An interesting character. As a baby boomer I knew Lucille Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) from her first television series, “I Love Lucy!” (1951-1957) It was a fun show. But TV stations must have gotten the reruns on the cheap because they played them, and played them, and played them some more. It had some epic comic bits, and some incredible guest stars. Its really cliched to say, but that was a pioneering show. They really didn’t know where they were going with television in 1951, and she helped them find the way. It really was a mirror for America’s two good decades (1945-1965).

The young couple starting out poor, the struggles of young married life. Getting a few raises, some career advancements. Having a couple of kids. Move out of the apartment in New York, find a nice house in California. Back when living the American dream was possible. The show reflected all that. It also had a kind of innocence that gradually disappeared in her two later series, just like it disappeared in America. Then I kind of remembered her next two series in the 60’s, “The Lucy Show” (1962-1968) and “Here’s Lucy” (1968-1974).

I liked her shows, but I wasn’t a huge fan. I can only take slapstick and farce in small doses. Maybe I’m just stupid and can’t recognize comic genius when I see it. I think one thing you can say about all three of her series, is that they were wholesome. Stuff was funny because it was funny, not because she dived for the gutter. America evidently loved her too. She was pretty much on TV non-stop for 20 years. Movies, specials, she was as famous as you got. I’ve really come to enjoy seeing her movies from the 30’s & 40’s, she was just strikingly beautiful and a joy to watch.

Two of her best movies were with Henry Fonda (Yours, Mine and Ours) and Bob Hope (Critic’s Choice). A teen aged Tim Matheson played her son in Yours, Mine and Ours. I was just becoming interested in her earlier this year when I read what he had said about working with her. To think of her as anything like her characters was a mistake. He said, “She was very nice, very polite, and a pleasure to work with, but she was all business. There wasn’t to be any goofing around, wasting time or not knowing your lines.”

That’s when I started to remember what a hard-nosed businesswoman she was like with Desilu Productions. She was the richest woman in show business at one point. She was born in 1911 and became an adult during the Great Depression. There are stories to be told about people who lived through those times. And she had it even rougher than some, her father died before she was four. They intimate that as a teenager she knew she wanted to be rich and famous. You’ll read that a lot with stars, they knew what they wanted.

They said in real life she was the frugal one, her husband Desi was the spendthrift. Which is funny because on her bio/trivia page at IMDB, they talk about when they decided to get married it was at night and all the jewelry stores were closed. In those days you had to have a ring of some sort to get married. Desi got her a trinket ring at a drugstore that she wore for the rest of their marriage! The more I read about her the more I respected her. In a nice way I started to think of her as a tough gal. I just have this feeling that if she’d heard you say that, she’d either smile or punch you in the mouth, but she wouldn’t wilt and faint.

She started out her career as a model. She’d tried acting class at 15 but was kicked out as “she had no talent and no future in the entertainment business“. She had striking features, but was so skinny in her youth they’d have her model fur coats and the like. I think she photographed very well. It just occurred to me when I Love Lucy started she had just turned 40. That’s when a lot of careers for actresses were over in those days.

“During the filming of Roman Scandals (1933), Lucy–playing a slave girl–needed to have her eyebrows entirely shaved off. They never grew back.”

[FOX News 10/15/22 just happened tp have a little write-up about the anniversary of I Love Lucy and the last surviving cast member “Little Ricky”, Keith Thibodeaux. I just thought his assessment of Lucy was the same as Tim Matheson’s.]

Fox News: What surprised you the most about Lucille Ball?
Thibodeaux: I think just her professionalism. I think that’s the thing that comes up in a lot of people that talk about Lucy. She was very professional, very unlike her zany, kooky character that she played on the show. When she was on the set, she expected everyone to do their jobs, to know their lines. She was a very no-nonsense kind of person. That seemed to be the description for her. – much more at FOX