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Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball
Ball c. 1955
Born	Lucille Désirée Ball August 6, 1911 Jamestown, New York, U.S.
Died	April 26, 1989 (aged 77) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Burial place	Lake View Cemetery, Jamestown, New York[1]
Other names	Lucille Ball Morton Lucille Ball Arnaz Diane Belmont
Occupation	Actress, comedian, singer, model, film studio executive, TV producer
Years active	1929–1989
Spouse(s)	Desi Arnaz (m. 1940; div. 1960) Gary Morton (m. 1961)
Children	Lucie Arnaz Desi Arnaz Jr.
Relatives	Fred Ball (brother)

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedienne, model, entertainment studio executive and producer. She was the star of the self-produced sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, and Life with Lucy, as well as comedy television specials aired under the title The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.^[2]

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 names Diane Belmont and Dianne Belmont. She later appeared in several minor film roles in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles. 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, a series that became one of the most beloved programs in television history. The same year, Ball gave birth to their first child, Lucie Arnaz,^[3] followed by Desi Arnaz Jr. in 1953.^[4] Ball and Arnaz divorced in May 1960, and she married comedian Gary Morton in 1961.^[5]

Following the end of I Love Lucy, Ball appeared in a Broadway musical, Wildcat, for a year from 1960 to 1961. However, the show received lukewarm reviews and had to be shut down permanently when Ball became ill for a brief time. After Wildcat, Ball reunited with I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance for the aforementioned Lucy Show, which Vance left in 1965 but which continued for three years with longtime friend of Ball's Gale Gordon who already had a recurring role on the program. The Lucy Show ended its run in 1968 and Ball immediately began appearing in a new series, Here's Lucy, with Gordon, frequent guest on her shows 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 many popular television series, including Mission: Impossible and Star Trek.^[6] Ball did not back away from acting completely. In 1985, she took on a dramatic role in a 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 cancelled 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.^[7]

Ball was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning four times.^[8] In 1960, she received two stars for her work in film and television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[9] In 1977, Ball was among the first recipients of the Women in Film Crystal Award.^[10] She was also the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1979,^[11] was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1984, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986,^[12] and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1989.^[13]

I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy
Title shot from the syndicated edition of series.
Written by	Jess Oppenheimer (Seasons 1–5) Madelyn Davis Bob Carroll Jr. Bob Schiller (Seasons 5–6) Bob Weiskopf (Seasons 5–6)
Starring	Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Vivian Vance William Frawley Richard Keith
Theme music composer	Eliot Daniel (music) Harold Adamson (lyrics)
Composer(s)	Eliot Daniel Wilbur Hatch Marco Rizo
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English, Spanish
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	181 (including the "lost" Christmas episode and original pilot)
Production
Producer(s)	Jess Oppenheimer Desi Arnaz (executive)
Production location(s)	Desilu Studios Los Angeles, California
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	23–26.5 minutes unedited, including opening and closing credits
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	October 15, 1951 – May 6, 1957

I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from October 15, 1951 to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons (including the 'lost' original pilot and Christmas episode). The show starred Lucille Ball, her real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. It followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a middle-class housewife in New York City, who either concocted plans with her best friends (Vance & Frawley) to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) in his nightclub, or tried numerous schemes to mingle with, or be a part of show business. After the series ended in 1957, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials; it ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.

I Love Lucy became the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and it was the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings (an accomplishment later matched only by The Andy Griffith Show in 1968 and Seinfeld in 1998). As of 2011, episodes of the show have been syndicated in dozens of languages across the world^[3][4] and remain popular with an American audience of 40 million each year.^[5] A colorized version of its Christmas episode attracted more than 8 million viewers when CBS aired it in prime time in 2013, 62 years after the show premiered; CBS has aired two to three colorized episodes each year since then, once at Christmas and again in the spring.^[6]

The show, which was the first scripted television program to be shot on 35mm film in front of a studio audience, won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations and honors. It was the first show ever to feature an ensemble cast.^[7] It is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms in history. In 2012, it was voted the 'Best TV Show of All Time' in a survey conducted by ABC News and People magazine.^[8]