50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which New York town was Lucille Ball born in 1911?
Jamestown
The street she was born on is now Lucy Lane, and the town has the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum.
Q 02Ball's father, Henry, worked as a lineman for which company?
Bell Telephone
His job kept the family moving, to Anaconda, Montana, and Trenton, New Jersey, before he died of typhoid fever at 27.
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 at the time; the phobia is called ornithophobia.
Q 04Ball's puritanical Swedish step-grandparents banned what from the house except one over the bathroom sink?
Mirrors
When she was 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
Ball said all she learned there was how to be frightened; 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 07Which illness kept the young Ball from working for two years?
Rheumatic fever
She returned to New York in 1932 and worked as the Chesterfield cigarette girl.
Q 08Under what stage name did Ball first seek Broadway chorus work?
Diane Belmont
She was hired and quickly fired by both Earl Carroll's Vanities and a Ziegfeld touring company.
Q 09Ball's first Hollywood work was as an uncredited Goldwyn Girl in which 1933 Eddie Cantor film?
Roman Scandals
She moved to Hollywood permanently afterwards and became an RKO contract player.
Q 10Ball appeared in a 1934 two-reel short with which comedy trio?
The Three Stooges
Three Little Pigskins; she worked with the Marx Brothers four years later in Room Service.
Q 11Ball played a flower-shop clerk in which 1935 Astaire and Rogers musical?
Top Hat
Ginger Rogers was a distant maternal cousin; the two later shared the screen in Stage Door.
Q 12Ball's 50-year professional relationship with Gale Gordon began on which 1938 radio programme?
The Wonder Show
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.
Q 13Which silent-film legend became Ball's friend and comedy mentor at MGM in the 1940s?
Buster Keaton
He and director Edward Sedgwick coached her in practical comedy and prop work.
Q 21For how much did CBS buy back the rights to I Love Lucy in 1957?
$1,000,000
The money financed the down payment on the former RKO Radio Pictures lot, which became Desilu Studios.
Q 22Which episode's dance scene produced the longest studio-audience laugh of the 1951-57 sitcom's run?
Lucy Does the Tango
The laugh ran so long the sound editor cut it in half.
Q 23Which word did CBS forbid on air during Ball's 1952-53 pregnancy storyline?
Pregnant
'Expecting' was used instead, and the episode title borrowed the French: 'Lucy Is Enceinte'.
Q 14On the set of which 1940 musical did Ball meet Desi Arnaz?
Too Many Girls
He played one of her character's four bodyguards; they eloped that November.
Q 15What nickname did Ball earn in Hollywood for her string of low-budget films?
Queen of the Bs
Fay Wray held the title before her; Ida Lupino and Marie Windsor were later associated with it.
Q 16Ball 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 17Ball's radio character in My Favorite Husband was renamed Liz Cooper because which bandleader sued?
Xavier Cugat
She had originally been Liz Cugat; the CBS radio comedy became the template for I Love Lucy.
Q 18Why were CBS executives reluctant to cast Desi Arnaz opposite Ball in the sitcom?
Viewers would not accept a Cuban husband for an American redhead
The couple toured a vaudeville act to prove the pairing worked; the tour was a hit and CBS gave in.
Q 19Ball 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
CBS thought reruns were worthless; in 1957 it bought the rights back for $1 million, funding the couple's purchase of RKO's studios.
Q 20Which sponsor of I Love Lucy wanted the couple to move to New York rather than film in California?
Philip Morris
It objected to day-old kinescopes airing in eastern markets and to the cost of film.
Q 24How many viewers watched Lucy Ricardo give birth on January 19, 1953, the day Ball delivered Desi Jr.?
44 million
Her caesarean was scheduled to match the broadcast; the birth made the cover of the first issue of TV Guide.
Q 25Ball and Arnaz starred together in which 1954 feature film during a production break?
The Long, Long Trailer
They followed it with Forever, Darling in 1956; older films were also re-released to cash in on the show.
Q 26After buying out Arnaz in 1960, Ball became the first woman to do what?
Head a TV production company
Desilu went on to produce The Untouchables, Star Trek and Mission: Impossible.
Q 27For how much did Ball sell her Desilu shares to Gulf+Western in 1967?
$17 million
The studio took the Paramount name.
Q 28Ball starred in and produced which 1960 Broadway musical, source of 'Hey, Look Me Over'?
Wildcat
It closed early when she could not shake a virus; co-star Paula Stewart introduced her to Gary Morton.
Q 29Ball's 1964-65 CBS radio show, in which she interviewed celebrities as herself, was called what?
Let's Talk to Lucy
It took over Garry Moore's ten-minute weekday slot; the premiere-week guests were Danny Kaye, Bob Hope and Red Skelton.
Q 30Which co-star left The Lucy Show in 1965?
Vivian Vance
The show carried on with Gale Gordon until 1968, when Ball moved straight into Here's Lucy.