The Story Of Lucille Ball Essay Research

The Story Of Lucille Ball Essay, Research Paper

The Story of Lucille Ball

Turn on a television in virtually any country in the world and you’ll see Lucy – knee-deep in grapes in an

Italian vineyard, stuffing herself with chocolates as they stream down a conveyor belt, becoming drunker

and drunker as she flubs take after take of a commercial for an elixer called Vitameatavegamin. Through

stage, screen, and most of all through television, Lucille Ball has become one of the most legendary

actresses the world has ever known.

Life was not always so glamourous for the wide-eyed, carrot-topped star. She endured poverty, trauma,

abandonment, and lonliness before she even turned twelve. Her father Had Ball died of tuberculosis in

1912, when Lucy was just three. Not long after he passed away, Lucy’s mother DeDe (short for Desiree)

was married to Ed Peterson. Ed didn’t like children, especially Lucy and her little brother Fred

(Brady 8). When money became tight, he talked DeDe into moving from their small town of Celeron,

NY to Detroit. Fred was sent to live with DeDe’s parents, Fred and Flora Hunt, and Lucy was sent to live

with Ed’s mother, known as Grandmother Peterson. Living with Grandma Peterson was Lucy’s unhappiest

time. She was old-fashioned, and extremely strict. Lucy had to do strenuous chores from dawn to dusk,

except when she was at school. A devout Christian, Grandma Peterson believed anything that brought

happiness was a sin. There were no birthday parties, toys, or friends. Often alone, Lucy created an

imaginary playmate names Sassafrassa. Together they would sing, dance, perform skits, and go on

adventures. “Sassafrassa” told Lucy she was beautiful, funny, and talented, and that one day she would be

rich and famous (Ball 21). Grandma Peterson shunned vanity of any kind. She punished Lucy whenever

she caught her staring at herself in the mirror, and often ridiculed the girl’s looks. With her crooked teeth,

big eyes and feet, mousy brown curls, and scrawny figure, Lucy was an easy target.

When Lucy was nine, DeDe and Ed moved back from Detroit, and Grandfather Hunt bought a large

house just outside Celeron for the family to live in.

Despite her harsh ways, Lucy credits much of her success to Grandmother Peterson.

“I don’t suppose that hard work, dicipline, and a perfectionist attitude did me any harm. And when life

seemed unbearable, I learned to live in my imagination, to step inside other people’s skins – indispensible

abilities for an actress”, wrote Lucy in her book Love, Lucy (pg.37). “On the other hand, I have her to

thank for the gnawing sense of unworthiness and insecurity that haunted me for years. The Puritan idea

that everything pleasurable is somehow bad almost ruined the first joys of our I Love Lucy success. The

hardest thing for me was getting used to the idea that I deserved it.”

Moving to the new house on Eighth Street, which today is called Lucy Lane, marked the begining of

Lucy’s happy childhood. She grew close to her mother, her brother, her grandparents, and her Aunt Lola.

Lola’s baby daughter Cleo stayed in their house while her mother ran a beauty shop. Cleo and Lucy became

good friends, and they had the fun Lucy had only pretended to do with Sassafrassa.

As a freshman in high school, Lucy and her friend Pauline Lopus performed their first actual play, an

amature comedy called Charley’s Aunt. Charley’s Aunt showed Lucy the wonderful feeling of getting real

laughs on the stage. From then on she was in every show that came along. At fifteen, Lucy’s mother agreed

to let her study at New York City’s John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton Dramatic School. Classes were

extremely tough. One student always stole the spotlight – a dynamic vixen named Bette Davis. Lucy felt

scared and alone. After one semester, the school told her mother Lucy had no talent and she was wasting

her money.

Kicked out of drama school, Lucy still would not give up. She tried modeling, but had no luck. She

decided to change her name to Diane Belmont. Suprisingly, her luck changed. She was hired by hat

designer Hattie Carnegie as a showroom model. She dyed her brown hair platinum blonde.

In 1933 Lucy got the biggest break of her young career: she was selected to be Chesterfield Cigarette’s

newest “Chesterfield Girl”. By 1934 her face was peering up from magazine and newspaper ads and

looking down from roadside billboards all over the country.

During a heat wave in New York, a woman came up to Lucy and asked, “How would you like to go to

California.”. She responded, “Gosh, I’d go anywhere to get out of this heat” (O’Dell 11). She was flown to

Hollywood to become a “poster girl” in the Goldwyn Studio’s comedy Roman Sandals. The studio put

Lucy to work in several small films like Broadway Thru a Keyhole and Blood Money. She recieved her

first screen credit in RKO’s Carnival in 1935. She joined RKO Studios and stayed with them until 1942.

Between 1933-37 she starred or costarred in over tw

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