Over the coming years, Ball began distinguishing herself on film for her talent with a wisecrack. “It was because of Grable that Lucille quit yawning her way through a picture and did some real acting,” said Kay Harvey, an actress and model.Ħ “I Love Lucy” gave way to several spinoffs, including “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” and “The Lucy Show.” Getty Images Others believed that this was also when she began taking her craft more seriously. To distinguish herself from the blond actress, she dyed her hair red for the first time. She signed with RKO Pictures after her release from Columbia, but at RKO, she continually lost parts to rival and future pinup superstar Betty Grable. But her career still evolved slowly, as she was repeatedly told by casting agents and others that she had no talent for acting, and was not large-breasted enough to become a sex symbol. “At a party one night, I heard her tell some people that the casting couch was better than the cold hard floor.” After sleeping with Cohn, Ball began to get cast in better movies. “I’ve resisted so far, but other gals like Joan Crawford did all right,” Ball told a friend. “She’d been told that Cohn was ruthless, self-centered, and mean-spirited,” the authors write, “and that every female under contract to him had to submit to him sexually.” (Cohn reportedly once told comedian Red Skelton, “I’m entitled to the broads because I have them under contract.”)įor Ball, it was a matter of practicality.

By the end of 1934, a casting drought led Ball to Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn. She would appear in over 50 films that decade, often in small, uncredited or barely there roles before finding favor as a reliably comedic bit player. “Miraculously, she escaped injury, but the room downstairs was flooded.”Īfter being cast in the 1933 Eddie Cantor film “Roman Scandals,” Ball moved to Hollywood. The man she was afraid of wound up gunning a man down.Īnd while staying at Manhattan’s Kimberly Hotel, she was taking a bath one night and “while she was soaking in the tub, she was fired upon and the bathtub was riddled with bullets,” the authors write. Dancing in Harlem one night, she suddenly sensed danger, grabbed a friend’s hand and ran from the club. Getty Imagesīut her association with gangsters almost had dire consequences. Volume II is set for release later this year.Ħ Ball dyed her hair red to distinguish herself from blonde pinup star Betty Grable, who kept getting the good roles. The book, which is Volume 1 of the authors’ Ball/Arnaz bio, is 576 pages long and covers the years until the end of their marriage, documenting their careers, hardships, and many, many lovers in all their gossipy glory. “He didn’t deny that, but claimed, ‘It doesn’t mean a thing, my fooling around with some hookers.

She accused him of having sex with two prostitutes the night before,” writes Porter in his new book with Danforth Price, “Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz: They Weren’t Lucy & Ricky Ricardo,” (Blood Moon Productions, out now). “She shouted denunciations at him, at one point calling him. In the late 1950s, Darwin Porter, student body president at the University of Miami, arranged “Lucy & Desi” Day at the school, a celebration of the country’s most popular entertainers and favorite couple, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.īut when he arrived to take them to the event, the snide and bickering couple he found resembled anything but America’s sweethearts. The 12 hottest celebrity redheads according to their zodiac signĬarole Cook, Lucille Ball protégé and ‘Sixteen Candles’ star, dead at 98 Which zodiac sign is the biggest extrovert? An astrologer explains Lucille Ball’s daughter once owned this Conn.

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