January 2, 1965
On Saturday, January 2, 1965, syndicated columnist Peter Dacre of the London Expressed published an article about Lucille Ball…a busy woman. As with most syndicated columns, publication dates and headlines varied by newspaper. Quotes from Lucille Ball are in bold italics. Photographs have been added for editorial enhancement.
Peter Dacre (1925-2003)
was a journalist with the Sunday Express whose work included show business features. He was a former chairman of the London Press Club.
Lucille Ball’s three-wheeled runabout was parked outside the bungalow with the red door in the Hollywood studios of Desilu Productions Inc. It was symbolic of the hectic life of its owner, a woman who is not only one of the world’s top television stars but is also president of the studio where she works — and an active wife and mother.
For 14 years the vivacious, raspy-voiced red-haired woman has been making countless millions of viewers laugh first in “I Love Lucy” (with her former husband Desi Arnaz) and now with “The Lucy Show,” which is seen in 44 countries.
Inside the bungalow the bound scripts of her shows fill a shelf and a half — the end ones being propped up by a volume of Shakespeare, a copy of “Moby Dick,” and the New Testament.
MISS BALL herself seemed equally to be a mixture of contrasts. In blue slacks and a pin-striped shirt, she looked highly unlike the president and 51 per cent owner of a company which regularly grosses some 25 million dollars.
Talking to studio executives before I met her, however, I discovered she is no mere figurehead. Scrawled messages on yellow paper fly around the offices, and conferences take place frequently before, during, and after her appearances on the set.
All this is a remarkable achievement for someone who started in show business as one of the famous Goldwyn Girls of the early Hollywood musicals and was once a small-part actress in the studio she now controls.
What kind of woman is she? How at 52 does she combine her three careers? Miss Ball sat at a cluttered round table before her yellow memo-pad and explained:
“I’m no business tycoon by nature. It was sort of thrust upon me. Desi and I bought the studio for $6,500,000 in 1958 and when he and I parted he said he wanted to leave the business. This faced me with the choice of continuing or saying ‘Goodbye’ to a group of people I loved working with.”
“I had no desire to retire, but it was a difficult decision. I was warned it would take a double expenditure of time and energy but I finally decided to do it — and took over my ex-husband’s shares in the company.”
“It took me two years to find the right men to help me run the company — and they were two tough years.”
“I had conferences in curlers and in my runabout and between shots on the set. When I arrived in the morning, every office door would open and people would pop out saying: Have you a minute?”’
HOW, as a woman boss, has she managed in a mainly masculine world?
“Well, I was working in show business as opposed to selling buttons or refrigerators, and in show business I have been accorded some respect, so that was a big help.”
“It could have been a problem if I had thrown my weight around in areas I know nothing about.” I wondered if she felt that running a Hollywood studio had toughened her as a woman. She pondered and then asked an aide: “Do you think I’ve become tougher?” He thought not.
Finally she said: “If a woman has a tough fiber it comes out in these circumstances, but faced with a problem my first inclination is to cry.”
“Sure I’ve been painted as a bossy type but I’ve never felt like that. It’s been said that I bark out orders but I bark out the recipe for a chocolate cake if I’m in a hurry.”
Today apart from running the company and appearing in her own series Lucille Ball has a radio interview program occasionally crops up in other television shows and is planning a film.
SHE IS NOW married to comedian and radio producer Gary Morton, has two children from her marriage with Arnaz (’Little’ Lucy, 13, and Desi, 11) and two homes, one in Beverly Hills, the other 140 miles away in Palm Springs.
How does she manage to run her home and family? “I budget my time and organize our family life,” she explained.
“I used to have a conflict between my career and my home life. When children are small you miss so much of their growing-up — so many wonderful moments. Now they are grown up they don’t need me so much.”
“But I am a proper mother and housewife. I plan the menus and the housework. I leave notes in profusion — in the car, in the kitchen, or on my dressing-table mirror. You know the sort of thing:”
“’Check dental appointment’: ‘See music practice is done ‘Do homework’ ‘Don’t forget baseball practice’ and ‘Tell the kids to eat early because I’ll be late — then they can watch TV’.”
“Oh yes, we have troubles like any other family. The other night Lucy spoke to me rudely and I sent her to her room until she apologized.”
“A little later, while I was on the phone, she came down and stood in the doorway with her birdcage in one hand and a suitcase in the other. I just kept on talking and after a while she went away.”
“I watched her go slowly down the path, slowly along the road, and slowly round the corner. After half an hour she came back and burst into the room. ‘Aren’t you ever going to try to stop me?’ She cried.”
WILL Lucille Ball ever be able to stop herself and break away from her remorseless routine?
She did not hesitate over her answer. “At the moment, I haven’t decided whether I will continue ‘The Lucy Show’ but I can’t visualize retiring. I’ll never get out of this. The pace doesn’t bother me, I’m well organized.”
That, I reflected, was as good a summing-up of Lucille Ball as you will ever get.
Papermoon Loves Lucy 
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