This day in history: Happy birthday, Lucille Ball!

Nourhan SandoukThu, August 6, 2026 at 9:56 AM UTC

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The ambitious New York housewife Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy, or Lucille Ball was an American actress, comedian, and producer.

Lucille left high school at age 15 to becom an actress, she joined a drama school in New York and took a job as a model under the name Diane Belmont. Her personality and appearance in modeling caught the attention of the Hollywood studios and got her spots in some movies like Roman Scandals and Blood Money. Then she got more important roles like her roles in Carnival, Stage Door, and Room Service.

By the end of the ‘40s, Lucille was looking for more important roles and started feeling a bit frustrated with the ones she’d been getting, as they couldn’t show her true talent, so she decided to try broadcasting, and it wasn’t long before she got a lead part in the radio comedy My Favorite Husband.

CBS executives were interested in her talent after this role, and wanted something similar for the small screen. Lucille accepted but under one condition, to include her husband, Desi Arnaz.CBS wasn’t interested, so the couple put together an I Love Lucy–like vaudeville act and took it on the road. Success soon followed, as did a contract from CBS.

In 1950, Lucille and her husband formed Desilu Productions after CBS told them that their request to film in Hollywood rather than New York would cost too much. Desilu Productions agreed to take a pay cut for that, and in return they would retain full ownership rights to the program. A year after their program was launched, the television comedy series I Love Lucy, starring the two of them in a comedy version of their real lives.

Desilu acquired RKO Pictures and began producing other shows for television. Lucille and Arnaz were divorced in 1960, and two years later she became the president of Desilu, and the only woman at that time to lead a Hollywood production company.

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A while after Lucille sold Desilu and formed her own company, Lucille Ball Productions, which produced her third television series, Here’s Lucy.

In April 1989, Lucille had a heart attack and had emergency open-heart surgery. Shedied of cardiac arrest a week later at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on April 26, 1989.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”