Lucille Ball, queen of comedy, dies
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from April 1989.
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The star of I Love Lucy and similar situation comedies that continue in syndication around the world died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she underwent surgery to replace her aorta and aortic valve 18 April.
"The death occurred suddenly and without warning. She experienced a full cardiac arrest. Her response to surgery over a week ago was excellent and she had been improving constantly," said hospital spokesman Ronald Wise.
Miss Ball had been bothered by a variety of maladies over the past several years, including a heart attack and minor throat surgery in 1988. "Lucille Ball is the greatest woman clown in the world," fellow comedian Milton Berle once said. "In fact, she is one of the great clowns of all time, male or female." Miss Ball and her ex-husband, the late Desi Arnaz, established one of television's first major independent studios.
Desilu, as their production company was called, made some of the top comedy shows of the 1950s and 1960s, including December Bride, Our Miss Brooks and Make Room for Daddy.
As testament to their value as prime-time stars, Miss Ball and Arnaz signed an 8-million-dollar, no-cancellation, two-year contract with the CBS network in 1953. At the time it was the largest in television history and is a figure scarcely any TV star can touch 36 years later.
The actress was last seen introducing the Young Hollywood production number with Bob Hope at the 61st Academy Awards ceremony 29 March, receiving a standing ovation. Looking svelte for her years in a fashionable slit skirt, she seemed to be in good health and laughed freely throughout a brief routine with Hope.
Her last series, Life with Lucy, co-starring frequent sidekick Gale Gordon, was carried by the ABC network at the start of the 1986 season. But the show, Miss Ball's first series in 12 years, was canceled after less than two months when it drew low ratings. Miss Ball also played a bag lady in the 1985 TV movie Stone Pillow, considered one of the most challenging. She was dehydration when it was over, but the movie was a minor critical and ratings success.
During the heyday of I Love Lucy, Miss Ball's real, onscreen pregnancy marked a milestone in television. An estimated 44 million viewers tuned in on 19 Jan. 1953, the night Lucy Ricardo delivered Little Ricky. Her real son was born just four hours before the previously filmed show was broadcast. She and Arnaz also had a daughter, Lucie.
Miss Ball remained a worldwide favourite through the breakup of her 20-year marriage to Arnaz, who played husband Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy.
Miss Ball was born on 6 Aug. 1911, in Celeron, New York, the daughter of an electrician and a concert pianist.
Young Lucy, a brunette, was dazzled by the stage, but her ambitions were discouraged by an acting school. She turned to modeling under the name Diane Belmont, and her ads for Chesterfield cigarettes caught the attention of Hollywood. In 1933, she was off to California. As a blonde, she appeared with the Marx Brothers in Room Service, with Fred Astaire in Follow the Fleet and with Katharine Hepurn and Ginger Rogers in Stage Door.
In all, she appeared in more than 75 movies.
In 1940, her tresses now the fiery trademark red, Miss Ball met Arnaz, a rumba star. They married within six. months. In 1951, CBS decided to move her radio series, My Favorite Husband, to television. I Love Lucy, with Arnaz, Vivian Vance as Ethel and the late William Frawley as Fred, was an immediate success.
The show also revolutionized television sitcom production in the days before videotape. It was filmed in advance before a live audience, employing three cameras instead of the traditional one used for motion pictures. Filming the shows also made them marketable as reruns, and they continue to be seen in more than 80 countries.
In 1961, Miss Ball married nightclub comic Gary Morton, who became her executive producer, and remained on TV for 12 more years in the weekly Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show.
