January 11, 1953
“Life is an obstacle race,” says Lucille Ball, but she’s still running in the money. Miss Ball, who has overcome any number of setbacks along the road to stardom, passes another milestone in her career in her new television comedy series, “I Love Lucy” in which she costars with her husband, Desi Arnaz.
At the end of he first year in dramatic school, Lucille was told she was wasting he money. Her first four Broadway jobs, as a chorus girl, ended in four prompt dismissals. Just a she began to gain recognition as a model, she almost lost her life in an automobile accident and was told she would never walk again. It took her eight months in bed and three years of persistent, painful effort to reverse the doctors gloomy prediction. And from then on, her luck changed and she skyrocketed to the show business goal on which she had her eye since early girlhood.
Born in Jamestown, N.Y., August 6, daughter of Fred and Desiree Ball, mining engineer (1) and concert pianist, respectively, Lucille was taken at the age of 2 to Wyandotte, Mich.
Daughter Start Early
Mrs. Ball started her daughter’s music lessons at the age of 5 then enrolled her in the Chautauqua Institute of Music for two seasons. At 15, Lucille entered the John Murray Anderson Dramatic school in New York City and was told at the end of her first year of study that she’d be better off applying her energies in some other field.
Determined to show her teachers that she could make good in show business, Miss Ball landed a chorus job in the third road company of “Rio Rita” – and lost the job after five weeks of rehearsal. Three other chorus jobs followed, none of which lasted longer than the rehearsal period. Her first “real job on Broadway” was as a soda jerk in a drug store.
A jobs as a $25-dollar-a-week model for a wholesale dress company led to a modeling job with Hattie Carnegie. Then came that tragic accident in Central Park and three years and eight months of learning to walk.
Back to work as a model, Lucille was featured in magazine and billboard cigarette advertisements, and Hollywood scouts brought her to the film capital for a showgirl role in Eddie Cantor’s “Roman Scandals.”
Wins Movie Contract
Columbia Pictures gave her a contract as a stock player, and Lucille, convinced that her luck finally had turned, sent for her mother, grandfather, and sister, to join her in California. But it turned out to be just another stumbling block. The morning she wired her family, the studio decided to dissolve its stock company. When the family arrived, Lucille was working as an extra at Paramount.
Bit parts and extra roles kept Lucille busy, but not prosperous, until she was cast in “Roberta.” RKO officials, impressed by her work, gave her a contract. When not before the cameras, she was a mainstay at the studio’s Little Theatre.
Her performance in the second lead in “The Girl From Paris” (above) drew Broadway’s attention to Miss Ball, and she was offered the lead in the musical “Hey Diddle Diddle.” After satisfying her yen for performing on the Great White Way, (2) she returned to Hollywood for “Stage Door” and “Too Many Girls.” In the latter picture she was co-starred with Desi Arnaz. They were married on November 30, 1940, in Greenwich, Conn.
First Big Break
Back from her honeymoon, Ball walked into her first really big break, a role in “The Back Street” based on a story by Damon Runyon. Overnight, it made her a star. In it, she played a showgirl who was paralyzed from the hips down. Her own three and a half years in a similar predicament enabled her to play the role so convincingly that she had every studio bidding for her services.
She signed with M-G-M on her birthday in 1942. Her first role at M-G-M was the Technicolor production, “Du Barry Was a Lady.“ Stellar roles followed in "Best Foot Forward” and “Meet the People.” After completing “Easy To Wed” with Van Johnson she headed for New York to be with her husband, then out of the Army, and on his way to success in the orchestra biz.
Like Their Boat
Shortly after completing “Her Husband’s Affairs,” Miss Ball went on tour as star of Elmer Rice’s play, “Dream Girl.”
Between pictures and stage appearances. Lucille and her husband live at Desilu, their five-acre ranch at Chatsworth, Calif. They raise cattle, chickens, dogs and cats, and dabble in farming. Enthusiastic fishermen, they spend a lot of time on their boat.
Lucille, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 120 pounds, sleeps in a bed seven by seven feet. She likes spicy dishes and enjoys knocking around the house in dungarees. In her role as Lucy Ricardo in “I Love Lucy,” she is starred as the feminine half of a closely knit married couple. And that’s the role she plays in real life.
~FOOTNOTES~
(1) Although Lucille Ball is now admitting to being born in Jamestown, rather than in Butte, Montana, her father’s career is still being said to be mining engineer, when in fact Henry Ball was a lineman for the Bell Telephone Company. Henry Ball’s death certificate lists his profession as “laborer”. Interestingly, although Ball’s birthdate is given, her birth year remains a mystery.
(2) Although Ball was cast in the Broadway-bound play Hey Diddle Diddle in 1937, the play never got to Broadway (aka The Great White Way) due to the illness of its leading man, Conway Tearle. It would take Ball until December 1960 to “satisfy that yen for performing on the Great White Way” with the musical Wildcat.
~ TRIVIA ~
The day after this article was printed (January 12, 1953), “Lucy Becomes a Sculptress” (ILL S2;E15) was first aired on CBS TV. In real life, the show was still on hiatus for Lucy’s pregnancy leave and would not resume filming until mid-March. Eight days after this article was published, Lucille Ball gave birth to her son, Desi Jr., and Lucy Ricardo gave birth to Little Ricky.
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