Retro Bio: Forever Lucy: The Life of Lucille Ball
© Michelle Troutman
Berkley Books
ISBN #: 0-425-12219-0 (out-of-print)
1990
paperback
261 pages
Making people laugh was a way for Lucille Ball to please people. Her mother DeDe encouraged her to act, dance, and sing. When Lucy was 15, she dropped out of high school to attend the John Murray Anderson - Robert Milton Dramatic School in New York City. Shy and scared, she was a contrast to star pupil Bette Davis. A school official remarked that Lucy should try another line of work. She was determined to prove him wrong. Over the next several years, she returned to New York City to become a show girl. After she landed a job, she would be fired a few weeks later. Finally, she decided life as a chorus girl wasn't for her when she found steady work as a model. Her stint as a Chesterfield poster girl lead to a role in the Goldwyn movie Roman Scandals (1933) after seven years of attempts, though Lucy claimed she never struggled and always found steady work.
In the early 1930s, Lucy appeared in many B-movies unbilled, including "Three Stooges" shorts. She didn't receive billing until her fifteenth movie, Carnival (1935). A great real-life anecdote in Forever Lucy more suited to the Lucy TV character centers on Lucy preparing for a hard to get publicity photo session and discovering she left the caps for her teeth in the RKO studio make-up room. To get the make-up man's attention, she hit him with a coffee container, but the coffee drenched his subject, Katherine Hepburn. Luckily for Lucy, Hepburn shrugged off the incident.
At this point, Lucy garnered small speaking roles. Her big break came in the Katherine Hepburn-Ginger Rogers movie Stage Door (1937). Lucy then starred in several B pictures, establishing herself as "Queen of the B-movies."
She starred opposite Desi Arnaz in the film version of the Broadway musical Too Many Girls (1940). He was attracted to Lucy from the start, however, their personalities clashed, often leading to fights and reconciliations. Despite their conflicts, they married.
Desi romanced other women during their marriage, and in anger Lucy filed for divorce in September 1944. Lucy recanted the divorce and they soon made up. Authors Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein describe Desi's womanizing but don't go into great detail, perhaps preferring not to sensationalize it for readers.
Lucy's starring role in the short-lived stage comedy Dream Girl convinced many critics she could be a great comedienne. She starred in the hit CBS radio show My Favorite Husband, the basis for I Love Lucy a few years later. Lucy and Desi failed to persuade producers and talent agencies to let them
