los Angeles home, but prime time in Los Angeles was too late to air a major network series live on the East Coast; broadcasting live from California would have meant giving most of the TV audience an inferior kinescope picture, delayed by at least a day. Sponsor Philip Morris pressured the couple into relocating, not wanting day-old kinescopes airing in major East Coast markets, nor did they want to pay the extra cost that filming, processing, and editing would require. Instead, the couple offered to take a pay cut to finance filming on better-quality 35 mm film, on the condition that Desilu would retain the rights of each episode once it aired. CBS agreed to relinquish the post-first-broadcast rights to Desilu, not realizing they were giving up a valuable and enduring asset. In 1957, CBS bought back the rights for $1,000,000 ($ in today's terms), financing Ball and Arnaz's down payment for the purchase of the former RKO Pictures studios, which they turned into Desilu Studios.
Career, Business, and Investments
Lucille Ball began her career in the 1930s as a model and chorus girl, eventually transitioning to film and television. Her breakout role came with "I Love Lucy," which she co-created and starred in alongside Desi Arnaz. This show was a landmark in television history, pioneering the three-camera filming technique that remains standard today.
In addition to her acting career, Ball was a shrewd businesswoman. She and Desi Arnaz sold their episodes of "I Love Lucy" to CBS for $4.5 million in 1957, using the funds to expand their production company, Desilu Productions. Ball bought Arnaz's shares in the company for $2.5 million in 1962. Five years later, she sold Desilu to Gulf+Western for $17 million, a deal that would be worth significantly more today.
Ball's career began in 1929 when she landed work as a model. Shortly thereafter, she began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name Diane (or Dianne) Belmont. She later appeared in films in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles, with lead roles in B-pictures and supporting roles in A-pictures. During this time, she met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz, and they eloped in November 1940. In the 1950s, Ball ventured into television, where she and Arnaz created the sitcom I Love Lucy. She gave birth to their first child, Lucie, in 1951, followed by Desi Arnaz Jr. in 1953. They divorced in March 1960, and she married comedian Gary Morton in 1961.
Ball did not retire from acting completely, and in 1985 she took on a dramatic role in the television film Stone Pillow. The next year, she starred in Life with Lucy, which, unlike her other sitcoms, was not well-received; it was canceled after three months. She did not appear in film or television roles for the rest of her career and died in 1989, aged 77, from an abdominal aortic aneurysm brought about by arteriosclerotic heart disease. After her death, the American Comedy Awards were officially dubbed "The Lucy" after her.
In 1932, she moved back to New York City to resume her pursuit of an acting career, where she supported herself by again working for Carnegie and as the Chesterfield cigarette girl. Using the name Diane (sometimes spelled Dianne) Belmont, she started getting chorus work on Broadway, but it did not last. Ball was hired — but then quickly fired — by theater impresario Earl Carroll from his Vanities, and by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. from a touring company of Rio Rita.
I Love Lucy dominated U.S. ratings for most of its run. An attempt was made to adapt the show for radio using the "Breaking the Lease" episode (in which the Ricardos and Mertzes argue, and the Ricardos threaten to move, but find themselves stuck in a firm lease) as the pilot. The resulting radio audition disc has survived, but never aired.
Desilu produced several other popular shows, such as The Untouchables, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible. Ball sold her shares of the studio to Gulf+Western in 1967 for $17,000,000 ($ in today's dollars), and it was renamed Paramount Television.
During the 1980s, Ball attempted to resurrect her television career. In 1982, she hosted a two-part Three's Company retrospective, showing clips from the show's first five seasons, summarizing memorable plotlines, and commenting on her love of the show.
Immediately before the filming of episode 68 ("The Girls Go Into Business") of I Love Lucy, Desi Arnaz, instead of his usual audience warm-up, told the audience about Lucy and her grandfather. Reusing the line he had first given to Hedda Hopper in an interview, he quipped:
In October 1956, Ball, Arnaz, Vance, and William Frawley all appeared on a Bob Hope special on NBC, including a spoof of I Love Lucy, the only time all four stars were together on a color telecast. By the end of the 1950s, Desilu had become a large company, causing a good deal of stress for both Ball and Arnaz.
Social Network
Lucille Ball was not active on social media platforms, as she passed away in 1989, before the widespread use of such networks. However, her legacy lives on through various fan pages and tributes across social media platforms.
After an uncredited stint as a Goldwyn Girl in Roman Scandals (1933), starring Eddie Cantor and Gloria Stuart, Ball moved permanently to Hollywood to appear in films. She had many small movie roles in the 1930s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, including a two-reel comedy short with The Three Stooges (Three Little Pigskins, 1934) and a movie with the Marx Brothers (Room Service, 1938). Her first credited role came in Chatterbox in 1936. She also appeared in several Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers RKO musicals: as one of the featured models in Roberta (1935), as the flower shop clerk in Top Hat (1935), and in a brief supporting role at the beginning of Follow the Fleet (1936). Ball played a larger part as an aspiring actress alongside Ginger Rogers, who was a distant maternal cousin, and Katharine Hepburn in the film Stage Door (1937).
Along the way, Ball created a television dynasty and achieved several firsts. She was the first woman to head a TV production company, Desilu, which she had formed with Arnaz. After their divorce in 1960, she bought out his share and became a very actively engaged studio head. Desilu and I Love Lucy pioneered a number of methods still in use in TV production today, such as filming before a live studio audience with more than one camera, and distinct sets, adjacent to each other. During this time, Ball taught a 32-week comedy workshop at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. She was quoted as saying, "You cannot teach someone comedy; either they have it or they don't."
The 1960 Broadway musical Wildcat ended its run early when producer and star Ball could not recover from a virus and continue the show after several weeks of returned ticket sales. The show was the source of the song she made famous, "Hey, Look Me Over", which she performed with Paula Stewart on The Ed Sullivan Show. Ball hosted a CBS Radio talk show entitled Let's Talk to Lucy in 1964–65. She also made a few more movies including Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), and the musical Mame (1974), and two more successful long-running sitcoms for CBS: The Lucy Show (1962–68), which costarred Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon, and Here's Lucy (1968–74), which also featured Gordon, as well as Lucy's real-life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. She appeared on the Dick Cavett show in 1974 and discussed her work on I Love Lucy, and reminisced about her family history, the friends she missed from show business, and how she learned to be happy while married. She also told a story about how she helped discover an underground Japanese radio signal after accidentally picking up the signal on the fillings in her teeth.
CBS insisted that a pregnant woman could not be shown on television, nor could the word "pregnant" be spoken on-air. After approval from several religious figures, the network allowed the pregnancy story line, but insisted that the word "expecting" be used instead of "pregnant" (Arnaz garnered laughs when he deliberately mispronounced it as "spectin). The episode's official title is "Lucy Is Enceinte", borrowing the French word for pregnant; however, episode titles never appeared on-screen.
Education
Lucille Ball attended the John Murray Anderson School of the Dramatic Arts but did not graduate. She instead pursued a career in modeling and acting, eventually becoming one of the most influential figures in American entertainment.
Despite passing away in 1989, Lucille Ball's impact on television and her enduring popularity continue to inspire new generations of actors, comedians, and entrepreneurs. Her ability to merge talent with business acumen has left a lasting legacy in the entertainment industry.
To sponsor the Communist Party's 1936 candidate for the California State Assembly's 57th District, Ball signed a certificate stating, "I am registered as affiliated with the Communist Party." The same year, the Communist Party of California appointed her to the state's Central Committee, according to records of the Secretary of State of California. In 1937, Hollywood writer Rena Vale, a self-identified Communist, attended a class at an address identified to her as Ball's home according to her testimony given before the United States House of Representatives' Special House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), on July 22, 1940. Two years later, Vale affirmed this testimony in a sworn deposition:
"... within a few days after my third application to join the Communist Party was made, I received a notice to attend a meeting on North Ogden Drive, Hollywood; although it was a typed, unsigned note, merely requesting my presence at the address at 8 o'clock in the evening on a given day, I knew it was the long-awaited notice to attend Communist Party new members' classes ... on arrival at this address I found several others present; an elderly man informed us that we were the guests of the screen actress, Lucille Ball, and showed us various pictures, books, and other objects to establish that fact, and stated she was glad to loan her home for a Communist Party new members' class; ..."
