Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1225219 in Books
• Published on: 2001
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 424 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Featured mainly in B-movies in the 1930s at RKO, leading lady in several MGM films in the '40s, Lucille Ball was never a "star," but she became the Queen of TV with I Love Lucy, first aired in 1951. In this evenhanded, serious look at America's beloved comedienne, Brady describes how, under Buster Keaton's tutelage, Ball developed her talents, and how her husband's womanizing led her to conceive the TV series "because it would keep Desi at home." Brady's biography is a narrative roller coaster veering from heartache to terror to triumph as she depicts Ball as actress, wife, mother and producer. The terror occurred during the McCarthy era, when she was investigated-then cleared-by HUAC. Desi Arnaz is shown as an astute businessman who, in tandem with his wife, became successful enough to buy the studio where their series was produced, Desilu Studios. Ball's outrageous behavior after her last series, Here's Lucy, ended in 1974 and her struggle against aging are recounted in doleful detail. Ball died in 1989 at the age of 78 but, as Brady remarks, "Lucy Ricardo" achieved eternal life. Fans will appreciate the profusion of I Love Lucy lore and trivia. Brady is co-chair of New York University's Biography Seminar. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
More than 40 years after the show's premiere, I Love Lucy reruns on television still attract a devoted following. Because of this interest, more than half a dozen books have been published during the past 15 years about the show itself or about Ball and husband Desi Arnaz. As a result of Brady's focus on Ball, more time is spent with her lesser-known (but hardly undocumented) film career, and the I Love Lucy show doesn't appear until halfway through her narrative. Still, there's not a lot of difference between this book and Warren G. Harris's Lucy & Desi (LJ 9/1/91) or Coyne Steven Sanders and Tom Gilbert's Desilu (LJ 1/93). All three books present the same basic facts, and all are well researched and well written. Buy only according to demand.
John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Lucille Ball was the quintessential hardworking, wisecracking gal who knocked herself out to get a break, caught fame's shooting star, and rode it for all it was worth. Meanwhile, she worked herself harder than a Horatio Alger hero, becoming an extremely successful businessperson who suffered the now-familiar distancing from her children, who later said they couldn't remember her ever just playing with them. The first TV megastar, Ball became so familiar that her nickname, Lucy, instantly brought her to mind. Her offscreen persona was the antithesis of the TV Lucy, though, and after a while, she wasn't even Lucy on TV anymore. Yet the show, the drive, and the grind kept going, for the money kept rolling in. Eventually, her enjoyment of it all evaporated as the toll of her stormy marriage to Desi Arnaz and the problems of her children, whose entertainment careers she tried to start and manage, mounted. Ball's life is a captivating, ultimately cautionary tale; its similarity to the plot of a showbiz potboiler makes it all the more appealing. Mike Tribby