Lucille Ball Biography

At age fifteen, she started studying at the Robert Minton - John Murray Anderson School of Drama, only to be told by John Murray Anderson to forget her dreams of ever making it.

Working as a dress model and on Broadway chorus-lines, she became the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl model in 1933 and became a Goldwyn Girl in the Eddie Cantor film musical, 'Roman Scandals'.

She continued to struggle throughout the 1930s, with minor parts in films such as 'Stage Door', 'Room Service' and 'Sorrowful Jones'.

On the set of a 1940 production called 'Too Many Girls', she met her future husband and business partner, Desi Arnaz. They were soon married.

Deciding to try radio, she recorded many programs, finally developing a truly individual style in 1948, with 'My Favourite Husband'.

Aiming to save her troubled marriage, she persuaded studio bosses to let her co-create a TV show with Arnaz in 1950. The show was to become 'I Love Lucy', and she was shot to instant fame.

One of the most successful shows in television history, it made Lucy a star, and the couple millionaires. They bought out the studio and renamed it Desi-lu.

After making two films together, they ended 'I Love Lucy' in 1957, while it was still at its peak. Lucy and Arnaz divorced in 1960.

Marrying nightclub comic Gary Morton, she made a whole raft of television projects through the 1960s and 1970s.

Becoming a powerful TV executive, she was the guiding light behind such projects as the creation of the 'Star Trek' and 'Mission: Impossible' series.

Lucy’s last television appearance was at the Academy Awards in 1989 with Bob Hope.

Lucille Ball-Arnaz-Morton, the ‘First Lady of Television’ died only weeks later on the 26th April 1989.