Women's History Month: Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball was born to Henry Durrell Ball and Desiree "DeDe" Evelyn Hunt in Jamestown, New York.

Her grandfather, Fred Hunt, was an eccentric who also enjoyed the theater. He frequently took the family to vaudeville shows and encouraged young Lucy to take part in both her own and school plays.

Despite the family's meager finances, her mother arranged for a teenaged Lucille to go to the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City where Bette Davis was a fellow student. She later said about that time in her life "All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened."

After an uncredited stint as one of the Goldwyn Girls in Roman Scandals (1933) Lucille permanently moved to Hollywood to appear in films. She appeared in 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 and a movie with the Marx Brothers.

Lucille soon became known in many Hollywood circles as "Queen of the B's" – a title previously held by Fay Wray – starring in a number of B-movies.

In 1940, she met Cuban-born bandleader Desi Arnaz while filming the Rodgers and Hart stage hit Too Many Girls. When they met again on the second day, the two connected immediately and eloped the same year.

In 1942 Lucille appeared in DuBarry Was a Lady, a film for which the natural brunette first had her hair dyed the flaming red that would be her screen trademark.

In 1948, she was cast as a wacky wife in a radio program for CBS Radio. The program was successful, and CBS asked Lucille to develop it for television. She agreed, but insisted on working with Arnaz. CBS executives were reluctant, thinking the public would not accept an all-American redhead and a Cuban as a couple. The couple toured the road in a vaudeville act with Lucille as the zany housewife wanting to get in Arnaz's show. The tour was a smash, and CBS put I Love Lucy on their lineup.

Lucille was the first woman in television to be head of a production company: Desilu, the company that she and Arnaz formed.

I Love Lucy has virtually never gone out of syndication since it began, seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world over the past half century.

It dominated the weekly TV ratings in the U.S. for most of its run. In the scene where Lucy and Ricky are practicing the tango in the episode "Lucy Does The Tango," the longest recorded studio audience laugh in the history of the show was produced.

When Lucille registered to vote in 1936, she listed her party affiliation as Communist. In 1953, during the Red Scare, she had to meet with the House Committee of Un-American Activities, stating that she "at no time intended to vote as a Communist." J. Edgar Hoover named "Lucy and Dezi" among his "favorites of the entertainment world." Immediately before the filming of episode 68 of I Love Lucy, Arnaz, instead of his usual audience warm-up, told the audience, "The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that's not legitimate.

On July 17, 1951, one month before her 40th birthday and after "several" miscarriages, Lucille gave birth to her first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz. A year and a half later, she gave birth to her second child, Desi Arnaz, Jr.

On May 4, 1960, just two months after filming the final episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, the couple divorced. Until his death in 1986, however, Desi and Lucille remained friends and often spoke very fondly of each other.

In her later career, she made a few more movies including Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), the musical Mame (1974), and two more successful sitcoms: The Lucy Show which costarred Vivian Vance, and Here's Lucy which featured Lucy's real life children.

Because of her liberated mindset and approval of the women's movement, Lucille Ball was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.