EXPENDABLE to EXPENSIVE

July 25, 1943

BY EDWIN SCHALLERT 

She called herself an “expendable star” until about a year ago. This was because Lucille Ball thought she might be consigned to ultimate oblivion. Now she has a greater hopefulness about everything. 

“I was,” she said, “old Mother Ball the worrier. A louse if there ever was one. Now I let somebody else do the worrying.”

But there’s one thing that Lucille won’t do – she won’t go high hat. She has a brittle, brisk quality that might be taken for the semblance of hauteur. But it hasn’t anything to do with herself. It’s just a protective sheath she’s acquired because she came through the school of hard knocks that sometimes practically amounted to wallops on the chin. 

“I’ve discussed my sensitiveness before with you,” she told me, somewhat as if she didn’t want to recall all that again. But she opined: “It develops when you’re a show girl and battling around as an extra and a bit player. There’s nothing like that to take, all the ego, heart and courage right out of you. But I don’t want to talk about all that now. It’s past, I hope." 

SHE WAS BORROWED 

This Lucille Ball Is being currently seen in the picture that marked the turning point, namely "Du Barry Was a Lady.” This was produced at M.G.M. She was borrowed from R.K.O. and her contract has just been taken over by the other studio. 

Most people thought she’d belonged to Metro for the past half dozen months but actually the deal wasn’t closed until a few weeks ago. And Lucille vociferates that Charles Koerner, head of R.K.O., has been a prince about it all. 

M.G.M. has successfully put her in two other musical pictures, one “Best Foot Forward,” which received much praise recently in New York, and “Meet the People,” which is in the midst of shooting now. The studio intends to keep her in these melodious comedies for the present. 

Every studio today wants good “release entertainment" stars and Lucille is reckoned one of the best by the organization which is furthering her career. Her name just went up on the top-flight stellar list, you see, about a week ago, and I hear that Louis B. Mayer ordered that everything Lucille (now a strawberry blond, with upsweep hair-do and ringlets) does henceforward shall be garnished with color photography, as were “Du Barry” and “Best Foot Forward.” That’s naturally more costly. So instead of expendable Lucille is becoming definitely expensive. 

TOO MUCH WORRY 

Her present idea of life if one should want to put It that way is to regard a change of environment as the best key to progress. It’s worked in her case. She was so happy at R.K.O., where she was under contract for seven years, that she might have stayed there always, she avers. She had grown to like everybody who was at the studio, and even when there was a change of regime she seemed to fit right into the new situations. 

“But the trouble with me was that I was taking everybody else’s problems on myself and not concerning myself with what Lucille Ball was doing at all,” she continued. “You get that way when you know people too well. 

"Furthermore, you’re likely to have your own way in a lot of things, and that isn’t good for you either. When I said worry a while ago, I meant worry, but you worry about the wrong things. At least I did. 

LET THEM FRET 

"Here’s a case in point. When I came over here and saw myself in a color test I started right away getting in a dither about how I looked and over doing something about it. 

"Arthur Freed, the producer, calmed me down. ‘Take it easy.’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to fret about. If your test doesn’t look right to you we’ll change your make-up, fix things up, make it good, but don’t you start worrying. It can all be straightened out’ – and right away that took a load off my mind. Now I let somebody else do all the bothering. 

"It went much further than such a thing as a test, though, because I was concerned about everybody, whether they were having illness at home, major or minor, their domestic troubles, transportation difficulties, whether they were getting the right vitamins and correct breakfast cereals. I was taking everything on my shoulders. 

"Now I sort of figure, ‘Well, most people can take care of themselves better than I can in the long run,’ and let it go at that.” She’d probably never admit it but there is a strong thread of humanism running through any Lucille Ball conversation. She’ll 

never lose that because it was too much associated with her early trials in the show business; her fight for recovery after a very bad auto accident, when it looked as if she might be relegated to a wheel chair, and various other vicissitudes. 

HER PATH STORMY 

Decidedly she has come the stormy way to success and she’ll probably never lose those attributes of frankness and earnestness which are peculiarly hers. Moreover, to these must be added her remarkable gratitude to the people who’ve helped her. She can be a spitfire when the occasion demands. She had one encounter with a member of a ration board when he trailed her while she was traveling to the studio, which is a classic as she narrates it. And she’s likely to come off first best rather than second best in any contest of wits. 

She’s also very devoted to the chap she married, Desi Arnaz, who is now in the service. She feels secretly happy, I think, that he hasn’t been shipped overseas, owing to a leg injury which he recently suffered, but regrets that this injury, plus also an old one, has prevented him from fulfilling his ambition to go in the Air Corps. 

In a word, she balances emotion (joy over his still being here) with intelligence (appreciation of what might prove best for him personally) with considerable accuracy. It’s like that with her in most things. 

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Edwin Francis Schallert was the longtime drama critic for the Los Angeles Times. He was married to Eliza Emily Schallert (née Baumgarten), a magazine writer and radio host. They had one child, William Schallert, who became a well-known character actor best known as Martin Lane on “The Patty Duke Show” and as Mr. Cresant on “The Lucy Show.” Edwin died in 1968.