MRS. LUCILLE CRAWFORD?

June 19, 1936

In 1936 Lucille Ball was engaged to be married to actor Broderick Crawford. 

Broderick Crawford and Lucille Ball were both the same age (and died just a few years apart) and took similar roads to success. 

William Broderick Crawford (1911 – 1986) was a stage, film, radio, and television actor, often cast in tough-guy roles. Until filming his Oscar and Golden Globe Award-winning performance in All the King’s Men (1949), Crawford’s career had been largely limited to “B films” in supporting or character roles. He realized he did not fit the role of a handsome leading man. Like Ball, he was seen on a hit television series “Highway Patrol"(1955–59).

The article compares blonde Lucille to Lilyan Tashman, and there are also numerous similarities in their career paths. 

Lilyan Tashman (1896 – 1934) was a vaudeville, Broadway, and film actress best known for her supporting roles as tongue-in-cheek villainesses and the vindictive “other woman.” She made 66 films over the course of her Hollywood career and although she never obtained superstar status, her cinematic performances are described as “sharp, clever and have aged little over the decades.” Tall, blonde, and slender with fox-like features and a throaty voice, Tashman freelanced as a fashion and artist’s model in New York City. By 1914, she was an experienced vaudevillian, appearing in Ziegfeld Follies between 1916 and 1918. In 1921 Tashman made her film debut and over the next decade and a half she appeared in numerous silent films. She easily navigated the transition to sound film.

The article mentions that of the three Broadway show offers made to Lucille Ball, it looked likely she would do a show for Brock Pemberton. 

Brock Pemberton (1885 – 1950) was a theatrical producer, director and founder of the Tony Awards. He was the professional partner of Antoinette Perry, co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, and he was also a member of the Algonquin Round Table.  However, Pemberton did not produce a play on Broadway in 1936. His next project wasn’t until March 1937.  

Broderick Crawford had spent much of 1935 in New York in two plays on Broadway, and returned in 1937 for Of Mice and Men. In 1940, he married Kay Griffith, his first of three wives. 

Interestingly, if Ball had married Crawford, she would have (legally) been Lucille Crawford. Broderick was no relation to Joan Crawford, whose birth name was Lucille!  

Crawford and Ball never acted together, but in August 1971 they were both guests on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”  

Needless to say, Ball did not marry Crawford or go to Broadway to do a play.  She stayed in Hollywood and met Alexander Hall.  They got engaged to be married in 1938, but that’s another story!