Lucille Ball is considered one of comedy's greatest legends, forever synonymous with
her six-season '50s sitcom, I Love Lucy, co-starring her real-life husband Desi Arnaz.
But the actress didn't exactly have an easy-going life.
Here is the tragic real-life story of Lucille Ball.
Lucille Ball was born on August 6th, 1911, in western New York, the daughter of Desiree
Hunt and her husband, Henry Ball.
According to Lucille's autobiography Love, Lucy, the family relocated to Montana, where
Henry was working as a telephone company lineman.
Not long after, the family left for Michigan when the future star was about three.
Ball remembered her father as a wonderful guy, and also claims she got her sense of
humor and love of slapstick comedy from him.
"Here she comes!"
She adored her father but, the same year they moved to the suburbs of Detroit, he came down
with a case of the flu.
Her mother was pregnant with Lucille's younger brother at the time and incredibly stressed
about her husband, so she would tie Lucille up in the yard with a dog leash to keep her
under control.
Ball wrote:
"Every time somebody would pass by on the sidewalk, I'd beg to be released."
Unfortunately for Henry, before he had a chance to recover, a storm suddenly hit their neighborhood.
As a telephone lineman, he continued to climb poles in sleet and snow, working hard to keep
communication open.
His illness got worse and eventually turned into typhoid fever.
Ball recalls that he died not long after the storm, on February 28th, 1915.
According to Charles Higham, who wrote The Real Life of Lucille Ball, the whole family
had to go into quarantine when Ball's father was diagnosed with the disease.
He wrote:
"This rejection and forced isolation [...] had a deep effect on [Lucille], contributing to
her paranoid feelings of rejection later in life and perhaps inspiring a desire to make
people accept and love her, a desire that consumes all entertainers."
After her father's untimely passing, Lucille Ball's mother eventually remarried, settling
down with a man named Ed Peterson.
The family, along with Lucille's grandparents, moved into a three-bedroom house in Celoron,
New York.
Ball writes that her grandparents were short on money, but they helped the family feel
whole.
Unfortunately, tragedy would soon strike yet again.
On the future comedienne's 16th birthday, she recalls her grandfather, Fred, coming
home with a mysterious object wrapped in brown paper that turned out to be a .22 caliber
rifle.
Her brother, Freddy, couldn't wait to try it out.
Their stepfather placed tin cans as targets in their backyard, inviting their neighbors,
Cleo, Johanna, and Warner over to play as well.
As Johanna picked up the gun, Warner's mother called him home, frightening the girl and
causing her to accidentally shoot Warner instead.
He was rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered that the bullet had struck Warner
in the spine, severing the cord.
While Ed offered to pay the medical bills, Warner's family filed a lawsuit - and won.
Ball wrote:
"They took our house, the furnishings that DeDe had bought so laboriously on time, week
after week, the insurance - everything.
My grandfather never worked again.
The heart went out of him.
It ruined Celoron for us; it destroyed our life together there."
There's no denying that Lucille Ball is a comedy icon.
She won numerous accolades, including Golden Globes, the Cecil B. DeMille Award and the
Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy at the American Comedy Awards.
It's clear that Ball made her mark on television for countless generations to come.
Oddly enough, however, the actress almost gave up early on in her career.
According to the Los Angeles Times, when Ball was still a teenager pushing for her big break
on Broadway, her drama teacher told her to "give up."
Leaving school shortly after, Ball simply kept gunning for an opportunity, enrolling
in the John Murray Anderson dramatic school in New York.
While she was in a few very small roles on Broadway, her career really started when she
turned to modeling.
With her face appearing on billboards, in magazines and in store ads, she became an
incredibly recognizable figure.
Finally, in 1933, she turned her sights to Hollywood.
Her teacher's advice seemed to stick with Ball for years to come.
She once told Rolling Stone in a 1983 interview:
"I am not funny.
My writers were funny.
My directors were funny.
The situations were funny [...] What I am is brave."
"You think they could make a glamour girl out of me?"
"Sure.
It says right here: 'We work miracles.'"
Ball met Desi Arnaz on a movie set in 1940, and she later told the Los Angeles Times that
she felt it was true love from the very beginning.
They eloped after just six months, but the cracks started showing quickly.
Ball was left mentally exhausted due to Arnaz's infidelity and drinking, so much that it may
have contributed to two miscarriages that she suffered.
In 1944, after being married for four years, the pair separated - albeit briefly.
The pair soon reunited both professionally and romantically, and they approached CBS
with an idea based on some of the work they'd done together.
Premiering on CBS in October of 1951, I Love Lucy was a smash hit, mainly due to the adorable
on-screen couple that was Lucy McGillicuddy Ricardo, played by Ball, and Ricky Ricardo,
played by Arnaz.
The show's success helped keep the couple together, but Arnaz's old habits reappeared,
and even other cast members noticed.
Keith Thibodeaux, who played Little Ricky, told People magazine:
"I can see why their marriage didn't make it [...] Desi was really a great guy when
he wasn't drinking, but as kids we'd definitely stay away from him when he was drunk."
Ball would frequently call her friends for help and advice in the middle of the night
if Desi got too heavy into his drinking, and the couple eventually divorced in 1960.
Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Ball later said of Desi:
"He was like Jekyll and Hyde.
It was always the same: booze and broads."
Despite their frequent problems, the couple still did have some happiness.
Obviously, their show was very successful, and the two also had a son and a daughter
together.
"It'll help our vibrations."
"Lucy, don't you like the way I vibrate?"
Ball would later call her children her proudest achievement.
Ball's marriage to Arnaz dramatically changed her personality.
She was once carefree and full of spirit, but people started to notice that she seemed
paranoid and suspicious of everyone.
Speaking with People magazine, the actress' long-time friend, Lillian Briggs Winograd,
said:
"She'd had a lousy situation with Desi's carousing and gambling for 18 years [...] She wanted
out of Hollywood because everyone was always saying, 'Poor Lucy!'"
Ball was most likely fed up with the pity, too, and the entire situation rubbed off on
those around her.
Actor Richard Burton, who appeared on Here's Lucy, wrote in his autobiography:
"She is a monster of staggering charmlessness [...] She is a tired old woman and lives entirely
on that weekly show.
[...] I loathe her today but now I also pity her."
Keith Thibodeaux echoed a similar sentiment, telling People that Ball's temper was legendary,
and people knew to avoid her when she was having a rough day.
In the end, after her divorce from Arnaz, it seemed like Ball finally found some clarity.
She actually helped other actresses with their relationships, offering advice from her own
experiences.
While I Love Lucy was on the air, the sitcom completely captivated the country.
The Los Angeles Times wrote:
"The show was so popular [...] that it literally stopped the nation every Monday night from
9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m."
Many stores would even shut down before the show started, knowing that they wouldn't have
any customers while it was airing.
I Love Lucy finally came to an end in 1957.
Lucille Ball later decided to resurrect her familiar character in 1968's sequel show Here's
Lucy starring her two kids - in part to kickstart their own careers.
Once that was accomplished, she decided it was time to retire Lucy in 1974 and try her
hand at Hollywood again.
That same year, Ball filmed her final feature film, Mame, an adaptation of a Broadway musical.
Reviews ripped her to shreds.
Jerry Herman, who composed the Broadway hit, even told publications how disappointed he
was with Ball's portrayal of the lead role.
She mostly laid low after the failure of Mame, but she decided to return to TV with Life
with Lucy in 1986.
It, too, was a flop.
However, with Ball at age 75 and her heyday long gone, the character didn't strike the
right chord with audiences.
Her character was stuck the way she always was, where they could have made her much more
interesting.
Life With Lucy only lasted thirteen episodes.
Ball and Arnaz's second child, Desi Jr., unfortunately took after his father when it came to his
bad-boy reputation.
He claims that he thought he fell in love at the age of thirteen, and he was a father
by fifteen.
However, taking after his father when it came to womanizing wasn't the only problem that
Desi Jr. had.
Lucille Ball seemed to have as many issues with her son as she had with her husband.
Desi Jr. knew his father had issues with addiction, and he followed the same dark path with drugs.
Ultimately, he finally checked himself into rehab.
Looking back on this dark period in his life, Desi Jr. thinks he succeeded in rehab due
to his mother and father.
Speaking with Closer Weekly, he said:
"Both my mother and my father were invited to come with me, and they did [...] They were
very supportive, and I think they were helped tremendously by what happened to me."
Despite a tumultuous marriage, Ball and Arnaz maintained a connection even after their divorce
finalized in 1960.
The pair seemed to flourish after parting ways - even with one another.
Their daughter later said that getting divorced was the best thing that ever happened to both
of them, and that the duo actually became more friendly towards each other after they
split up.
Ball later married Gary Morton, and Arnaz married Edith Mack Hirsch, but it was evident
to everyone that these two exes genuinely still cherished one another.
According to Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Desi's last words to
his former wife before he died in 1986 were:
"I love you too, honey.
Good luck with your show."
Lucille Ball died just a few years later in 1989.
When she did, Paula Stewart, a friend of Ball's second husband Gary Morton, recalls Morton
telling her that he assumed Lucille was happy now, since she was with Desi again.
In April of 1989, Lucille Ball suffered a heart attack at the age of 77, and went through
over seven hours of surgery to help her recover.
The doctors who treated her were worried about the severity of the heart attack and Ball's
age, but were optimistic she would recover.
Entertainers, comedians and fans all expressed their sentiment that Ball would pull through.
Tragically, even with well-wishers calling, praying and sending letters, the icon of comedy
did not recover from her operation.
On Wednesday, April 26th, 1989, a week after she checked into the Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center, Lucille Ball died of a ruptured abdominal aorta.
The hospital released a statement expressing their sorrow and indicating that they had
no way to prevent Ball's passing.
Speaking with People magazine after her passing, Ball's friend Michael Stern said:
"Her private nurse said that she went to bed that Tuesday night feeling good, knowing that
the world loved her.
God gave her that extra time so she would know she was still loved.
I think she needed that."
Considering all the tragedy, uncertainty and difficulties that Lucille Ball endured over
her life, it's certain that the TV icon would be radiating to know that to this day, the
world still loves Lucy, too.
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