Lucille Ball centennial: a life of determination

Los Angeles Times

Lucille Ball would have turned 100 on Saturday, and it would seem that Americans have loved her for nearly that long. But in fact, it took years for audiences to love Lucy.

She had been kicking around Hollywood for nearly two decades before her performance in the seminal CBS sitcom “I Love Lucy,” which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. Her portrayal of the sweetly daffy redhead Lucy Ricardo, whose slapstick antics and schemes exasperated her Cuban bandleader husband, Ricky (real-life hubby Desi Arnaz), turned her into a comic superstar.

Ball, who died in 1989, was a platinum blond when she began as a sexy “Goldwyn Girl” chorine in the early 1930s in musical comedies such as 1933’s “Roman Scandals.” Then she moved off to RKO, working her way from bit parts in such Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical comedies as 1935’s “Roberta.” She was occasionally in “A” films at the studio such as 1937’s “Stage Door” with Katharine Hepburn and Rogers, but she quickly became labeled as the “Queen of the B’s” at the studio.

“She was probably one of the hardest-working actresses in Hollywood,” said Kathleen Brady, author of “Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball.” “At one point, she was making 10 films at once. But somehow she never crossed over” to become a star.

But Ball never gave up. She had “extraordinary perseverance,” Brady said. “Somehow it took a long time to come together for her.”