Lucille Ball

6 Pages 1623 Words

Lucille Ball: Before and After “I Love Lucy”

Lucille Ball, known to all as Lucy, had a wide range of experience and talent
which made her a big success and one of the most recognized and loved entertainers in
the world (American Masters).
Born with the name Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New
York, to Henry Durell Ball, her father and Desiree (DeDe) Ball, her mother. She was
born in her grandmother’s apartment although her parents were living in Butte, Montana
just before her birth (Brady 7). As soon as her mother was able to travel, mother and
child went back to Montana to be with her father. For almost four years she was the only
child (Ball & Hoffman 3).
Lucy’s parents showered her with affection. She was the center of attention and
“life was a lark”( Ball & Hoffman 3). Her mother dressed her in ribbons and bows, but
she rebelled because she was never the prissy, doll type. Her father roughhoused with her
as if she were a boy (Ball & Hoffman 3).
When Lucy was about three, her mother was tired of the forty below Montana
winters and homesick for the gentle green hills of home, so they moved to Wyandotte,
Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, where her father became a foreman of a telephone line
crew (Ball & Hoffman 4).
The following January her father fell ill. Her mother was five months pregnant at
this time. To keep Lucy under control DeDe tied her to a dog leash, which was attached
to the clothesline in the backyard. Everytime someone would pass by on the sidewalk,
Lucy would beg to be released. She must have been pretty convincing because she was
set free most of the time. Then DeDe would have to search the neighborhood for her.
Henry’s condition never improved and eventually turned into typhoid fever (Brady 7). He
died shortly after. He was twenty-eight and her mother was twenty-three. Lucy was not
yet four years old but she could remember vividly the moment s...