Lucille Desiree Ball example essay topic

Lucille Desiree Ball. The first thought that comes into many peoples minds when this name is said would be Lucy the well known funny character she played on her popular TV series I Love Lucy (1951-57). How did she become a legend With dreams of being on stage in musicals to being the star in the big screen. Just like Lucy, Lucille yearned to be a famous performer. Looking back now, anyone could say that her childhood dream came true. Who would have thought that a Jamestown farm girl could become a Hollywood legend.

I guess you can say it all started on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown New York - when a star was born. Lucille was the first child of Henry Donnell Ball and the former Desiree Evelyn Hunt, both were teens when they were married and had Lucille. She had ancestors from all over Europe. With roots from France England, Scotland, and Ireland.

(Harris 20) Besides having the ability to make anyone laugh any time and in any situation. Another unforgettable trait Lucille had was her red hair. Unfortunately, she was brought into this world with blond hair, that darkened to a brunette. However she still kept that little girl quality, which became one of her main appeals as a comedian. Lucille despised being called Lucy so her family nicknamed her Lucy ball. Although she tried to avoid being called Lucy after a certain television debut in 1951, she was rarely called anything but Lucy.

Lucilles father worked for her grandfather, Jasper Ball as a electrical lineman. As a result of his job, the family was constantly on the move. Lucille ended up spending her childhood in places like Anaconda, Montana, and Wyandotte, Michigan. Far from her birthplace in Jamestown. (Harris 20) Even as a child Lucille possessed qualities similar to Lucy. Her mother alway had to tie a rope around her waist and hook it to the clothesline in order to keep Lucille out of trouble.

Most of the time she did anyway. One morning her mother looked out the window and saw her all tangled up on a tree branch, begging the milkman to help her get free. (Harris 20) Life seemed to go well for young Lucille. With a baby brother on the way. It was supposed to be their happiest year. Until a tragedy happened to the Balls.

In February, Henry Ball came down with typhoid fever and died. After her fathers death, Lucille and her mother moved to Jamestown to live her grandparents, Frederick and Flora belle Hunt. Shortly after the move, Lucilles baby brother Fred was born on July 3, 1915. Certain that Fred was her mothers favorite Lucille hated her brother. Little did she know that her mother dedicated her life to Lucille. Desiree had studied piano and wanted Lucille to follow in her footsteps, but Lucille showed no interest despite her mothers efforts to teach her.

(Harris 21) Lucille was in care of her grandparents most of the time. Her mother still young and wanting to find a husband made it difficult to watch over Lucille and Fred. Lucille was very close to her grandparents, especially her grandfather. She got her first taste of show business from Grandpa Hunt.

Lucille loved watching vaudeville with her grandpa on Saturdays. When they got home, she would reenact the show for her grandmother. She also used to play theater with her friend Pauline Lop us. They used the barn as their theater, stage, mansion, ranch house. Lucille and her friends often put on one-act plays and revues, for which they made their own tickets, props, and advertising posters. She loved playing a boy in her acts and the audience loved it too.

Her grandfather saw her love for acting, and he encourage her to get involved in plays at school and church. (Harris 22) Like before whenever things seem to be going well for Lucille, something had to go wrong. It did. In 1920 Lucilles mom Desiree remarried, and left Lucille and Fred temporarily. Later she sent for her kids where they lived with her new husband Ed Peterson. Ed was really strict to the children, Lucille felt frustrated all the time with his rules.

The only way out of this for her was to make people laugh. Things began to go bad in the Peterson home Ed began drinking. Thats when Lucille and her brother were sent back to their grandparents house. Once again tragedy strict, Lucilles grandmother died from cancer. With her grandmother gone, Lucille had to take care of Fred. And at the age of 10, she began having part-time jobs.

During the summer, she sold hot dogs and ice cream from a little gazebo or on the boardwalk. Lucille was in her teens when World War I and the Great Depression. (Harris 25-6) Lucille was the first girl in her neiborhood to get the bob hair cut, own a raccoon coat, and to wear unbuckled galoshes. Like true flapper. At 15, Lucille was 56, as tall as she would ever be. Many didnt know if she was a woman or a child because of her mature looks.

Some people were suspicious of where she got that $125 raccoon coat. But it was a bribe from her mother to keep Lucille from dropping school. (Harris 26) Lucille didnt really care about her education. She could have been a good student if she wanted to.

At 15, she wanted to quit going to Jamestown High School and go to John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton School of the Theater and Dance which she thought would lead her to a big career in Broadway or in vaudeville. Desiree finally agreed to let Lucille go, but only on a trial bases for 6 weeks. Her mom doubted she wouldnt get any further than that. Unfortunately her mother was right, Lucille was in and out of that school in 6 weeks. The school even sent her mom a letter literally saying she was wasting her money. Lucille did have a role model in her short time at the academy.

Ruth Elizabeth Davis, or as she was known at the school Bette Davis. Lucille would follow her around the school in complete admiration- trying to study her. (Harris 26) It was back to Jamestown High. Lucille being a typical teenager, hung out at Harveys Drugstore, dated boys, played on the girls basketball team, and was a cheerleader.

Typical teenager, except she was determined to become an actress. (Harris 28) Lucilles grandfather was forced to sell the house and possessions to pay for medical bills for an accident that happened at his house to one of Fred friends. So they had to move in with Desiree and Ed. Lucille couldnt stand living in such a small house with so many people. She often took the train to commute between Jamestown and New York.

(Harris 28) Over the next few years Lucille tried and failed to land jobs in the entertainment world. She even tried using stage names, she encouraged people to call her Montana. No matter what she called herself, Lucille could get no further than auditions. She supported herself by getting part-time jobs selling theatrical cosmetics at Greys drugstore and clerking at Woolworths.

Lucille even considered becoming a beautician, but she didnt have the money to take the course required to get a license. During this time she lived with a family in Washington Heights while attending the Anderson-Milton school again. Feeling homesick, she moved back to Jamestown and went back to Jamestown High. Where she joined a group called the Player. Lucille got the part of the leading role in Within the Law, a production of Bayard Veille r. She even dyed her hair to get more into her character.

Well the critics raved about Lucilles performance. Although no audience or talent scouts were in the audience. Positive responses sent her back to New York for another try at fame. (Harris 30) Delayed but not discouraged Lucille was unable to find a acting career there.

However she did find a small modeling job which turned into a big modeling job. At first it was modeling dresses for fashion shows. Which paid only $25 a week. Then she got help from Roger Furs e who got her modeling hats at a ritzy salon for Hattie Carnegie.

Things seemed to be going well with her modeling, until she fractured her spine in a auto accident in Central Park. She spent three years recuperating in a hospital. From wheelchair to crutches, then finally she could walk again. Lucille couldnt go back to her job, Hattie Carnegie had died and left no record that Lucille had work for her. Lucille still struggling, landed a job to pose for a billboard. The Chesterfield Girl.

The ad won her two screen tests, one at Paramount studio in Long Island and the other at Vita graph Brooklyn. But nobody wanted to develop her into a movie actress, she decided to look elsewhere. One day while shopping for underwear, she bumped into a agent Sylvia Halo. She had just lost a client and she needed one more girl for a troupe that she was sending to California to work for Sam Goldwyn. She was one of the twelve models selected to glamorize Roman Scandals, a musical extravaganza. I guess that was her big break, to become the star.

Little did she know it was only the beginning of a life long career full of glamour, laughter, and tears. (Harris 34-6) From there, Lucille went along with the other girls to Chicago where she starred in her first movie The Old Maestro. Another film she starred in was Roman Scandal, its similar to The Wizard of Oz. She started playing walk on roles and from there she played bigger more important roles until eventually she had parts in movies like. After she moved to Hollywood, California in 1933, she appeared in dozens of motion pictures, including Stage Door (1937), Five Came Back (1939) and Dance Girl Dance (1940) where she met Desi Arnaz, which she fell in love with and was married to on November 30, 1940 in Connecticut. (Harris 87-8) (Encarta 98 Encyclopedia) Lucilles unforgettable TV series I Love Lucy was a big success which starred her husband Desi Arnaz which she met while on the set of Too Many Girls- a Broadway musical.

The plot was simple for I Love Lucy in this series Ball and Arnaz play Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, a married couple who lived in a New York apartment. It focused on their everyday family life, especially Lucy attempts to become a stage performer and the efforts of bandleader Ricky to keep her out of it. The hilarious show started in 1951 and ended in 1957. (Encarta 98 Encyclopedia) During her years of I Love Lucy at the age of forty and ten years after they were married she had her first child, Lucie Desiree Arnaz. Born on July 17, 1951. Then in January 19, 1953 she gave birth to Desi Jr., which made I Love Lucy an even bigger success.

Since they added Little Ricky into the script. (Harris 168,189) Although on TV the supposed Lucille and Desi seemed to be the happiest couple. But in reality things couldnt be any worst. Constantly fighting on and off the set. Their unstoppable arguments and temporally separations eventually turned into a bad divorce in 1959.

(Encarta 98 Encyclopedia) Fame and fortune. Isnt that what Lucille wanted from the beginning Her childhood dream had become a reality. But, like reality not everything was dreams. Ricky remarried, leaving Lucille all alone. But she got back on her horse and she starred in lots of good TV shows, films and on Broadway after I Love Lucy ended. (Encyclopedia) In February 1989, Lucille received a call from the producers of movie doms annual Academy Awards spectacular asking if shed team up with Bob Hope on the next telecast.

It was an offer she couldnt refuse. She even bought a beautiful black beaded gown with a gold sequined collar for the Awards. Lucille and Bob Hoped received a standing ovation when they strolled out on stage of the Chandler Pavilion on March 29. The next day Bob called her to see how she was feeling, claimed to be fine.

She had plans to fly to Jamestown, however she never made it back to her hometown. Three weeks after the telecast while eating breakfast she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. And was taking to Cedars-Sinai Hospital emergency room. She had to have open heart surgery, at first she seemed to have been recovering well. Then on April 24, 1989 she suffered a full cardiac arrest. Although the doctors tried to get her heart started again, it just wasnt enough.

She was declared dead at 6: 04 a.m. at the age of 77. As soon as the news broke out fans flocked to Lucilles house in Beverly Hills leaving flowers at her doorstep. To avoid a circus of a public funeral, she didnt have one. Her body was cremated and the ashes were buried in the Family plot at Forrest Lawn.

Gary Morton her two children and their spouses were the only witnesses. (Harris 328-32) Whether if any one believes it, there is no question that Lucille Ball will go on forever in the hearts of those who have seen her in I Love Lucy or in the dozens and dozens of other successful programs and movies she did in her life. Because of the long reach of TV no other person in my opinion has ever brought more laughter to the world. Her humor is universal and timeless. Her work will seem even funnier as time goes on. She left us a legend, proving that even your wildest dreams can come a reality.