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Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball was born on August 6,1911 in Jamestown, New York in the United States. Lucille Ball was one of two children of Henry Dunnell Ball, a telephone lineman, and Desiree (DeDe) Evelyn Hunt, a pianist who encouraged her daughter’s acting ambition. When Henry Ball died in 1915,the family moved into DeDe’s parents home, where “Grandpa Hunt”, an Arden Socialist, became a father figure for Lucille and encouraged her acting ambitions by taking her to Vaudeville shows and films. Ball interrupted her high school education at the age of fifteen to enroll in an acting school in New York City, but returned home after six weeks with the school’s advice that she give up her stage aspirations.

She continued to return to New York for casting calls and rehearsals, using the stage name Diane Belmont, while she supported herself with jobs as a drug store soda jerk, dress model, and nude model for artists and photographers. She contracted Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of seventeen and was incapacitated nearly three years, but she returned to modeling after her recovery.

Ball eventually gained nation wide exposure in advertisements as the Chesterfield Girl in 1932.This led to movie roles with United Artists (she moved to

With in a short time after it’s premiere on October 15,1951, I Love Lucy became one of the most popular programs on television. It was nominated for twenty-three Emmy awards winning five times. When Ball was expecting her second child, her pregnancy was written into the script. I Love Lucy ran until May 6,1957, and Desilu sold the rerun rights of the program to CBS for the then unheard of sum of $4 million. This allowed Desilu to purchase RKO pictures. Whose main asset was its film and television production lot. Arnaz soon began production of numerous other programs, including “Our Miss Brooks”, “The Ann Southern Show” and “The Untouchables. Then they had a show called The Lucy -Desi Comedy Hour thirteen hour long comedy shows featuring prominent celebrities as guest stars. These shows appeared from November 6,1957 through September of 1958.

As the business fortunes of Hollywood moviemakers began to decline in the Post-World War 2 ERA, Ball and her husband explored other media. She starred in CBS radio series My Favorite Husband from July 1947 to March 1951.During 1947 and 1948 she also toured in the stage play Dream Girl. In 1949 and 1950 she returned to films, starring in the comedies Sorrowful Jones (1949), Easy Living (1949), Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1950), Fancy Pants (1950) and The Fuller Brush Girl (1950).

Vaudeville audiences

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