About Lucille Ball Lucille Ball was born
August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Setting her mind on becoming an actress early, she left high school at age 15, and with her mother's blessing, enrolled in John Murray Anderson Drama School in New York City. Though she auditioned repeatedly, Ball was told she had no talent, and was never accepted to the school. With no experience behind her and very few acting roles for women available, Ball took a job as a model, using the name Diane Belmont. Moderately successful, Ball became an Earl Carrol showgirl and began modeling for popular fashion designer, Hattie Carnegie. Carnegie chose Ball to be the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in 1933. The position won her national exposure for the first time, and caught the attention of Hollywood. Lucille Ball's first role was an appearance in Eddie Cantor's musical, "Roman Scandals" in 1933.
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Lucille Ball continued to audition for movies, and caught bit parts in low budget feature films like, "Blood Money" in 1933 and "Kid Millions" the following year. The success of her first roles would lead to bigger and better parts. Ball would appear in over 60 films by the late 1940s, including feature films starring Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Bob Hope.
After performing in the musical "Too Many Girls," in 1940 with then popular Cuban band leader, Desi Arnaz, Ball fell in love with her co-star, and married him later that year. Band and career schedules clashed often, and the newlyweds often found themselves on opposite sides of the country. Lucy filed for divorce in 1944, but managed to patch things up just one day before the divorce was to be finalized.
The young couple decided that the only way to make their marriage work was if they worked together on a project. Ball and Arnaz pitched an idea to CBS that would involve the unlikely marriage of a wild red head to a Cuban band leader. At first, CBS officials balked at the idea, claiming that the American public would never accept such a couple. So, the husband and wife team formed their own production company called "Desilu," and hit the road, taking their show idea and turning it into a popular and highly praised vaudeville act. When CBS still refused to consider the show, the Ball and Arnaz used their own money to film the pilot episode of the show. "I Love Lucy" premiered in October of 1951, and instantly became the most popular television show in America. CBS picked it up before the show's thirty minute episode was over.
"I Love Lucy" ran successfully a little over for 6 years. During the first four years on the air, "I Love Lucy" was number one in the Neilsen Ratings. During its entire history, the show never fell below number three. "I Love Lucy" won more than 200 awards, 5 Emmys and the respect and admiration of the country.
In January of 1953, the "I Love Lucy" introduced an eyebrow raising episode in which Lucy gave birth on the air to "Little Ricky." Pregnant with her real life first son, Desi Jr. at the time, a record 44 million viewers tuned in to watch the live birth.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's coupling had been labeled tumultuous in the late 1950s, and after 179 episodes of the "I Love Lucy Show," they decided to call it quits to save their marriage. While they said goodbye to the old show, they began taping another, named "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour." The 60-minute show didn't need the time and attention of their previous works, and Arnaz and Ball once again seemed happy and in love. Arnaz spent less time in the recording studio with his band, and more at home, working with"Desilu." By the end of the 1950s, Desilu became a powerful, respected corporation, producing such hit TV shows as "Star Trek" and "Mission Impossible."
After 20 years of marriage, Ball and Arnaz divorced in 1960. While Arnaz turned to alcohol and was rarely seen in public again, Ball took out a loan for $3 million and bought her ex-husbands half of Desilu. At the time, Desilu was the world's largest production facility and Lucy's take-over made her the first woman in history to hold such a position.
In 1962, Ball rei-ntroduced Lucy to TV in "The Lucy Show." It ran mildly successfully for 6 years, and featured her real life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., and former co-star, Vivian Vance. When "The Lucy Show" went off the air, Ball wasted no time in reformatting the show and starring in yet another series based on the same character. "Here's Lucy," was instantly picked up by the networks and ran on prime time through 1974. It was during this same time when Ball spread her wings and began performing outside the lines of comedy. She won rave reviews for her appearance on Broadway in 1961s, "Wildcat." On the heels of that success, Ball teamed with Bob Hope for two feature films and co-starred with Henry Fonda in the critically acclaimed, "Yours, Mine and Ours."
Though she played a ditzy, wild hearted redhead, in real life, Ball was nothing of the kind. In 1967, she sold Desilu Productions for $17 million, netting some $10 million.
Ball remarried in 1968, taking Gary Morton as her second husband. Morton, a former TV comedian, worked with Ball to help create "Lucille Ball Productions."
In the late 70s and early 80s, Ball made only sporadic appearances on TV, usually as the guest star. In 1985, she portrayed a New York homeless woman in the TV film, "Stone Pillow." The following year, at the age of 75,
riding on the success of Golden Girls she endeavored another sitcom with Gale Gordon "Life with Lucy," a half hour comedy series. It aired for only two months before being cancelled.
Lucille Ball spent much of the rest of her life out of the spotlight. Her last public appearance was at the 1989 Academy Awards.
One week after undergoing open heart surgery for ,Aneurysm, on April 26, 1989,
Lucille Ball suffered a ruptured aorta and died at 77 years, survived by two children.
Desi Arnaz, inventor of multiple camera television production, died of cancer in 1986 (see the following).
About Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha, III on March 2, 1917. In adulthood, was a Cuban-American musician, actor, comedian and television producer. He was born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba's second largest city, to a wealthy family. His ancestors had been among the recipients of the original Spanish land grants in the eighteenth century, and his father served in the Cuban House of Representatives and became the youngest mayor that Santiago had ever had.
After the 1933 revolution that overthrew the American-backed President Gerardo Machado, Arnaz and his parents fled to Miami, Florida. At that time, Miami was a medium sized city with a very small Latin American population; to support themselves, the Arnaz family worked at different odd jobs, like being a honeydipper.
Desi Arnaz began his career as a professional musician in 1936, playing guitar and percussion for a Latin orchestra. He then took a pay cut to work in New York City for Xavier Cugat, his mentor, whom he later described as world-class cheapskate but an excellent teacher.
Arnaz returned to Miami six months later to lead his own combo. It was there he introduced American audiences to the Conga Line, which soon became a national rage. He formed his own orchestra and returned to New York.
Arnaz was also a successful recording artist, beginning in 1937, and had a hit with the Santeria-flavored "Babalu" (1946), his signature song, which was recorded at RCA Victor. In 1939, he starred on Broadway in the successful musical Too Many Girls.
Desi then went to Hollywood to appear in the 1940 movie version at RKO, which starred actress and comedian, Lucille Ball. Arnaz appeared in several movies in the 1940s, most notably Bataan (1943). Shortly after he received his draft notice, but before he was actually inducted, he injured his knee.
Although he made it through boot camp, he was eventually classified for limited service, and ended up directing U.S.O. programs at a military hospital in the San Fernando Valley.
In his memoirs, Desi recalled discovering that the first thing soldiers requested was almost invariably a glass of cold milk, so he arranged for beautiful starlets to greet the wounded soldiers as they disembarked and pour milk for them. After leaving the Army, he formed another orchestra, which was successful in live appearances and recordings.
After he became engaged in television, he kept the orchestra on his payroll throughout the period he remained an active producer. He produced and starred in I Love Lucy, in which he played a fictitious version of himself, Cuban orchestra leader Ricky Ricardo, and starring his real-life wife, Lucille Ball, as Ricky's wife, Lucy.
In the original pilot, Ricky and Lucy were successful show-business figures (he a band leader, she an actress) whose glamorous careers interfered with their efforts to maintain a normal marriage.
Market research indicated, however, that this scenario would not be popular, so Arnaz changed it to make Ricky a struggling young orchestra leader and Lucy a plain housewife with showbiz fantasies but no talent at all.
Initially, the idea of having Ball and the distinctly Latino Arnaz portray a married couple encountered resistance, for he was told that his Cuban accent and Latin style would not be agreeable to American viewers; but Arnaz overcame these objections by auditioning the proposed television show before live audiences with great success.
With Ball, he founded Desilu Productions. At this time, most television programs were broadcast live, and as the largest markets were in New York, the rest of the country received only kinescope images (the result of placing 35 mm or 16 mm film cameras in front of a television monitor and shipping the prints to other time zones for broadcast at a later date, resulting in extremely poor quality).
Arnaz developed the multi-camera setup production style using adjacent sets that became the standard for all subsequent situation comedies to this day. The use of film enabled every station around the country to broadcast high-quality images of the show.
Initially, Arnaz was told that it would be impossible to allow an audience onto a sound stage, but he worked with the famous cameraman Karl Freund to design a set that would accommodate an audience, allow filming and also adhere to fire and safety codes. Arnaz also pushed the network to allow them to show Lucille Ball while she was pregnant.
According to Arnaz, the CBS network told him, "You cannot show a pregnant woman on television."
Arnaz consulted a priest, a rabbi and a minister, all of whom told him that there would be nothing wrong with showing a pregnant Lucy or with using the word pregnant.
The network finally relented and let Arnaz and Ball weave the pregnancy into the story line, but remained adamant about eschewing use of pregnant, so Arnaz substituted expecting, pronouncing it 'spectin' in his Cuban accent.
In addition to I Love Lucy, he produced December Bride, The Texan, Make Room for Daddy, The Mothers-in-Law, The Lucy Show, Those Whiting Girls, Our Miss Brooks, and the pilot episode of The Untouchables, all Top Ten shows in their time.
Desi Arnaz married Lucille Ball in 1940 and initiated divorce proceedings in 1944, but reconciled before the interlocutory decree became final. He and Ball were the parents of actress Lucie Arnaz (born 1951) and actor Desi Arnaz, Jr. (born 1953).
Desi's marriage with Lucille began to collapse under the strain of his serious problems with alcohol, drugs, and womanizing. According to his memoir, the combined pressures of managing the production company as well as supervising its day-to-day operations had greatly worsened as it grew much larger. Arnaz was also suffering from diverticulitis. He and Ball divorced in 1960; she was 49 and he was 43. When Ball returned to weekly television, she and Arnaz worked out an agreement regarding Desilu wherein she bought him out.
Three years after the divorce, Arnaz married his second wife, Edith Mack Hirsh, and greatly reduced his show business activities. He served as executive producer of The Mothers-in-Law, and during its two-year run, made a couple of very amusing guest appearances as a Spanish matador. In the 1970s, he co-hosted a week of shows with daytime TV favorite Mike Douglas. Vivian Vance appeared as a guest, and in this brief reunion viewers could see the genuine affection each had for the other. Arnaz also headlined a Kraft Music Hall special on NBC that featured his two children, with a brief appearance by Vance. To promote his autobiography, cryptically named A Book, Arnaz served as a memorable guest on Saturday Night Live in 1976 when his son, Desi, Jr., was host. He played the drums and sang a song in Spanish. He ended by sending his love to Lucille Ball. Desi and Edith eventually moved to Del Mar, California, where he lived the rest of his life in semi-retirement. He contributed generously to charitable and non-profit organizations, including San Diego State University. Arnaz would make a guest appearance on the TV series Alice, starring Linda Lavin. This would be one of Arnaz's last television appearances remembered by American audiences. Arnaz, a lifelong smoker, died in Del Mar, aged 69, from lung cancer. His wife, Edith, had predeceased him (also from cancer). His body was cremated and his ashes scattered. A widely published photograph taken at his memorial service shows an aged Lucille Ball emerging from the church.
Desi Arnaz has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for contributions to motion pictures, and for television.
Little known: Desi developed multiple camera studio production. He also shaped the syndication
re-run cycling that eventually all television series would
utilize.
About Vivian Vance
Born in Kansas 1920, Vivian Vance began appearing in
community theater productions when her family relocated
to Albuquerque, NM. Her friends and neighbors financed
Vance's move to New York, where she planned to study
with Eva LeGalliene. When these plans fell through,
she made the auditions rounds, landing a job in the
long-running Broadway production Music in the Air.
Vivian supplemented her income with nightclub performances, then received her big break when, with only a few hours' notice, she stepped into the female lead of the 1937 Ed Wynn musical +Hooray for What? Subsequent Broadway credits included +Anything Goes, +Red, Hot and Blue, and +Let's Face It, each one a hit. In 1951, Jose Ferrer cast Vance in the La Jolla Playhouse production of +Voice of the Turtle. It was on the strength of her performance of this play that Vance was offered the role of Ethel Mertz on the Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz TV sitcom I Love Lucy. She played Ethel from 1951 through 1960, winning an Emmy in the process -- which hopefully compensated for the fact that, throughout the I Love Lucy run, she was contractually obligated to outweigh star Lucille Ball by 20 pounds. In 1962, Vance signed on for another lengthy co-starring stint with Ball on TV's The Lucy Show. Throughout her five decades in show business, Vance appeared in only three films: The Secret Fury (1950), The Blue Veil (1951), and The Great Race (1965). Married twice, Vivian Vance's first husband was actor Philip Ober. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
About William Frawley
Born 1887, American actor William Frawley had hopes of becoming a newspaperman but was sidetracked by a series of meat-and-potatoes jobs. At 21, he found himself in the chorus of a musical comedy in Chicago; his mother forced him to quit, but Frawley had already gotten greasepaint in his veins. Forming a vaudeville act with his brother Paul, Frawley hit the show-business trail; several partners later (including his wife Louise), Frawley was a headliner and in later years laid claim to having introduced the beer-hall chestnut "Melancholy Baby." Entering films in the early 1930s (he'd made a few desultory silent-movie appearances), Frawley became typecast as irascible, pugnacious Irishmen, not much of a stretch from his off-camera personality.
Though he worked steadily into the late 1940s, Frawley's drinking hampered him, and by 1951 most producers found him virtually unemployable. Not so Desi Arnaz, who cast Frawley as neighbor Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy TV series when Gale Gordon proved unavailable. Frawley promised to stay away from the booze during filming, and in turn Arnaz promised to give Frawley time off whenever the New York Yankees were in the World Series (a rabid baseball fan, Frawley not only appeared in a half dozen baseball films, but also was one of the investors of the minor-league Hollywood Stars ball team). Frawley played Fred Mertz until the last I Love Lucy episode was filmed in 1960, then moved on to a five-year assignment as Bub, chief cook and bottle-washer to son-in-law Fred MacMurray's all male household on My Three Sons. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Viewer Comment
7.22.10 Jackie, Wyckoff, NJ Being a " Lucy" fan. I have read most of the information previously.
6.10.10 AndreaJ, Flint MI GREAT SHOW
6.01.10 darkview, Coral Gables, FL EVERYTHING these four great entertainers did was just that, excellent. As the biography above tells it, accurately, Desi Arnez was a great show business improvisor and the things he did will be lasting innovations. In 2002 I was eating at a small restaurant in the Prinz Lauerburg section of what was formerly East Berlin. Recorded music was being played and I soon recognized the voice as that of Desi Arnez. It was an obscure song that was probably given to the owner by the former communist government was genuine Cuban music, which it was--but isn't it interesting that the Cuban music they played was Desi Arnez?
5.28.10 cherkozy, Baltimore, MD Love I Love Lucy
5.25.10 fullgrownnut, Newark, NJ Awesome!
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