"I'm not even cold yet, and already Ricky's lining up girls to take my place" -Lucy in I Love Lucy
Born Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York, she grew to be one of the most famous female comediennes ever. Just like her most famous character Lucy Ricardo she always knew she wanted to be famous, and like most, was going to stop at nothing before fame was in the palm of her hand. She began her quest at age fifteen, studying Drama; as she grew older she drew income in chorus lines on Broadway and finally her first big break as a model as the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in 1933 at age 22 led her to becoming a Goldwyn Girl in her first Hollywood film starring Eddie Cantor, Roman Scandals.
However, that role didn't lead to immidiate success. Throughout the 30's she continued to attain minor parts and was being considered more as a comic than as someone with any dramatic future in such films as Stage Door, Room Service, The Big Street, DuBarry Was a Lady, and Sorrowful Jones. She met her future husband and business partner, Desi Arnaz on the set of an RKO production in 1940 called Too Many Girls. They married later that year.
Still, fame was not in her palm as she had dreamed it to be. Without success on the screen, she decided to dip her fingers into radio. In 1948 she began a three year stint as a Lucy-like wife on My Favourite Husband. She developed what a lot of radio personalities did, a thick sense and unique style of humor that would come to her advantage in the coming years.
Her next project, co-creating with Desi Arnaz, her own television show, I Love Lucy. [Eventually co-starring William Frawley as Fred Mertz and Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz]. The show shot her to an instant fame, and she became almost internationally known as "Lucy." I Love Lucy became and remains one of the most successful show ever to grace the silver screen. She and Arnaz became so wealthy they bought out RKO and renamed it "Desilu." Among their productions with Desilu, they made two feature films together, The Long, Long Trailer[1954] and Forever, Darling[1956].
In 1957, she and Arnaz decided to end the run of I Love Lucy while it was still at the top of the charts and begin work on one-hour specials w/ the same four characters and Little Ricky, called The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour which ran until 1960 when she and Arnaz divorced. The next year, she married a nightclub comedian, Gary Morton and began an entire new decade of television projects. Her work on The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy kept her busy from 1962 until 1974. Ever since the filming of I Love Lucy all of her shows were on CBS on Monday coming on at 8:30 or 9:00 making her shows own that spot for just about 23 years.
As she aged, so did her career. She starred opposite Peter Fonda in Yours, Mine and Ours [a wonderful film that later inspired The Brady Bunch] and a musical remake of the Rosalind Russell [now Broadway] film Mame. Her last television series, Life With Lucy was, as usual, quite the best of Lucy shows. Lucy's last television appearance was in a number featuring rising young talent at the 1989 Academy Awards with Bob Hope [who was considered who male counterpart in comedy]...just weeks later, Lucille Desiree Ball-Arnaz-Morton died.