March 11, 2026 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, few television comedies have had the lasting impact of I Love Lucy. When the show debuted in the early 1950s, Lucille Ball quickly became one of the most recognizable performers in American entertainment.
Her success did not arrive quickly. For years, Ball struggled to find a role that truly fit her talent, moving through small film parts and studio setbacks before television offered a new opportunity.
Kathleen Brady, author of Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball, joins us to tell the story of Lucille Ball’s long road to success and the breakthrough that made her one of the defining figures of early television.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
fort Worth, Texas. In the world of entertainment, few names
resonate as powerfully as Lucille Ball. But long before she
became a household name, she faced years and years of rejection,
(00:33):
all before her breakthrough finally came at the age of forty.
Joining us now as Kathleen Brady, author of the Life
of Lucille Ball, sharing the story of the woman who
changed American comedy forever.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
One of Lucille Ball's childhood friends, Pauline Lopez, explained Lucille
Ball better than anyone ever could. She said, Lucille would
help a blind man across the street, whether he wanted
to go or not. She was born in Jamestown April
(01:13):
twenty sixth, nineteen eleven, Jamestown, New York. When she was
growing up, the flappers were in vogue. The flappers might
have been her style models, but she was born in Jamestown,
New York to a very much a working family. Sadly,
her father died when she was three. Did her mother
(01:34):
remarried and Lucille spent quite a bit of time with
her stepfather's mother, who was a very strict woman of
Swedish heritage and didn't want Lucille to be out too late.
She had to come home early for supper. It was
a hard disciplined life. Grandma Peterson had an idea of
(01:57):
how she was supposed to look, and she pulled her
hair back and very severe. But somehow she got hold
of a mirror and she started practicing making faces. And
she enjoyed entertaining herself making these faces in the mirror.
And of course I think that we all, if we've
(02:17):
seen I Love Lucy, we know some of these faces
that she came up with. Lucille as a child could
not be suppressed for long. One of the women who
had been in kindergarten with her said that there was
Christmas play and they were supposed to be little angels.
(02:39):
And the woman I spoke with the first angel out,
and Lucille was the second one. So Lucille angel number two,
gave Cecilia, angel number one a kick and said get going,
and so they all trooped out and did their little
angelic thing for the Christmas play. Her friend Pauline Lopez
(03:03):
said that Pauline's parents took them on a sort of
a cruise on Lake Chautauqua, and Lucille had convinced Pauline
that the two of them should do singing and dancing
and entertain the people on this ship. So one of
the women said, where did you learn to do that?
And Lucille Ball said, we're actresses. So she knew very
(03:27):
early on. She loved performing, she loved being seen, and
she made history of it. In her childhood, anything wonderful
was followed by something awful. I mean, Lucille wanted to
be with her mother's parents and she wanted to be
with her mother. And when she did get back to
(03:51):
her mother's family, soon her grandmother got sick and eventually died,
and part of the family was her cousin Cleo, who
was like a sister to her, and her brother Fred.
They all lived together and they were raised together. But
then Lola the mother died and Cleo had to go
(04:12):
off and live with her father in Buffalo, so that
broke up the family too, so she was never she
never felt secure. Then there was a terrible accident at
the house Monsiele Ball's brother had gotten a shotgun for
I think it was his eleventh or twelfth birthday, and
(04:33):
this little boy got in front of the target and
was shot and eventually died. There was a terrible suit.
The family lost their house. I mean, that's the financial
reality of her childhood. And there were a lot of
people who looked down on the family a bit. Her
(04:57):
friend's mothers did not think that did was a very
good mom. But the thing is d had to work.
She was working all the time, so the kids had
a lot of time on their own. And there was
a wonderful and sad situation at Desi Lou when I
(05:18):
Love Lucy was first being filmed and broadcast. The administrator's
the office staff found that they had no pencils. They
no matter what they did when they came in in
the morning, there were no pencils unless they brought their
own in from home. And finally it was discovered that
(05:38):
Lucille Ball was going around and taking all the pencils
at night. So one of the chief executives said, you know,
you're the vice president of Desi Lou. You own all
these pencils. And she said, if you had been raised
the way I was, you would understand. She really was
(06:01):
marked for life by the experiences she had. But as
I said, she was also irrepressible. At cele On, there
was a wonderful amusement park and she got a job
in the summer selling hot dogs, and her approach to
(06:23):
selling these hot dogs was to get out in front
of the stand and yell at people stop. That was
one way she rounded up customers for her hot dogs.
You know, enormous talent and verve and energy, and however
hurt she might have been inwardly, she pressed on. It
(06:46):
was pretty much recognized in Jamestown that she had talent,
and also because of the family difficulties and people needing
places to live, her mother decided yes it was okay
for her to go to New York and study acting.
But her mother soon got a call after a couple
(07:07):
of weeks that Lucille had no talent and very little
personality and the money was being wasted.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
When we come back more of Kathleen Brady and the
story of Lucille Ball here on our American Stories, Lee
h Habib here, and I'm inviting you to help our
American Stories celebrate this country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday
(07:37):
coming soon If you want to help inspire countless others
to love America like we do, and want to help
us bring the inspiring and important stories told here about
a good and beautiful country, please consider making a tax
deductible donation to our American Stories. Go to Ouramericanstories dot
com and click the donate button. Any amount helps go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give, And we continue
(08:09):
with our American Stories and the story of Lucille Ball.
When we last left off, a teacher at her New
York drama school, it advised her mother that the tuition
she was was being wasted, that young Lucille had no talent.
For many that would have been the end of things
for Lucille, it was just the beginning. Here again, is
(08:31):
Kathleen Brady.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Lucille Ball is so intimidated. One of the people who
intimidated her was the star of the school, a young
woman named Betty Davis, who was doing very well even
then and being cast in plays. So Lucille Ball went
back home. But you know, after you've been to New
(08:53):
York and seeing the world just a little bit, it
was hard for her to stay in Jamestown, and she
went back to New York not to be in school,
but she was going to try to be in show
business and as a showgirl or whatever. But she was
too flat chested, had a very hard time getting a job,
and when she had a job, keeping it, I don't
(09:15):
think she ever even got paid for anything that she
might have been cast in. And someone said, you're so
thin that you should try to be a model. And
then she started having some success. And so what happened
is the Goldwen people were coming to New York and
(09:37):
casting Goldwyn girls, and at that point she had done
cigarette ads and beauty ads and she was cast, but
she was the thirteenth girl and they only needed twelve,
so she wasn't sure how that was going to work out.
But the mother of one of the chosen twelve said,
(09:59):
you cannot go to godless Hollywood. You are not going.
You were staying here. So a space was made for Lucille,
and off she went on the train to Hollywood. And
the pledge that she made herself was she was not
going to make the mistake she had made at school
(10:20):
in New York. She was going to talk, she was
going to step forward and volunteer. She got to the
writers of Roman scandals. She asked them to give her
a line to recite, and when the director wanted someone
one of the girls to take a mud pie in
the face, Lucille Ball said she'd do it. And the
(10:43):
other girl said, nobody is going to know who you
are with mud all over your face, and Lucille Ball said,
no one knows who I am anyway. So she just
wanted to get out there, and she did. She was
talking to young woman on the lot, talking about what
had happened the night before, with all kinds of expressions
(11:05):
in acting out what had happened, and this man came
up and he said, young woman, if you play your
cards right, you can be the greatest comedian in America.
And she thought this was a line, and this guy
was not to be trusted. But he was a man
ed Sedgwick, who had worked with Buster Keaton on silent movies,
(11:27):
and he saw this girl just naturally with the gestures
and the expressions that the stars of the Silence had
worked so hard to develop and to express and to portray.
But the thing is about Lucille Ball, nobody quite knew
(11:50):
what to do with her. She didn't sing, and she
didn't dance, and so that meant being in the background
in musicals. But she was willing to work at anything
and everything, and she was in enough movies that she
was known as Queen of the Bees. And the Bees
(12:12):
were the second feature the Bee film. The first one
was the one everybody came to see, or at least
the most important one that was probably shown second. And
then there was the other one where people got to
see Lucille Ball, but she was either a secretary or
a gangster's girlfriend, or she worked a switchboard in the background.
(12:36):
But Lucille Ball worked with a lot of the comedy
greats as she was making these little Bee films. She
worked with the Three Stooges on something called Three Little Pigskins,
Maryan Boys and Big Girls.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Honey, when you marry me, what do you study at college?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Pig ahead at a unk.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You wouldn't know a thing about that, would you? Oh?
All night? She worked with the Marx Brothers in room service,
and the only one of them that was really especially
nice to her was Harpo, who was a gentleman and
just very nice and took her to a dinner at
Sam Goldwin's and cautioned her that you don't eat an
(13:27):
art to choke with a knife and fork. He had
to show her how to eat an art to choke.
And what's interesting is he's the only one of the
Marx brothers who showed up on I Love Lucy. She
always remembered her friends. She always remembered her friends and
was grateful to anyone who ever helped her. Lucille is
(13:50):
a little bit involved with the head of the studio,
so I think people knew that they had to be
nice to her. But she was also extremely likable and
people did like her. She had an incident with Katherine
Hepburn where she Lucille Ball wanted to have good photos
made and finally, finally, the photographer who was busy with
(14:14):
Ginger Rogers and Katherine Hepburn and the great stars, finally
he could be was willing to take her photo. But
she did not have very good teeth, and one of
the ways she had spent her money was to get
a cosmetic device for her teeth, but she discovered she
had left them in the makeup room and she had
(14:36):
been forced to exit the makeup room in a hurry
because Katherine Hepburn, who was the star one of the
two stars with Ginger of RCAO was coming in. So
Katherine Hepburn is sitting there and getting made up, and
the next thing you know, she gets hit with something
and her coffee spills all over her, and Katherin Hepburn
(14:58):
was furious and went home. And it happened was Lucille
Ball was trying to get the makeup artist's attention and
she threw these little teeth in through the window. So
Katherine Hepburn said to me, Lucille was a lovely creature,
and somehow I ended up apologizing to her. So I
(15:18):
guess Lucille Ball had what we call soft power in diplomacy.
But she was willing to work very hard and to
do anything anybody demanded. And things were preceding a pace
for Lucille Ball, whether she knew it or not. She
started dating a director named Al Hall, who actually had
(15:40):
directed the Shirley Temple movies, and he had some friends.
He was older. He had some friends named Buster Keaton
and Ed Sedgwick, and these men knew exactly who Lucille
Ball was. She was a physical comedian, but the studio
was not interested in beautiful women who could take pratfalls.
(16:03):
Sam Gowan said women are to be beautiful, and that
was the mandate for what they were supposed to do.
Being funny not so much. You could be unattractive and
get a laugh, but not if you were beautiful. So
that was a problem. The thing about Lucille Ball, her
(16:24):
timing was off in one respect. She came in at
a time when film had sophisticated beauties, very sophisticated, and
she was the girl next door. I mean, you could
see this if she was in a fashion show. You know,
these sophisticated women would come out and she would come out.
And she certainly knew how to be a model, but
(16:46):
she did not have the hauteur and the sophistication that
was called for, and she never did, but I get
she didn't need it by the time I Love Lucy
came along.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And you've been listening to Kathleen Brady telling the story
of Lucille Ball, and my goodness, she was not deterred
by those early reviews from her teachers in acting school,
and she just tried to break in first with modeling
and she started to gain some traction there cigarette ads,
beauty ads, but she wanted to get out there, and
(17:22):
by goodness, by sheer force of will and personality. She did.
She didn't sing, she didn't dance, And this is the
golden age of Broadway. The unattractive girls were the ones
who were supposed to get the laps, not the beauties.
Lucille Ball would defy all of these trends and set
her own. When we come back, more of the remarkable
(17:42):
story of Lucille Ball here on our American stories, and
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories. When we last left off,
Lucille Ball was dating film director Al Hall, a relationship
that was helping open doors for her in Hollywood. That
success in that world was rarely simple. Let's get back
to Kathleen Brady with more of the story.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Among Al's friends with somebody else who recognized who she was.
A guy named Jack Hawley who played the scarecrow in
the Wizard of Oz. He had a radio show and
he invited her on the radio show to perform. She
knew from her first days on radio that being in
(18:51):
front of a live audience made her come alive. The response,
the warmth of the audience really boosted what she was doing.
And I mean, maybe we have Grandma Peterson to thank
for the fact that Lucille Ball desperately appreciated anybody she
could get a reaction from, and it meant a lot
(19:12):
to her to see somebody giving a monologue and suddenly
a whole audience was erepting in laughter or tears or whatever.
She finally she worked. She got her own show called
My Favorite Husband.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
It's Time for My Favorite Husband, starring Lucille Ball everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And she was asked to do commercials and she was
to be little Miss Muppet and she would make these
faces like seeing the spider. Little Miss Muppett sat on
a toughet and along came a spider, and well, the
audience would howl at these faces. And the people who
(19:54):
were writing the radio show took note of this, and
as their own careers came along, that would come into
play and their names were Bob and Madeline, and they
eventually wrote the I Love Lucy Show. The show I
Love Lucy is really the product of everything that had
(20:19):
gone before it technologically in entertainment in the twentieth century.
You know, it's ancestors were the silence and radio and
film and of course at least does a conversation piece
technicolor and her red hair. Lucille Ball and Dobie Arnez,
we'll be back next week. At the same time Dosie
(20:43):
Arnez and Lucy o'ball. What drew those two together? Well,
Marino O'Hara was with them when they met in the
RKO cafeteria and she said it was like wow. Now.
Dosie Arnez had just filmed for a film called Too
Many Girls, in which Lucille Ball was also going to
(21:05):
play a part. He was grass stained and bedraggled because
he'd been playing a football player and was all banged up.
And Lucille Ball and Mario O'Hara had just been filming
Dance Girl Dance and they had a fight seeing the
two of them.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Come prod and I acting jealous little pig.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Where they ripped each other's clothes and hit each other
in the head. And so Lucille Ball had a black
eye from makeup and didn't look very sophisticated, but there
was this attraction. Very soon after. A couple days later,
they went to a party given by Eddie Bracken, who
(21:47):
also had a big role in this film Too Many Girls,
and people could see that there was a real attraction
between these two, which was interesting because they were each
engaged somebody else at the time, Lucille ball to her
director Al Hall, and Desi to a dancer that he
had worked with on Broadway. And Eddie Bracken told me
(22:10):
they made a bet how long it would last, and
he said, I won the bet because I said six months.
And of course the relationship was significantly longer lasting and
more impactful than anyone knew. She wanted them to have
(22:31):
work that they could do together so that he would
not have to earn his living by going out around
the country with his band. Well, Desi was a charmer
and all the women were in his corner, but studio
executives and certainly television executives were not. They said, who
(22:51):
would believe a red blooded American girl could be married
to a Cuban. So they decided to prove that they
were acceptable as a couple, and they went out doing
vaudeville in motion picture theaters. What used to happen in
(23:14):
addition to getting two films, when you went to the movies,
sometimes you'd get a show, particularly if the show was,
you know, in a big city with the big audience.
And so they went around and the audience just absolutely
loved them.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Hi Lo Hi, do you hear what happened to me
in the way of the maypower tonight? No, what happened well,
at first came up to me in the street.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I said, you hadn't had a Biden? Wait, what did
you do?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Biden?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
They felt that this was going to be sufficient proof
for the executives you And what happened is William Paley
and the others killed the writers. All right, put him
in the show, but just have him on camera if
(24:06):
it has something to do with music or whatever, but
just to have him there then. And so, of course,
the writers who loved Bovid Marilyn, who loved Desi, made
his being a bandleader and Lucy wanting to get into
show business a major theme, if not the theme of
the whole. I love Lucy's show. So that's how Desi
(24:30):
got on camera as much as he did and won
the hearts of America. I could find no record of
anybody ever complaining about Lucy oldball, red blooded American girl
and her Cuban husband. I have talked to people who
(24:50):
were immigrants at the time in this country and said
how much it meant? I mean a frenchwoman said everybody
loved Desi I thought they'd forg give me for my accent.
I mean, it's really heartwarming what he meant to people.
It's amazing how important it was to have a Hispanic man,
(25:11):
a Cuban on television. At that point. Several things were
going on in the show. It was about love of
this couple, but it was also love between friends. You know,
there were shows with people had neighbors, but the Ricardos
in the Versus really were very involved with each other.
(25:34):
Lucy Lucy?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I Rick?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Is Lucy back yet?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well? Goodbye? Rick? Come back here?
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Where is Lucy? Lucy?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Victoria Philippic call and he's coming over.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Where is she?
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Where is she Athol? Where didn't Lucy go?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Where did Lucy go?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Will you stop repeating everything I say? Where did she go?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Well?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Did you go shopping?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I promise not to tell.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Did you go around?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Sucking up local color?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Sucking up local color?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I think.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Me and I could get it these little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
It was so funny and it made everybody so happy.
It gave people joy, and it was an enormous success,
So that made everybody happy behind the scenes as well.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And you've been listening to Kathleen Brady tell the story
of lucill o' Ball and Desi Ernez too and this
magic pairing. A lot of people wondered, will anyone believe
that a red blooded, red head American woman would actually
be attracted to a Cuban man? And there was that
kind of prejudice and bias in the country at that time.
(27:03):
And they took it out on the road. They went
to Vaudeville to test it out, and there it was
that chemistry was real and it was beautiful. What we
learned about America there is that the country didn't care.
No one cared. A lot of the executives cared. People
watching didn't. When we come back more of the story,
the life story of Lucille Ball. Here on our American stories,
(27:37):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Lucille Ball. Here again is Kathleen Brady.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Then there was the wonderful episode when they decided that
they were going to raise chickens. Ricky discovered that their
chicken business was resulting in eggs. It cost nine dollars
a piece to produce, so he was trying to put
an end to that. First Ricky he went into New York.
(28:09):
How about Fred he's taking a nap. How you know that?
It's after luncheon, before dinner. What else would he be doing?
We'll get your eggs. Let's get out there already.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
What's the matter.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Your sleeping prints.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
He's out by the henhouse chopping wood.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
He's supposed to be taking a nap.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Can't he ever do anything right? Well, now, what'll we do?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
We gotta get these in the nest before Ricky comes home. Well,
what don't we do?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Well, we'll just have to stash him on some place
and just walk casually by Fred.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
We can't stash away five dozen eggs.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well, we can give it a try here, open them up.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
What are you gonna do? Well, I'm gonna put some
of my blouse.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I can get some of my hip pockets too. Simultaneously,
they were going to do a put on a show
at little Ricky's school, and does he came home and
wanted to practice the dance they were going to do. Lucy,
why I thought you were in New York.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Well, I decided to take the letter train because I
want to rehearse her.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Number rehearse, And so Lucy had these eggs that he
didn't want produced in her shirt.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Come on Honey.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
They had to dance, and he spun her around, spunnered
toward his chest, and yeah, as was supposed to happen,
the eggs broke. Lucy worked these eggs which were breaking
(30:01):
and going down her leg. She worked that so long
and so hard. It was the longest laugh the show
ever got. And editing it supposed he was a problem
because it couldn't go on forever, but they just it
went on forever.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I know that this is a ridiculous question, what what
you're doing with X under your shirt trying to have them?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Interestingly enough, one of the things that Desi Arnaz did
not want and thought it was a ridiculous idea was
a laugh track, but the studio prevailed upon him to
allow this laugh track. And what is wonderful about it
(30:52):
is the family and lots of wonderful people came to
the show. Lucy's mom came, Dosi and AZ's mom came,
and you can hear them laughing. The laughter of these
people is existing and going on through the ages, and
it's quite wonderful. One of Lucy o'ball's great gifts was
(31:19):
that she did a fabulous job of acting drunk. It's
very hard to do, and throughout her film career it
had won her a lot of attention because she could
do it and also be charming and be very realistic.
(31:40):
So I think it was that great skill that inspired
divided me to Vegimin episode.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Oh Friends, I'm your body met of vegmin Girl, are
you tired, run down, listless? The answer to all your
problems is in this a little bit.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
The more she did it, and the drugger she got,
the funnier the episode was.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
So why don't you join the thousands of heavy peppy
people and get a great big bottle off Maria Meda
Minjamin remember that name, maa Bada media man.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
As long as she got a laugh, she did not
care how she looked. The more ridiculous she could look,
the happier she was because she knew it was gonna
get a laugh.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
So why don't you join the thousands of heavy pebby
people and got a great big bottle of her? By
meani My.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Before they started the show. A great thing happened to
Lucie oldball at Dosi Arnez because she finally, after years
of trying, gate birth to their little Cie Arnez. And
so they did the show, and Lo and Behold, a
couple of years into this show, Lucy got pregnant, and
(33:05):
they were thrilled on the one hand, but I mean,
those were the days when even though they were married
in real life and the characters were married on the show,
they had to sleep in separate beds. So here was
this woman pregnant, and when she got really big, you know,
there was talk about hiding her behind a chair or whatever,
(33:26):
and that was not going to work. So they went
to the producer, Jess Oppenheimer, and he thought this could work,
and Lo and Behold, they filmed the show. And what
happened when they filmed the part where Lucy was going
to tell Desi, and you can see she's already where
(33:50):
that's actually a maternity dress. She's already wearing when she
surprises him with the news. It chokes me up to
even talk about it. They both started crying because it
reminded them of everything they'd been through. Oh their disappointment.
She had several miscarriages before Lucy. That scene is it's
(34:15):
wonderful and it's heartwarming, and it's very touching were having
a baby. Mind, Desi had a lot of challenges and
(34:38):
problems drinking and gambling, probably workaholism, having been forced to
flee his country and coming to the United States, where
instead of being the most important young man in Santiago, Cuba,
he had to clean bird cages to live, and also
(35:00):
serial infidelity. So Daisi had challenges. Lucille was also difficult.
If his problems hadn't been so glaring, her own workholism
would have probably caused trouble in the marriage too, So
eventually this really tore them apart. The infidelity bothered her
(35:21):
a very great deal, but it really became impossible for
her to stand when it became more or less public
knowledge and got out into the sleazy press and was
publicly humiliating for her, And so it got to the
point where they just could not go on, and they
(35:41):
did get a divorce, which broke the hearts of a
lot of people in America. The day I went to
interview her, I went to her home in Beverly Hills,
and I rang the doorbell and I heard the I
Loove Lucy theme, and I thought, Oh, dear God, don't
(36:01):
let this be Sunset Boulevard. What is this woman really like?
The housekeeper let me in. I sit down. I sit
down for maybe three minutes, and I hear coming down, Kathleen.
I'm late. I've been doing my nails. Don't shake my hand,
(36:22):
shake my elbow. And then she comes the stairs, and
you know, we sit down and we talk. I was
supposed to stay forty five minutes, but she let me stay.
The hall afternoon, we were winding up and I said,
how much of your success do you attribute to Jessie Arnez.
She said, business wise, one hundred percent. She said. We
(36:45):
were upstairs on the phone watching I Love Lucy. That's
why I was late. So it was not the doorbell.
I heard the theme from the show because she and
Desi Arnez were together on the phone watching I Love Lucy.
You know, they really loved each other. I think even
(37:05):
when they hated each other, they hated each other because
they loved each other. It's really it's a remarkable story
because stop tell youa these were lives like nobody else's.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericott. And a special thanks to
Kathleen Brady her book The Life of Lucille ball Boy.
We learned so much about Lucille, about her husband, and
a couple of years into the show that great Lucy
gets pregnant sequence. When they share that information on this set,
(37:42):
the two of them just cry. They've been through so
much together, including miscarriages, and in the end, Desi's challenges
were just well, they were just insurmountable, the drinking, the gambling.
But as we learn in the end there these two
loved each other even as they hated each other and argued,
and in the end Lucille understood the importance of Desi,
(38:04):
attributing one hundred percent of her success to their pairing.
The story of Lucille ball here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
fort Worth, Texas. In the world of entertainment, few names
resonate as powerfully as Lucille Ball. But long before she
became a household name, she faced years and years of rejection,
(00:33):
all before her breakthrough finally came at the age of forty.
Joining us now as Kathleen Brady, author of the Life
of Lucille Ball, sharing the story of the woman who
changed American comedy forever.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
One of Lucille Ball's childhood friends, Pauline Lopez, explained Lucille
Ball better than anyone ever could. She said, Lucille would
help a blind man across the street, whether he wanted
to go or not. She was born in Jamestown April
(01:13):
twenty sixth, nineteen eleven, Jamestown, New York. When she was
growing up, the flappers were in vogue. The flappers might
have been her style models, but she was born in Jamestown,
New York to a very much a working family. Sadly,
her father died when she was three. Did her mother
(01:34):
remarried and Lucille spent quite a bit of time with
her stepfather's mother, who was a very strict woman of
Swedish heritage and didn't want Lucille to be out too late.
She had to come home early for supper. It was
a hard disciplined life. Grandma Peterson had an idea of
(01:57):
how she was supposed to look, and she pulled her
hair back and very severe. But somehow she got hold
of a mirror and she started practicing making faces. And
she enjoyed entertaining herself making these faces in the mirror.
And of course I think that we all, if we've
(02:17):
seen I Love Lucy, we know some of these faces
that she came up with. Lucille as a child could
not be suppressed for long. One of the women who
had been in kindergarten with her said that there was
Christmas play and they were supposed to be little angels.
(02:39):
And the woman I spoke with the first angel out,
and Lucille was the second one. So Lucille angel number two,
gave Cecilia, angel number one a kick and said get going,
and so they all trooped out and did their little
angelic thing for the Christmas play. Her friend Pauline Lopez
(03:03):
said that Pauline's parents took them on a sort of
a cruise on Lake Chautauqua, and Lucille had convinced Pauline
that the two of them should do singing and dancing
and entertain the people on this ship. So one of
the women said, where did you learn to do that?
And Lucille Ball said, we're actresses. So she knew very
(03:27):
early on. She loved performing, she loved being seen, and
she made history of it. In her childhood, anything wonderful
was followed by something awful. I mean, Lucille wanted to
be with her mother's parents and she wanted to be
with her mother. And when she did get back to
(03:51):
her mother's family, soon her grandmother got sick and eventually died,
and part of the family was her cousin Cleo, who
was like a sister to her, and her brother Fred.
They all lived together and they were raised together. But
then Lola the mother died and Cleo had to go
(04:12):
off and live with her father in Buffalo, so that
broke up the family too, so she was never she
never felt secure. Then there was a terrible accident at
the house Monsiele Ball's brother had gotten a shotgun for
I think it was his eleventh or twelfth birthday, and
(04:33):
this little boy got in front of the target and
was shot and eventually died. There was a terrible suit.
The family lost their house. I mean, that's the financial
reality of her childhood. And there were a lot of
people who looked down on the family a bit. Her
(04:57):
friend's mothers did not think that did was a very
good mom. But the thing is d had to work.
She was working all the time, so the kids had
a lot of time on their own. And there was
a wonderful and sad situation at Desi Lou when I
(05:18):
Love Lucy was first being filmed and broadcast. The administrator's
the office staff found that they had no pencils. They
no matter what they did when they came in in
the morning, there were no pencils unless they brought their
own in from home. And finally it was discovered that
(05:38):
Lucille Ball was going around and taking all the pencils
at night. So one of the chief executives said, you know,
you're the vice president of Desi Lou. You own all
these pencils. And she said, if you had been raised
the way I was, you would understand. She really was
(06:01):
marked for life by the experiences she had. But as
I said, she was also irrepressible. At cele On, there
was a wonderful amusement park and she got a job
in the summer selling hot dogs, and her approach to
(06:23):
selling these hot dogs was to get out in front
of the stand and yell at people stop. That was
one way she rounded up customers for her hot dogs.
You know, enormous talent and verve and energy, and however
hurt she might have been inwardly, she pressed on. It
(06:46):
was pretty much recognized in Jamestown that she had talent,
and also because of the family difficulties and people needing
places to live, her mother decided yes it was okay
for her to go to New York and study acting.
But her mother soon got a call after a couple
(07:07):
of weeks that Lucille had no talent and very little
personality and the money was being wasted.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
When we come back more of Kathleen Brady and the
story of Lucille Ball here on our American Stories, Lee
h Habib here, and I'm inviting you to help our
American Stories celebrate this country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday
(07:37):
coming soon If you want to help inspire countless others
to love America like we do, and want to help
us bring the inspiring and important stories told here about
a good and beautiful country, please consider making a tax
deductible donation to our American Stories. Go to Ouramericanstories dot
com and click the donate button. Any amount helps go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give, And we continue
(08:09):
with our American Stories and the story of Lucille Ball.
When we last left off, a teacher at her New
York drama school, it advised her mother that the tuition
she was was being wasted, that young Lucille had no talent.
For many that would have been the end of things
for Lucille, it was just the beginning. Here again, is
(08:31):
Kathleen Brady.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Lucille Ball is so intimidated. One of the people who
intimidated her was the star of the school, a young
woman named Betty Davis, who was doing very well even
then and being cast in plays. So Lucille Ball went
back home. But you know, after you've been to New
(08:53):
York and seeing the world just a little bit, it
was hard for her to stay in Jamestown, and she
went back to New York not to be in school,
but she was going to try to be in show
business and as a showgirl or whatever. But she was
too flat chested, had a very hard time getting a job,
and when she had a job, keeping it, I don't
(09:15):
think she ever even got paid for anything that she
might have been cast in. And someone said, you're so
thin that you should try to be a model. And
then she started having some success. And so what happened
is the Goldwen people were coming to New York and
(09:37):
casting Goldwyn girls, and at that point she had done
cigarette ads and beauty ads and she was cast, but
she was the thirteenth girl and they only needed twelve,
so she wasn't sure how that was going to work out.
But the mother of one of the chosen twelve said,
(09:59):
you cannot go to godless Hollywood. You are not going.
You were staying here. So a space was made for Lucille,
and off she went on the train to Hollywood. And
the pledge that she made herself was she was not
going to make the mistake she had made at school
(10:20):
in New York. She was going to talk, she was
going to step forward and volunteer. She got to the
writers of Roman scandals. She asked them to give her
a line to recite, and when the director wanted someone
one of the girls to take a mud pie in
the face, Lucille Ball said she'd do it. And the
(10:43):
other girl said, nobody is going to know who you
are with mud all over your face, and Lucille Ball said,
no one knows who I am anyway. So she just
wanted to get out there, and she did. She was
talking to young woman on the lot, talking about what
had happened the night before, with all kinds of expressions
(11:05):
in acting out what had happened, and this man came
up and he said, young woman, if you play your
cards right, you can be the greatest comedian in America.
And she thought this was a line, and this guy
was not to be trusted. But he was a man
ed Sedgwick, who had worked with Buster Keaton on silent movies,
(11:27):
and he saw this girl just naturally with the gestures
and the expressions that the stars of the Silence had
worked so hard to develop and to express and to portray.
But the thing is about Lucille Ball, nobody quite knew
(11:50):
what to do with her. She didn't sing, and she
didn't dance, and so that meant being in the background
in musicals. But she was willing to work at anything
and everything, and she was in enough movies that she
was known as Queen of the Bees. And the Bees
(12:12):
were the second feature the Bee film. The first one
was the one everybody came to see, or at least
the most important one that was probably shown second. And
then there was the other one where people got to
see Lucille Ball, but she was either a secretary or
a gangster's girlfriend, or she worked a switchboard in the background.
(12:36):
But Lucille Ball worked with a lot of the comedy
greats as she was making these little Bee films. She
worked with the Three Stooges on something called Three Little Pigskins,
Maryan Boys and Big Girls.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Honey, when you marry me, what do you study at college?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Pig ahead at a unk.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You wouldn't know a thing about that, would you? Oh?
All night? She worked with the Marx Brothers in room service,
and the only one of them that was really especially
nice to her was Harpo, who was a gentleman and
just very nice and took her to a dinner at
Sam Goldwin's and cautioned her that you don't eat an
(13:27):
art to choke with a knife and fork. He had
to show her how to eat an art to choke.
And what's interesting is he's the only one of the
Marx brothers who showed up on I Love Lucy. She
always remembered her friends. She always remembered her friends and
was grateful to anyone who ever helped her. Lucille is
(13:50):
a little bit involved with the head of the studio,
so I think people knew that they had to be
nice to her. But she was also extremely likable and
people did like her. She had an incident with Katherine
Hepburn where she Lucille Ball wanted to have good photos
made and finally, finally, the photographer who was busy with
(14:14):
Ginger Rogers and Katherine Hepburn and the great stars, finally
he could be was willing to take her photo. But
she did not have very good teeth, and one of
the ways she had spent her money was to get
a cosmetic device for her teeth, but she discovered she
had left them in the makeup room and she had
(14:36):
been forced to exit the makeup room in a hurry
because Katherine Hepburn, who was the star one of the
two stars with Ginger of RCAO was coming in. So
Katherine Hepburn is sitting there and getting made up, and
the next thing you know, she gets hit with something
and her coffee spills all over her, and Katherin Hepburn
(14:58):
was furious and went home. And it happened was Lucille
Ball was trying to get the makeup artist's attention and
she threw these little teeth in through the window. So
Katherine Hepburn said to me, Lucille was a lovely creature,
and somehow I ended up apologizing to her. So I
(15:18):
guess Lucille Ball had what we call soft power in diplomacy.
But she was willing to work very hard and to
do anything anybody demanded. And things were preceding a pace
for Lucille Ball, whether she knew it or not. She
started dating a director named Al Hall, who actually had
(15:40):
directed the Shirley Temple movies, and he had some friends.
He was older. He had some friends named Buster Keaton
and Ed Sedgwick, and these men knew exactly who Lucille
Ball was. She was a physical comedian, but the studio
was not interested in beautiful women who could take pratfalls.
(16:03):
Sam Gowan said women are to be beautiful, and that
was the mandate for what they were supposed to do.
Being funny not so much. You could be unattractive and
get a laugh, but not if you were beautiful. So
that was a problem. The thing about Lucille Ball, her
(16:24):
timing was off in one respect. She came in at
a time when film had sophisticated beauties, very sophisticated, and
she was the girl next door. I mean, you could
see this if she was in a fashion show. You know,
these sophisticated women would come out and she would come out.
And she certainly knew how to be a model, but
(16:46):
she did not have the hauteur and the sophistication that
was called for, and she never did, but I get
she didn't need it by the time I Love Lucy
came along.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And you've been listening to Kathleen Brady telling the story
of Lucille Ball, and my goodness, she was not deterred
by those early reviews from her teachers in acting school,
and she just tried to break in first with modeling
and she started to gain some traction there cigarette ads,
beauty ads, but she wanted to get out there, and
(17:22):
by goodness, by sheer force of will and personality. She did.
She didn't sing, she didn't dance, And this is the
golden age of Broadway. The unattractive girls were the ones
who were supposed to get the laps, not the beauties.
Lucille Ball would defy all of these trends and set
her own. When we come back, more of the remarkable
(17:42):
story of Lucille Ball here on our American stories, and
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories. When we last left off,
Lucille Ball was dating film director Al Hall, a relationship
that was helping open doors for her in Hollywood. That
success in that world was rarely simple. Let's get back
to Kathleen Brady with more of the story.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Among Al's friends with somebody else who recognized who she was.
A guy named Jack Hawley who played the scarecrow in
the Wizard of Oz. He had a radio show and
he invited her on the radio show to perform. She
knew from her first days on radio that being in
(18:51):
front of a live audience made her come alive. The response,
the warmth of the audience really boosted what she was doing.
And I mean, maybe we have Grandma Peterson to thank
for the fact that Lucille Ball desperately appreciated anybody she
could get a reaction from, and it meant a lot
(19:12):
to her to see somebody giving a monologue and suddenly
a whole audience was erepting in laughter or tears or whatever.
She finally she worked. She got her own show called
My Favorite Husband.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
It's Time for My Favorite Husband, starring Lucille Ball everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And she was asked to do commercials and she was
to be little Miss Muppet and she would make these
faces like seeing the spider. Little Miss Muppett sat on
a toughet and along came a spider, and well, the
audience would howl at these faces. And the people who
(19:54):
were writing the radio show took note of this, and
as their own careers came along, that would come into
play and their names were Bob and Madeline, and they
eventually wrote the I Love Lucy Show. The show I
Love Lucy is really the product of everything that had
(20:19):
gone before it technologically in entertainment in the twentieth century.
You know, it's ancestors were the silence and radio and
film and of course at least does a conversation piece
technicolor and her red hair. Lucille Ball and Dobie Arnez,
we'll be back next week. At the same time Dosie
(20:43):
Arnez and Lucy o'ball. What drew those two together? Well,
Marino O'Hara was with them when they met in the
RKO cafeteria and she said it was like wow. Now.
Dosie Arnez had just filmed for a film called Too
Many Girls, in which Lucille Ball was also going to
(21:05):
play a part. He was grass stained and bedraggled because
he'd been playing a football player and was all banged up.
And Lucille Ball and Mario O'Hara had just been filming
Dance Girl Dance and they had a fight seeing the
two of them.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Come prod and I acting jealous little pig.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Where they ripped each other's clothes and hit each other
in the head. And so Lucille Ball had a black
eye from makeup and didn't look very sophisticated, but there
was this attraction. Very soon after. A couple days later,
they went to a party given by Eddie Bracken, who
(21:47):
also had a big role in this film Too Many Girls,
and people could see that there was a real attraction
between these two, which was interesting because they were each
engaged somebody else at the time, Lucille ball to her
director Al Hall, and Desi to a dancer that he
had worked with on Broadway. And Eddie Bracken told me
(22:10):
they made a bet how long it would last, and
he said, I won the bet because I said six months.
And of course the relationship was significantly longer lasting and
more impactful than anyone knew. She wanted them to have
(22:31):
work that they could do together so that he would
not have to earn his living by going out around
the country with his band. Well, Desi was a charmer
and all the women were in his corner, but studio
executives and certainly television executives were not. They said, who
(22:51):
would believe a red blooded American girl could be married
to a Cuban. So they decided to prove that they
were acceptable as a couple, and they went out doing
vaudeville in motion picture theaters. What used to happen in
(23:14):
addition to getting two films, when you went to the movies,
sometimes you'd get a show, particularly if the show was,
you know, in a big city with the big audience.
And so they went around and the audience just absolutely
loved them.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Hi Lo Hi, do you hear what happened to me
in the way of the maypower tonight? No, what happened well,
at first came up to me in the street.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I said, you hadn't had a Biden? Wait, what did
you do?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Biden?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
They felt that this was going to be sufficient proof
for the executives you And what happened is William Paley
and the others killed the writers. All right, put him
in the show, but just have him on camera if
(24:06):
it has something to do with music or whatever, but
just to have him there then. And so, of course,
the writers who loved Bovid Marilyn, who loved Desi, made
his being a bandleader and Lucy wanting to get into
show business a major theme, if not the theme of
the whole. I love Lucy's show. So that's how Desi
(24:30):
got on camera as much as he did and won
the hearts of America. I could find no record of
anybody ever complaining about Lucy oldball, red blooded American girl
and her Cuban husband. I have talked to people who
(24:50):
were immigrants at the time in this country and said
how much it meant? I mean a frenchwoman said everybody
loved Desi I thought they'd forg give me for my accent.
I mean, it's really heartwarming what he meant to people.
It's amazing how important it was to have a Hispanic man,
(25:11):
a Cuban on television. At that point. Several things were
going on in the show. It was about love of
this couple, but it was also love between friends. You know,
there were shows with people had neighbors, but the Ricardos
in the Versus really were very involved with each other.
(25:34):
Lucy Lucy?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I Rick?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Is Lucy back yet?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well? Goodbye? Rick? Come back here?
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Where is Lucy? Lucy?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Victoria Philippic call and he's coming over.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Where is she?
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Where is she Athol? Where didn't Lucy go?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Where did Lucy go?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Will you stop repeating everything I say? Where did she go?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Well?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Did you go shopping?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I promise not to tell.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Did you go around?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Sucking up local color?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Sucking up local color?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I think.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Me and I could get it these little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
It was so funny and it made everybody so happy.
It gave people joy, and it was an enormous success,
So that made everybody happy behind the scenes as well.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And you've been listening to Kathleen Brady tell the story
of lucill o' Ball and Desi Ernez too and this
magic pairing. A lot of people wondered, will anyone believe
that a red blooded, red head American woman would actually
be attracted to a Cuban man? And there was that
kind of prejudice and bias in the country at that time.
(27:03):
And they took it out on the road. They went
to Vaudeville to test it out, and there it was
that chemistry was real and it was beautiful. What we
learned about America there is that the country didn't care.
No one cared. A lot of the executives cared. People
watching didn't. When we come back more of the story,
the life story of Lucille Ball. Here on our American stories,
(27:37):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Lucille Ball. Here again is Kathleen Brady.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Then there was the wonderful episode when they decided that
they were going to raise chickens. Ricky discovered that their
chicken business was resulting in eggs. It cost nine dollars
a piece to produce, so he was trying to put
an end to that. First Ricky he went into New York.
(28:09):
How about Fred he's taking a nap. How you know that?
It's after luncheon, before dinner. What else would he be doing?
We'll get your eggs. Let's get out there already.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
What's the matter.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Your sleeping prints.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
He's out by the henhouse chopping wood.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
He's supposed to be taking a nap.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Can't he ever do anything right? Well, now, what'll we do?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
We gotta get these in the nest before Ricky comes home. Well,
what don't we do?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Well, we'll just have to stash him on some place
and just walk casually by Fred.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
We can't stash away five dozen eggs.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well, we can give it a try here, open them up.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
What are you gonna do? Well, I'm gonna put some
of my blouse.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I can get some of my hip pockets too. Simultaneously,
they were going to do a put on a show
at little Ricky's school, and does he came home and
wanted to practice the dance they were going to do. Lucy,
why I thought you were in New York.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Well, I decided to take the letter train because I
want to rehearse her.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Number rehearse, And so Lucy had these eggs that he
didn't want produced in her shirt.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Come on Honey.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
They had to dance, and he spun her around, spunnered
toward his chest, and yeah, as was supposed to happen,
the eggs broke. Lucy worked these eggs which were breaking
(30:01):
and going down her leg. She worked that so long
and so hard. It was the longest laugh the show
ever got. And editing it supposed he was a problem
because it couldn't go on forever, but they just it
went on forever.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I know that this is a ridiculous question, what what
you're doing with X under your shirt trying to have them?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Interestingly enough, one of the things that Desi Arnaz did
not want and thought it was a ridiculous idea was
a laugh track, but the studio prevailed upon him to
allow this laugh track. And what is wonderful about it
(30:52):
is the family and lots of wonderful people came to
the show. Lucy's mom came, Dosi and AZ's mom came,
and you can hear them laughing. The laughter of these
people is existing and going on through the ages, and
it's quite wonderful. One of Lucy o'ball's great gifts was
(31:19):
that she did a fabulous job of acting drunk. It's
very hard to do, and throughout her film career it
had won her a lot of attention because she could
do it and also be charming and be very realistic.
(31:40):
So I think it was that great skill that inspired
divided me to Vegimin episode.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Oh Friends, I'm your body met of vegmin Girl, are
you tired, run down, listless? The answer to all your
problems is in this a little bit.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
The more she did it, and the drugger she got,
the funnier the episode was.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
So why don't you join the thousands of heavy peppy
people and get a great big bottle off Maria Meda
Minjamin remember that name, maa Bada media man.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
As long as she got a laugh, she did not
care how she looked. The more ridiculous she could look,
the happier she was because she knew it was gonna
get a laugh.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
So why don't you join the thousands of heavy pebby
people and got a great big bottle of her? By
meani My.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Before they started the show. A great thing happened to
Lucie oldball at Dosi Arnez because she finally, after years
of trying, gate birth to their little Cie Arnez. And
so they did the show, and Lo and Behold, a
couple of years into this show, Lucy got pregnant, and
(33:05):
they were thrilled on the one hand, but I mean,
those were the days when even though they were married
in real life and the characters were married on the show,
they had to sleep in separate beds. So here was
this woman pregnant, and when she got really big, you know,
there was talk about hiding her behind a chair or whatever,
(33:26):
and that was not going to work. So they went
to the producer, Jess Oppenheimer, and he thought this could work,
and Lo and Behold, they filmed the show. And what
happened when they filmed the part where Lucy was going
to tell Desi, and you can see she's already where
(33:50):
that's actually a maternity dress. She's already wearing when she
surprises him with the news. It chokes me up to
even talk about it. They both started crying because it
reminded them of everything they'd been through. Oh their disappointment.
She had several miscarriages before Lucy. That scene is it's
(34:15):
wonderful and it's heartwarming, and it's very touching were having
a baby. Mind, Desi had a lot of challenges and
(34:38):
problems drinking and gambling, probably workaholism, having been forced to
flee his country and coming to the United States, where
instead of being the most important young man in Santiago, Cuba,
he had to clean bird cages to live, and also
(35:00):
serial infidelity. So Daisi had challenges. Lucille was also difficult.
If his problems hadn't been so glaring, her own workholism
would have probably caused trouble in the marriage too, So
eventually this really tore them apart. The infidelity bothered her
(35:21):
a very great deal, but it really became impossible for
her to stand when it became more or less public
knowledge and got out into the sleazy press and was
publicly humiliating for her, And so it got to the
point where they just could not go on, and they
(35:41):
did get a divorce, which broke the hearts of a
lot of people in America. The day I went to
interview her, I went to her home in Beverly Hills,
and I rang the doorbell and I heard the I
Loove Lucy theme, and I thought, Oh, dear God, don't
(36:01):
let this be Sunset Boulevard. What is this woman really like?
The housekeeper let me in. I sit down. I sit
down for maybe three minutes, and I hear coming down, Kathleen.
I'm late. I've been doing my nails. Don't shake my hand,
(36:22):
shake my elbow. And then she comes the stairs, and
you know, we sit down and we talk. I was
supposed to stay forty five minutes, but she let me stay.
The hall afternoon, we were winding up and I said,
how much of your success do you attribute to Jessie Arnez.
She said, business wise, one hundred percent. She said. We
(36:45):
were upstairs on the phone watching I Love Lucy. That's
why I was late. So it was not the doorbell.
I heard the theme from the show because she and
Desi Arnez were together on the phone watching I Love Lucy.
You know, they really loved each other. I think even
(37:05):
when they hated each other, they hated each other because
they loved each other. It's really it's a remarkable story
because stop tell youa these were lives like nobody else's.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericott. And a special thanks to
Kathleen Brady her book The Life of Lucille ball Boy.
We learned so much about Lucille, about her husband, and
a couple of years into the show that great Lucy
gets pregnant sequence. When they share that information on this set,
(37:42):
the two of them just cry. They've been through so
much together, including miscarriages, and in the end, Desi's challenges
were just well, they were just insurmountable, the drinking, the gambling.
But as we learn in the end there these two
loved each other even as they hated each other and argued,
and in the end Lucille understood the importance of Desi,
(38:04):
attributing one hundred percent of her success to their pairing.
The story of Lucille ball here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com