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48 free Lucille Ball trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Lucille Ball trivia quiz is about the woman rather than just the show. It starts in Jamestown, New York, with the lineman father who died of typhoid, the puritanical step-grandparents who banned mirrors, the drama school where Bette Davis was a classmate and the teachers who told her she had no future, then follows her through modelling for Hattie Carnegie, chorus work as Diane Belmont, the Goldwyn Girls, RKO and the years as 'Queen of the Bs'. The middle of the quiz covers Desi Arnaz and the elopement, My Favorite Husband, the vaudeville tour that convinced CBS to accept a Cuban husband, the 35 mm film deal that made Desilu a fortune, the on-air pregnancy that could not be called one, and the buyout that made her the first woman to run a major television studio, green-lighting Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. It finishes with Wildcat, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, the 1936 Communist registration and the HUAC testimony, Gary Morton, Carol Burnett, Life with Lucy, her death and the 'Scary Lucy' statue. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our I Love Lucy quiz next.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which New York town was Lucille Ball born in 1911?
Jamestown
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.
Q 02Ball's father, Henry, worked as a lineman for which company?
Bell Telephone
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.
Q 03Ball traced her lifelong fear of birds to what?
A bird trapped in the house on the day her father died
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.
Q 04Ball's puritanical Swedish step-grandparents banned what from the house except one over the bathroom sink?
Mirrors
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.
Q 05Which future star was Lucille Ball's fellow student at the John Murray Anderson drama school?
Bette Davis
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.
Q 06For which fashion designer did Ball work as an in-house model from 1928?
Hattie Carnegie
Carnegie ordered her to bleach her brown hair blond; the famous red came later.
Q 07Under what stage name did Ball first seek Broadway chorus work?
Diane Belmont
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.
Q 08Ball's first Hollywood work was as an uncredited Goldwyn Girl in which 1933 Eddie Cantor film?
Roman Scandals
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.
Q 09Ball appeared in a 1934 two-reel short with which comedy trio?
The Three Stooges
Three Little Pigskins (1934) paired her with the Three Stooges; she worked with the Marx Brothers four years later in Room Service.
Q 10Ball played a flower-shop clerk in which 1935 Astaire and Rogers musical?
Top Hat
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).
Q 11Ball's 50-year professional relationship with Gale Gordon began on which 1938 radio programme?
The Wonder Show
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.
Q 12Which silent-film legend became Ball's friend and comedy mentor at MGM in the 1940s?
Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton, then working behind the scenes at MGM, and director Edward Sedgwick coached her in practical comedy and prop work.
Q 13On the set of which 1940 musical did Ball meet Desi Arnaz?
Too Many Girls
Q 21Which word did CBS ban from I Love Lucy's 1952-53 Little Ricky storyline?
Pregnant
'Pregnant' was out; 'expecting' was used instead, and the episode title borrowed the French: 'Lucy Is Enceinte'.
Q 22How many viewers watched Lucy Ricardo give birth on January 19, 1953, the day Lucille Ball delivered Desi Jr.?
44 million
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.
Q 23Ball and Arnaz starred together in which 1954 feature film during a production break?
The Long, Long Trailer
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.
Too Many Girls (1940) cast Arnaz as one of the four football-player bodyguards of Ball's character; they eloped that November 30.
Q 14What nickname did Ball earn in Hollywood for her string of low-budget films?
Queen of the Bs
'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.
Q 15Ball got the lead in Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) after which friend turned it down?
Ann Sothern
Producer Arthur Freed had bought the Broadway show specifically for Sothern, Ball's real-life best friend.
Q 16Ball's My Favorite Husband character became Liz Cooper to avoid confusion with which bandleader?
Xavier Cugat
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.
Q 17Why were CBS executives reluctant to cast Desi Arnaz opposite Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy?
Viewers would not accept a Cuban husband for an American redhead
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.
Q 18Ball and Arnaz took a pay cut to shoot I Love Lucy on 35 mm film in Hollywood in exchange for what?
Ownership of each episode after it aired
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.
Q 19Which sponsor of I Love Lucy wanted the couple to move to New York rather than film in California?
Philip Morris
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.
Q 20Which I Love Lucy episode produced the longest studio-audience laugh of the series' run?
Lucy Does the Tango
'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.
Q 24After buying out Arnaz in 1962, Ball became the first woman to do what?
Head a TV production company
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.
Q 25For how much did Ball sell her Desilu shares to Gulf+Western in 1967?
$17 million
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.
Q 26Ball starred in and produced which 1960 Broadway musical, source of 'Hey, Look Me Over'?
Wildcat
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.
Q 27Ball's 1964-65 CBS radio show, in which she interviewed celebrities as herself, was called what?
Let's Talk to Lucy
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.
Q 28Which co-star left The Lucy Show in 1965?
Vivian Vance
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.
Q 29Which two family members appeared as regulars on Lucille Ball's sitcom Here's Lucy (1968-74)?
Her children Lucie and Desi Jr.
Her children Lucie and Desi Jr. joined the regular cast, alongside Gale Gordon and Mary Jane Croft.
Q 30On the Dick Cavett show, Ball claimed she once picked up a Japanese radio signal through what?
The fillings in her teeth
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.