Lucille Desiree Ball

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedian, and producer. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She earned many honors, including the Women in Film Crystal Award, an induction into the Television Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Ball's career began in 1929 when she landed work as a model. Shortly thereafter, she began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name "Diane" (or "Dianne") Belmont. She later appeared in films in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for "RKO Radio Pictures", being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles, with lead roles in B-pictures and supporting roles in A-pictures. During this time, she met Cuban bandleader "Desi" Arnaz, and the two eloped in November 1940. In the 1950s, Ball ventured into television. In 1951, she and Arnaz created the sitcom "I Love Lucy". The same year, Ball gave birth to their first child, "Lucie" Arnaz, followed by "Desi" Arnaz Jr. in 1953. Ball and Arnaz divorced in May 1960, and she married comedian "Gary" Morton in 1961. Following the end of "I Love Lucy", Ball produced and starred in the Broadway musical "Wildcat" from 1960 to 1961. The show received lukewarm reviews and had to be closed when Ball became ill for several weeks. After "Wildcat", Ball reunited with "I Love Lucy" co-star 'Vivian" Vance for "The Lucy Show", which Vance left in 1965. The show continued, with Ball's longtime friend and series regular "Gale" Gordon, until 1968. Ball immediately began appearing in a new series, "Here's Lucy", with Gordon, frequent show guest "Mary Jane" Croft, and "Lucie" and "Desi" Jr.; this program ran until 1974. In 1962, Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio, "Desilu Productions", which produced much popular television series, including "Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek". Ball did not retire from acting completely, and in 1985, she took on a dramatic role in the television film "Stone Pillow". The next year, she starred in "Life with Lucy", which was, unlike her other sitcoms, not well-received; the show was canceled after three months. She appeared in film and television roles for the rest of her career until her death in April 1989 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of "77". Ball was nominated for 13 "Primetime Emmy Awards", winning five times. In 1960, she received two stars for her work in film and television on the "Hollywood Walk of Fame". In 1977, Ball was among the first recipients of the "Women in Film Crystal Award". She was also the recipient of the "Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award" in 1979, was inducted into the "Television Hall of Fame" in 1984, received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the "Kennedy Center Honors" in 1986, and the "Governors Award" from the "Academy of Television Arts & Sciences" in 1989. Born at 60 Stewart Avenue, Jamestown, New York, "Lucille Désirée" Ball was the daughter of "Henry Durrell" Ball (1887–1915), a lineman for "Bell Telephone", and Désirée "DeDe" Evelyn Ball (née Hunt; 1892–1977). Her family belonged to the Baptist church. Her ancestors were mostly English, but a few were Scottish, French, and Irish. Some were among the earliest settlers in the Thirteen Colonies, including Elder "John" Crandall of Westerly, Rhode Island, and "Edmund" Rice, an early emigrant from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As part of her father's work for "Bell Telephone", he was frequently transferred and the family moved often during her childhood. The family had moved from Jamestown to Anaconda, Montana, and later to Trenton, New Jersey. In February 1915, while living in Wyandotte, Michigan, her father died from typhoid fever at 27 years old, when Ball was three. At the time of Henry's death, "DeDe" Ball was pregnant with her second child, "Fred Henry" Ball (1915–2007). Ball recalled little from the day her father died, except a bird getting trapped in the house, which caused her lifelong ornithophobia. Ball's mother returned to New York, where maternal grandparents helped raise her brother Fred and her in Celoron, a summer resort village on Lake Chautauqua, 2.5 miles (4 km) west of downtown Jamestown. Ball loved "Celoron Park", a popular amusement area in the United States at that time. Its boardwalk had a ramp to the lake that served as a children's slide, the "Pier Ballroom", a roller-coaster, a bandstand, and a stage where vaudeville concerts and regular theatrical shows were presented. Four years after "Henry" Ball's death, "DeDe" Ball married "Edward" Peterson. While her mother and stepfather looked for work in another city, Peterson's parents cared for her brother and her. Ball's step-grandparents were a puritanical Swedish couple who banished all mirrors from the house except one over the bathroom sink. When the young Ball was caught admiring herself in it, she was severely chastised for being vain. This period affected Ball so deeply that, in later life, she said that it lasted seven or eight years. When Ball was 12, her stepfather encouraged her to audition for his Shriner's organization that required entertainers for the chorus line of their next show. While Ball was onstage, she realized performing was a great way to gain praise, and her appetite for recognition was awakened. During this time in 1927, her family was forced to relocate into a small apartment in Jamestown after they suffered a misfortune when their house and furnishings were sold to settle a financial legal judgment. A neighborhood boy was accidentally shot and paralyzed by someone target shooting in their yard under the supervision of Ball's grandfather. In 1925, Ball, then only 14, started dating "Johnny" DeVita, a 21-year-old local hoodlum. "DeDe" was unhappy with the relationship but was unable to influence her daughter to end it. She expected the romance to burn out in a few weeks, but that did not happen. After about a year, "DeDe" tried to separate them by using Lucille's desire to be in show business. Despite the family's meager finances, she arranged for "Lucille" to go to the "John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts" in New York City, where "Bette" Davis was a fellow student. Ball later said about that time in her life, "All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened. Ball's instructors felt that she would not be successful in the entertainment business, and were not afraid to say this in front of her, a criticism which Ball did not enjoy hearing. Ball was determined to prove her teachers wrong and returned to New York City in 1928. Among her other jobs, she landed work as a fashion model for "Hattie" Carnegie. Her career was thriving when she became ill with rheumatoid arthritis and was unable to work for two years. She moved back to New York City in 1932 to resume her pursuit of a career as an actress and supported herself by again working for Carnegie and as the Chesterfield cigarette girl. Using the name "Diane" (sometimes spelled "Dianne") Belmont, she started getting some chorus work on Broadway, but the work was not lasting. Ball was hired – but then quickly fired – by theater impresario "Earl" Carroll, from his "Vanities", and by "Florenz" Ziegfeld, from a touring company of "Rio Rita". In 1940, Ball met Cuban-born bandleader "Desi" Arnaz while filming the Rodgers and Hart stage hit "Too Many Girls". When they met again on the second day, the two connected immediately and eloped the same year. Although Arnaz was drafted into the Army in 1942, he ended up being classified for limited service due to a knee injury. As a result, Arnaz stayed in Los Angeles, organizing and performing USO shows for wounded GIs being brought back from the Pacific. On March 3, 1960, a day after Desi's 43rd birthday (and one day after the filming of the final episode of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour"), Ball filed papers in Santa Monica Superior Court, claiming married life with Desi was "a nightmare" and nothing at all as it appeared on "I Love Lucy". On May 4, 1960, the couple divorced; however, until his death in 1986, Arnaz and Ball remained friends and often spoke very fondly of each other. Her real-life divorce indirectly found its way into her later television series, as she was always cast as an unmarried woman, each time a widow. Ball was outspokenly against the relationship her son had with actress "Patty" Duke. Later, commenting on when her son dated "Liza" Minnelli, she was quoted as saying, "I miss Liza, but you cannot domesticate Liza." On April 18, 1989, Ball complained of chest pain at her home in Beverly Hills and was taken to "Cedars-Sinai Medical Center" in Los Angeles, where she was diagnosed with a dissecting aortic aneurysm and underwent surgery to repair her aorta and a successful seven-hour aortic valve replacement. Shortly after dawn on April 26, Ball awoke with severe back pain then lost consciousness; she died at 5:47 am PDT at the age of "77". Doctors determined that Ball had succumbed to a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm not directly related to her surgery. Three memorial services were held for Ball. She was cremated and the ashes were initially interred in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, where her mother was also buried. In 2002, Ball's and her mother's remains were re-interred at the Hunt family plot at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown, NY, in accordance with Ball's wishes to be buried near her mother. Her brother's remains were also interred there in 2007.