Lucille Ball (Comedienne/Actress)

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American comedienne, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms:

I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy.

One of the most popular and influential stars in America during her lifetime, with one of Hollywood's longest careers, especially on television, Ball acted in the 1930s, became a radio and B-movie  star in the 1940s and a television star in the 1950s. She made films in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ball received 13 Emmy Award nominations and four wins. She was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1979, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986 and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1989.

Here she is in one of her funniest I Love Lucy scenes:

In 1929, Ball landed work as a model and later began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name Dianne Belmont. She appeared in many small movie roles in the 1930s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures. Ball was labeled as the "Queen of the Bs" (referring to her many roles in B-films).

In 1951, Ball was pivotal in the creation of the television series I Love Lucy. The show co-starred her then husband, Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo and Vivian Vance and William Frawley as Ethel and Fred Mertz, the Ricardos' landlords and friends. The show ended in 1957.

They then changed it up a little bit - lengthening the time of the show from 30 minutes to 75 minutes, adding some characters, altering the storyline a little, and renaming the show from "I Love Lucy", to "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour". Ball went on to star in two more successful television series: The Lucy Show, which ran on CBS from 1962 to 1968, and Here's Lucy from 1968 to 1974. Her last attempt at a television series was a 1986 show called Life with Lucy - which failed miserably after 8 episodes.

Ball met and eloped with Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940. On July 17, 1951, almost 40 years old, Ball gave birth to their first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz. A year and a half later, Ball gave birth to their second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known as Desi Arnaz, Jr. Ball and Arnaz divorced on May 4, 1960.

On April 26, 1989, Ball died of a dissecting aortic aneurysm, at age 77. At the time of her death, she had been married to her second husband, standup comedian and business partner Gary Morton, for twenty-eight years.