A comment from a member of the preview audience of Follow the Fleet (1936) about bit-player Ball: "You might give the tall gum chewing blonde more parts and see if she can't make the grade - a good gamble."
Appears on a 44¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Early Television Memories issue with Vivian Vance, as Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz, in a scene from "I Love Lucy: Job Switching (#2.1)" (1952). The stamp was issued 11 August 2009.
Ball and Barbara Pepper met early in their careers when they were both "Goldwyn Girls" and remained lifelong friends.
Became very good friends with Maureen O'Hara during the making of Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) and continued being friends until Ball's death. O'Hara was with Lucille when Lucille first met her husband Desi Arnaz.
Before her movie career, Lucille was a model at Hattie Carnegie's in New York. She mainly modeled heavy fur coats, because she was startlingly thin as a young lady.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 63-66. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. pg. 35-37. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387.
Born a brunette.
Born at 5:00 pm.
Comedian John Belushi was a fan of her and knew every detail of her life and career.
Died the morning of April 26, 1989, the fifty-sixth birthday of her friend Carol Burnett. That afternoon Burnett received the flowers that Ball had ordered for her birthday.
Disliked any false form of a bird, she preferred to see them in person so she banned all pictures of birds from her house and any hotel room she was staying in.
During a Barbara Walters interview, Jane Fonda claimed that her father, Henry Fonda, was deeply in love with Lucille Ball and that the two were "very close" during the filming of Yours, Mine and Ours (1968).
During the 1933 filming of Roman Scandals (1933), young Lucille Ball, portraying a slave girl, needed to have her eyebrows entirely shaved off. They never grew back.
Felt that she did not deserve the title of "Queen of Comedy" and felt that it belonged to her idol, Carole Lombard.
Filed for a divorce from husband Desi Arnaz, the day following the last day of filming "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" (1957). [3 March 1960]
First cousin of Cleo Morgan, though they were raised as sisters.
For many years during their marriage, Lucy and Desi Arnaz hid the fact that she was six years older than he by splitting the difference in their ages. She (born in 1911) said she was born in 1914 and he (born in 1917) also said he was born in 1914.
Had a superstition about the letters A and R, which is why her character was named Lucy RicARdo in "I Love Lucy" (1951); Lucy CARmichael in "The Lucy Show" (1962); Lucy CARter in "Here's Lucy" (1968) and Lucy BARker in "Life with Lucy" (1986) (she was also married to 'Desi ARnaz'). She believed she didn't have luck in her career until she changed her name to Arnaz.
Her 1960 divorce from Desi Arnaz was quite amicable. They divided their $20 million television empire equally, each retaining 25% Desilu stock (282,800 shares),she got the homes in Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage, and Desi got the beach house in Del Mar, California and his Horse Ranch in Corona, California. In addition they agreed to joint custody of their children with him paying $450/month child support.