50 Fun Facts About Lucille Ball

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

The street she was born on is now Lucy Lane, and the town has the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum.

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

His job kept the family moving, to Anaconda, Montana, and Trenton, New Jersey, before he died of typhoid fever at 27.

Ball traced her lifelong fear of birds to what?

She was three at the time; the phobia is called ornithophobia.

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

When she was 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?

Ball said all she learned there was how to be frightened; 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.

Which illness kept the young Ball from working for two years?

She returned to New York in 1932 and worked as the Chesterfield cigarette girl.

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

She was hired and quickly fired by both 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?

She moved to Hollywood permanently afterwards and became an RKO contract player.

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

Three Little Pigskins; 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?

Ginger Rogers was a distant maternal cousin; the two later shared the screen in Stage Door.

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

Gordon was the announcer for the Jack Haley show; 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?

He and director Edward Sedgwick coached her in practical comedy and prop work.

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

He played one of her character's four bodyguards; they eloped that November.

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

Fay Wray held the title before her; Ida Lupino and Marie Windsor were later associated with it.

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 radio character in My Favorite Husband was renamed Liz Cooper because which bandleader sued?

She had originally been Liz Cugat; the CBS radio comedy became the template for I Love Lucy.

Why were CBS executives reluctant to cast Desi Arnaz opposite Ball in the sitcom?

The couple toured a vaudeville act to prove the pairing worked; the tour was a hit 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?

CBS thought reruns were worthless; in 1957 it bought the rights back for $1 million, funding the couple'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?

It objected to day-old kinescopes airing in eastern markets and to the cost of film.

For how much did CBS buy back the rights to I Love Lucy in 1957?

The money financed the down payment on the former RKO Radio Pictures lot, which became Desilu Studios.

Which episode's dance scene produced the longest studio-audience laugh of the 1951-57 sitcom's run?

The laugh ran so long the sound editor cut it in half.

Which word did CBS forbid on air during Ball's 1952-53 pregnancy storyline?

'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 Ball delivered Desi Jr.?

Her caesarean was scheduled to match the broadcast; 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?

They followed it with Forever, Darling in 1956; older films were also re-released to cash in on the show.

After buying out Arnaz in 1960, Ball became the first woman to do what?

Desilu went on to produce The Untouchables, Star Trek and Mission: Impossible.

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

The studio took the Paramount name.

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

It closed early when she could not shake a virus; 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?

It took over Garry Moore's ten-minute weekday slot; the premiere-week guests were Danny Kaye, Bob Hope and Red Skelton.

Which co-star left The Lucy Show in 1965?

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 Here's Lucy (1968-74)?

Gale Gordon and Mary Jane Croft rounded out the cast.

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

She said the discovery helped locate the signal; it remains one of her most repeated anecdotes.

Frank Sinatra wanted Ball for Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate. Who got the part?

Director John Frankenheimer had just used Lansbury 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.

Ball's 1985 dramatic TV film Stone Pillow cast her as what?

Reviews were mixed but ratings were strong; her sitcom comeback Life with Lucy the next year lasted under two months.

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

ABC cancelled it less than two months into its run; it was her last series.

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

Arnaz missed the first of his two Roxy 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 later told HUAC she did it at her socialist grandfather's insistence and never intended to vote that way; the FBI file found nothing warranting action.

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

He first used the line with columnist Hedda Hopper, then repeated it in place of his usual warm-up.

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

Eight years earlier she had appeared in a newsreel raising funds for Roosevelt's March of Dimes.

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

They sit at 6436 and 6100 Hollywood Boulevard.

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.

Ball appeared on how many covers of TV Guide, more than anyone else?

The first was the magazine's debut issue in 1953, with baby Desi Jr.; TV Guide later voted her the Greatest TV Star of All Time.

Ball died in 1989 of what?

She had undergone seven hours of aortic surgery a week earlier; the tear was in a different section of the aorta.

Ball's ashes were moved in 2002 from Forest Lawn to a family plot in which town, near her mother?

Lake View Cemetery holds the Hunt family plot.

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

After her death the American Comedy Awards were officially renamed 'The Lucy'.

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

A replacement arrived in 2016, but the original had become a tourist draw and was kept 75 yards away so visitors could see both.

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

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

Which two famous series were produced by Desilu while Ball ran the studio in the 1960s?

She became the first woman to run a major television studio in 1962, greenlighting shows far removed from her own comedies.