LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Lucille Ball: New York
built 656 days ago
Synopsis: Lucille Ball delivers the finest dramatic performance of her career in this satisfying adaptation of Damon Runyon's The Big Street. Ball is cast as Gloria, aka "Your Highness," the vain and thoroughly selfish star attraction of gangster Case Ables' (Barton MacLaine) New York nightclub. Henry FondaRead More
Source:
Dropping out of high school at the age of fifteen, Ball moved to New York to study acting and found her first stage work as a chorus girl in 1927. She had her first break as a poster-girl for Chesterfield cigarettes and soon found herself in tinsel town as one of twelve slave-girls in the Eddie Cantor film, ROMAN SCANDALS (1933). By the mid-1930s, if you went to the movies (and in the 1930s everyone went to the movies) you would be certain to see Lucille Ball. Sometimes a nurse or a dancer, sometimes a flower clerk or a college girl, but always there. By the end of the decade she had been in forty-three films and was known as "Queen of the B Movies."
Source:
The Koch administration has complained to CBS that a movie on homeless women starring Lucille Ball gives a false impression about New York City's shelters and has asked the network to run a disclaimer, city officials said yesterday. CBS rejected the request.
Source:
In 1925 after a romance with a local bad boy (Johnny DeVita), Ball decided to enroll in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City with her mother's approval. There, the shy girl was outshone by another pupil, Bette Davis. Ball went home a few weeks later when drama coaches told her that she "had no future at all as a performer".
Source:
In the late 70s and early 80s, Ball made only sporadic appearances on TV, usually as the guest star. In 1985, she portrayed a New York homeless woman in the TV film, "Stone Pillow." The following year, at the age of 75, she debuted "Life with Lucy," a half hour comedy series. It aired for only two months before being cancelled.
Source:
Desilu Productions was sold to the large Gulf + Western Industries in 1967, severing Ball's connection with the company. Despite her wealth, Ball was uncomfortable with the idea of retiring from show business. The film production of Mame (1974) was designed as a starring vehicle to revive Ball's film career, but it was a critical and financial disappointment. Ball continued to work sporadically on television, appearing in specials and even making an attempt at a new series in 1986. Sadly, an aging Ball found it difficult to attempt the kind of "serious" physical comedy at which she had once excelled, and she recognized that to do so would result in a caricature of herself. The sitcom, Life with Lucy, was canceled soon after its debut.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
New York