|
Filmography
-
That s Entertainment! III (1994)
- Song Performer
-
Wisecracks (1993)
- Herself
-
Entertaining the Troops (1988)
- Herself
-
Stone Pillow (1985)
-
Stone Pillow (1985)
-
Mame (1974)
- Mame
-
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)
- Helen North
-
A Guide For the Married Man (1967)
- Guest Star
-
Critic's Choice (1963)
- Angela Ballantine
-
The Facts of Life (1960)
- Kitty Weaver
-
Forever, Darling (1956)
- Susan Vega
-
The Long, Long Trailer (1954)
- Tacy Collini
-
The Fuller Brush Girl (1950)
-
Easy Living (1949)
-
Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949)
-
Her Husband's Affairs (1947)
-
Easy to Wed (1946)
-
The Dark Corner (1946)
-
Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
-
Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945)
-
Best Foot Forward (1943)
-
DuBarry Was a Lady (1943)
-
Valley of the Sun (1942)
-
The Big Street (1942)
-
Look Who's Laughing (1941)
-
A Girl, a Guy and a Gob (1941)
-
You Can't Fool Your Wife (1940)
-
Beauty for the Asking (1939)
-
Panama Lady (1939)
-
Joy of Living (1938)
-
Next Time I Marry (1938)
-
The Affairs of Annabel (1938)
-
Follow the Fleet (1936)
-
The Whole Town's Talking (1935)
-
Roman Scandals (1933)
Biography
Left fatherless at the age of four, American actress Lucille Ball
developed a strong work ethic in childhood; among her more unusual jobs
was as a "seeing eye kid" for a blind soap peddler. Ball's mother sent
the girl to the Chautauqua Institution for piano lessons, but she was
determined to pursue an acting career after watching the positive
audience reaction given to vaudeville monologist Julius
Tannen. Young Ball performed in amateur plays for the Elks club and
at her high school, at one point starring, staging, and publicizing a
production of Charley's Aunt. In 1926, Ball enrolled in the John Murray
Anderson American Academy of Dramatic Art in Manhattan (where Bette Davis
was the star pupil), but was discouraged by her teachers to continue
due to her shyness. Her reticence notwithstanding, Ball kept trying
until she got chorus-girl work and modeling jobs; but even then she
received little encouragement from her peers, and the combination of a
serious auto accident and recurring stomach ailments seemed to bode ill
for her theatrical future. Still, Ball was no quitter, and, in 1933, she
managed to become one of the singing/dancing Goldwyn Girls for movie
producer Samuel
Goldwyn; her first picture was Eddie
Cantor's Roman
Scandals (1933). Working her way up from bit roles at both Columbia
Pictures (where one of her assignments was in a Three Stooges short) and
RKO Radio, Ball finally attained featured billing in 1935, and stardom
in 1938 -- albeit mostly in B-movies.
Throughout the late 1930s and '40s, Ball's movie career moved
steadily, if not spectacularly; even when she got a good role like the
nasty-tempered nightclub star in The Big Street
(1942), it was usually because the "bigger" RKO contract actresses had
turned it down. By the time she finished a contract at MGM (she was
dubbed "Technicolor Tessie" at the studio because of her photogenic red
hair and bright smile) and returned to Columbia in 1947, she was
considered washed up. Ball's home life was none too secure, either.
She'd married Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz
in 1940, but, despite an obvious strong affection for one another, they
had separated and considered divorce numerous times during the war
years. Hoping to keep her household together, Ball sought out
professional work in which she could work with her husband. Offered her
own TV series in 1950, she refused unless Arnaz
would co-star. Television was a godsend for the couple; and Arnaz
discovered he had a natural executive ability, and was soon calling all
the shots for what would become I
Love Lucy. From 1951 through 1957, it was the most popular sitcom on
television, and Ball, after years of career stops and starts, was
firmly established as a megastar in her role of zany, disaster-prone
Lucy Ricardo. When her much-publicized baby was born in January 1953,
the story received more press coverage than President
Eisenhower's inauguration. With their new Hollywood prestige, Ball
and Arnaz
were able to set up the powerful Desilu Studios production complex,
ultimately purchasing the facilities of RKO, where both performers had
once been contract players. But professional pressures and personal
problems began eroding the marriage, and Ball and Arnaz
divorced in 1960, although both continued to operate Desilu.
Ball gave Broadway a try in the 1960 musical Wildcat, which was
successful but no hit, and, in 1962, returned to TV to solo as Lucy
Carmichael on The
Lucy Show. She'd already bought out Arnaz's
interest in Desilu, and, before selling the studio to Gulf and Western
in 1969, Ball had become a powerful executive in her own right,
determinedly guiding the destinies of such fondly remembered TV series
as Star
Trek and Mission:
Impossible. The
Lucy Show ended in the spring of 1968, but Ball was back that fall
with Here's
Lucy, in which she played "odd job" specialist Lucy Carter and
co-starred with her real-life children, Desi Jr.
and Lucie.
Here's
Lucy lasted until 1974, at which time her career took some odd
directions. She poured a lot of her own money in a film version of the
Broadway musical Mame (1974), which can charitably be labeled an
embarrassment. Her later attempts to resume TV production, and her
benighted TV comeback in the 1986 sitcom Life With Lucy, were
unsuccessful, although Ball, herself, continued to be lionized as the
First Lady of Television, accumulating numerous awards and honorariums.
Despite her many latter-day attempts to change her image -- in addition
to her blunt, commandeering off-stage personality -- Ball would forever
remain the wacky "Lucy" that Americans had loved intensely in the '50s.
She died in 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide |
