48 Fun Facts About Lucille Ball

In which New York town was Lucille Ball born in 1911?

Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, on August 6, 1911; the city is home to the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum and the National Comedy Center.

Ball's father, Henry, worked as a lineman for which company?

Henry Ball was a lineman for Bell Telephone; the work moved the family to Anaconda, Montana, and Trenton, New Jersey, before he died of typhoid fever in 1915.

Ball traced her lifelong fear of birds to what?

She was three when a bird was trapped in the house on the day her father died in 1915; the resulting ornithophobia lasted her whole life.

Ball's puritanical Swedish step-grandparents banned what from the house except one over the bathroom sink?

Her step-grandparents, the Petersons, banned mirrors except one over the bathroom sink; caught admiring herself in it, she was scolded for vanity, an episode she said affected her for years.

Which future star was Lucille Ball's fellow student at the John Murray Anderson drama school?

Bette Davis was her classmate at the John Murray Anderson school; Ball said all she learned there was how to be frightened, and her teachers told her she would never make it.

For which fashion designer did Ball work as an in-house model from 1928?

Carnegie ordered her to bleach her brown hair blond; the famous red came later.

Under what stage name did Ball first seek Broadway chorus work?

As Diane Belmont, a name borrowed from Belmont Park racetrack, she was hired and quickly fired by Earl Carroll's Vanities and a Ziegfeld touring company.

Ball's first Hollywood work was as an uncredited Goldwyn Girl in which 1933 Eddie Cantor film?

Roman Scandals (1933) cast her as one of Samuel Goldwyn's chorus girls; she stayed in Hollywood afterward and went on to an RKO contract.

Ball appeared in a 1934 two-reel short with which comedy trio?

Three Little Pigskins (1934) paired her with the Three Stooges; she worked with the Marx Brothers four years later in Room Service.

Ball played a flower-shop clerk in which 1935 Astaire and Rogers musical?

In Top Hat (1935) she was an uncredited flower-shop clerk; she also appeared in that year's Astaire-Rogers Roberta, and later shared the screen with Rogers in Stage Door (1937).

Ball's 50-year professional relationship with Gale Gordon began on which 1938 radio programme?

The Wonder Show, a 1938 radio series starring Jack Haley, had Gale Gordon as announcer; he later played her foil on The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life with Lucy.

Which silent-film legend became Ball's friend and comedy mentor at MGM in the 1940s?

Buster Keaton, then working behind the scenes at MGM, and director Edward Sedgwick coached her in practical comedy and prop work.

On the set of which 1940 musical did Ball meet Desi Arnaz?

Too Many Girls (1940) cast Arnaz as one of the four football-player bodyguards of Ball's character; they eloped that November 30.

What nickname did Ball earn in Hollywood for her string of low-budget films?

'Queen of the Bs', a title Fay Wray had held before her, summed up Ball's 1930s run of RKO programmers; Marie Windsor later inherited the label.

Ball got the lead in Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) after which friend turned it down?

Producer Arthur Freed had bought the Broadway show specifically for Sothern, Ball's real-life best friend.

Ball's My Favorite Husband character became Liz Cooper to avoid confusion with which bandleader?

Her character began as Liz Cugat, a name too close to bandleader Xavier Cugat's, and became Liz Cooper; the CBS radio comedy was the template for I Love Lucy.

Why were CBS executives reluctant to cast Desi Arnaz opposite Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy?

CBS thought viewers would not accept a Cuban husband for an American redhead; the couple toured a vaudeville act to prove the pairing worked, and CBS gave in.

Ball and Arnaz took a pay cut to shoot I Love Lucy on 35 mm film in Hollywood in exchange for what?

Desilu kept ownership of each episode after it aired; CBS thought reruns were worthless, and the 1957 sale of those rights back to CBS helped fund Desilu's purchase of RKO's studios.

Which sponsor of I Love Lucy wanted the couple to move to New York rather than film in California?

Philip Morris, the cigarette sponsor, wanted a live New York broadcast because poor-quality kinescopes would reach eastern markets; shooting on 35 mm film in Hollywood was the compromise.

Which I Love Lucy episode produced the longest studio-audience laugh of the series' run?

'Lucy Does the Tango' (1957) has Lucy crushing eggs hidden in her blouse; the 65-second audience laugh was the longest in the series and had to be trimmed for broadcast.

Which word did CBS ban from I Love Lucy's 1952-53 Little Ricky storyline?

'Pregnant' was out; 'expecting' was used instead, and the episode title borrowed the French: 'Lucy Is Enceinte'.

How many viewers watched Lucy Ricardo give birth on January 19, 1953, the day Lucille Ball delivered Desi Jr.?

44 million tuned in; Ball's caesarean was scheduled to match the broadcast, and the birth made the cover of the first issue of TV Guide.

Ball and Arnaz starred together in which 1954 feature film during a production break?

The Long, Long Trailer (1954), Vincente Minnelli's MGM comedy about newlyweds towing a trailer, was shot during a hiatus; they followed it with Forever, Darling in 1956.

After buying out Arnaz in 1962, Ball became the first woman to do what?

She became the first woman to head a TV production company, serving as Desilu's president from 1962 until she sold the studio in 1967.

For how much did Ball sell her Desilu shares to Gulf+Western in 1967?

Gulf+Western paid $17 million for Ball's controlling stake in Desilu in 1967 and folded the studio into its Paramount Pictures, renaming it Paramount Television.

Ball starred in and produced which 1960 Broadway musical, source of 'Hey, Look Me Over'?

Wildcat opened in December 1960 with Ball as Wildcat Jackson and closed early in 1961 when she fell ill; co-star Paula Stewart introduced her to Gary Morton.

Ball's 1964-65 CBS radio show, in which she interviewed celebrities as herself, was called what?

Let's Talk to Lucy ran on CBS Radio from 1964 to 1965 as a ten-minute weekday program in which Ball chatted with show-business friends as herself.

Which co-star left The Lucy Show in 1965?

Vivian Vance, tired of commuting from her Connecticut home, left after the 1964-65 season; the show carried on with Gale Gordon until 1968, when Ball moved straight into Here's Lucy.

Which two family members appeared as regulars on Lucille Ball's sitcom Here's Lucy (1968-74)?

Her children Lucie and Desi Jr. joined the regular cast, alongside Gale Gordon and Mary Jane Croft.

On the Dick Cavett show, Ball claimed she once picked up a Japanese radio signal through what?

She told Cavett in 1974 that the fillings in her teeth picked up Morse-code-like signals near her home in 1942, and that authorities then found a hidden Japanese transmitter.

Frank Sinatra wanted Lucille Ball as Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962); who got the part?

Angela Lansbury got it because director John Frankenheimer had just used her as a mother in All Fall Down and insisted on her.

Which younger comedian did Ball mentor from 1959, sending flowers on her birthday every year?

Ball died on Burnett's birthday, April 26, 1989.

Lucille Ball's 1985 dramatic TV film Stone Pillow cast her, against type, as what?

An elderly homeless woman was a rare dramatic turn; reviews were mixed but ratings were strong, and her sitcom comeback Life with Lucy lasted under two months.

Which producer co-produced Ball's short-lived 1986 comeback Life with Lucy?

Aaron Spelling's company co-produced Life with Lucy with Lucille Ball Productions for ABC; the network cancelled it less than two months into its 1986 run, and it was her last series.

Where did Ball and Arnaz elope on November 30, 1940?

They married at the Byram River Beagle Club in Greenwich, Connecticut; Arnaz missed the first of his Roxy Theater shows that night but made it back for the second.

Ball's second husband, Gary Morton, was a comic from which circuit, 13 years her junior?

He claimed never to have seen I Love Lucy; she put him into her production company and made him a producer.

When Ball registered to vote in 1936, which party affiliation did she list?

She registered as a Communist in 1936 at the insistence of her socialist grandfather Fred Hunt, she told HUAC in 1953, and said she never intended to vote that way; the committee cleared her.

How did Desi Arnaz defuse the 1953 political-affiliation story before a taping?

Before a September 1953 taping, Arnaz told the studio audience: 'The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that is not legitimate.'

Ball said she voted for which candidate in the 1952 presidential election?

She told HUAC in September 1953 that she had voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952; the committee found no evidence she had ever been a Communist Party member.

Ball got two Walk of Fame stars on the same day in 1960, for motion pictures and what?

Her motion-picture star is at 6436 Hollywood Boulevard and her television star at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard, both dedicated on February 8, 1960.

Who introduced Ball at her 1986 Kennedy Center Honors after Desi Arnaz died five days before the event?

Stack had starred in Desilu's The Untouchables; Arnaz had been due to give the introduction himself.

Lucille Ball appeared on how many covers of TV Guide?

Ball made 39 TV Guide covers, the first being the magazine's April 1953 debut issue, which showed baby Desi Jr. under the headline 'Lucy's $50,000,000 Baby'.

Ball died in 1989 of what?

A ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm killed her on April 26, 1989, eight days after seven hours of surgery on a different section of her aorta at Cedars-Sinai.

What was Lucy Ricardo's maiden name on I Love Lucy?

Lucy Ricardo was born Lucille Esmeralda McGillicuddy; her mother, Mrs. McGillicuddy, played by Kathryn Card, joined the Ricardos on the 1955 trip to Hollywood.

Which US president awarded Ball a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom in July 1989?

George H. W. Bush presented the posthumous medal on July 6, 1989, ten weeks after her death; Ball had received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.

A much-mocked 2009 statue of Lucille Ball in Celoron, New York, earned what nickname from locals?

'Scary Lucy', sculptor Dave Poulin's 2009 bronze, was so mocked that Celoron unveiled a replacement by Carolyn Palmer in 2016 and kept the original nearby as a curiosity.

Who earned an Oscar nomination for playing Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos (2021)?

Nicole Kidman won the Golden Globe for the performance; Cate Blanchett had originally been announced for the role in 2015.

Which two famous series did Desilu produce while Lucille Ball ran the studio in the 1960s?

Star Trek and Mission: Impossible came out of Desilu after Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio in 1962.