TV legend born in 1911, died in 1989. Ball had been a movie star for some 20 years before moving into TV (following a similar spell on radio) with the all time classic I Love Lucy. Important because she, along with her husband Desi Arnaz, produced the show themselves, becoming major players in the process. Of course this meant that Ball was never really able to shake off the shadow of her screen persona and pretty much played the role for the rest of her career.
Lucille Ball didn’t just make millions of people laugh uproariously. She blazed a whole new path for women in the entertainment industry that still resonates today....
In Being The Ricardos, Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) are threatened by shocking personal accusations, a political smear, and cultural taboos in...
This is the first of the two “Annabel” movies that featured Lucille Ball in late-’30s screwball mode. Ball portrays Annabel Allison, a beautiful starlet who becomes...
Based on Maxwell Anderson’s Broadway play, drama Winterset follows Burgess Meredith’s struggle to clear the name of his father who was wrongly executed for killing a...
A romantic comedy about the Renaissance artist Cellini. Cellini is more interested in pursuing women than his artistic pursuits. He initially flirts with his artistic model,...
Top Hat has Astaire, Rogers, Irving Berlin, choreography by Hermes Pan and Astaire: all the elements that define the classic Astaire-Rogers picture and, therefore, the height...
Engaging Rodgers and Hart musical Too Many Girls is directed by Mr. Broadway himself, George Abbott. Heiress Lucille Ball escapes her many suitors by enrolling in...
Wartime musical comedy Seven Days’ Leave features plenty of big names from radio days. Victure Mature plays an army private who has a week to earn...
Damon Runyon’s Times Square world of con men and hustlers populate the background in tragicomic romance The Big Street, produced by Runyon himself. Unusual roles for...
Everybody loved Lucy. This was the sitcom that defined the sitcom, a show so beloved it actually runs more frequently today than it did in the...
As far as funny wholesome sitcoms go, I Love Lucy, which starred Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, was the forerunner and perhaps the best loved of...
Their characters are legend: Woodward. Austin. Tanna. Little Joe. But the importance of the fictional pales in comparison to that of the near-mythical actors and actresses...
Doubtless the most loved TV comedienne of all time, Lucille Ball became an American icon with her characterization of the scatterbrained sitcom wife, Lucy Ricardo, on...
Bette Davis once said, “Until you’re known in my profession as a monster, you’re not a star.” Whether her theory holds water or not, Davis was...
As much an innovator as he is an icon, Bob Hope is the blueprint for Rodney Dangerfield’s self-deprecation, Jerry Seinfeld’s understated but gut-busting observations, and almost...