Page 189 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

Lucille Ball

8th Cousin

1 time removed

Common Ancestor

Father: Thomas Woolson
Watertown, Middlesex,
Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial
America Born: Died:
1630 - 1713 6 August 1911 26 April 1989
Jamestown, New York Los Angeles, California
Mother: Sarah Hyde
Newton, Middlesex, Massachusetts Lucille Désirée Ball was an American actress, comedienne,
Bay, British Colonial America model, entertainment studio executive and producer. She was
the star of the self-produced sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy
1644- 1721
Show, Here's Lucy, and Life with Lucy, as well as comedy
television specials aired under the title The Lucy-Desi Comedy
Hour.
Ball's career began in 1929 when she landed work as a model.
Shortly thereafter, she began her performing career
on Broadway using the stage names Diane Belmont and
Dianne Belmont. She later appeared in several minor film roles
in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for RKO Radio
Pictures, being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles. During
this time, she met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz, and the
two eloped in November 1940. In the 1950s, Ball ventured into
television. In 1951, she and Arnaz created the sitcom I Love
Lucy, a series that became one of the most beloved programs
in television history. The same year, Ball gave birth to their
first child, Lucie Arnaz, followed by Desi Arnaz Jr. in 1953. Ball
and Arnaz divorced in May 1960, and she married
comedian Gary Morton in 1961.

Following the end of I Love Lucy, Ball appeared in a Broadway musical, Wildcat, for a year from 1960 to
1961. However, the show received lukewarm reviews and had to be shut down permanently when Ball
became ill for a brief time. After Wildcat, Ball reunited with I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance for the
aforementioned Lucy Show, which Vance left in 1965 but which continued for three years with longtime
friend of Ball's Gale Gordon who already had a recurring role on the program. The Lucy Show ended its
run in 1968 and Ball immediately began appearing in a new series, Here's Lucy, with Gordon, frequent
guest on her shows Mary Jane Croft, and Lucie and Desi Jr.; this program ran until 1974.

In 1962, Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu Productions, which
produced many popular television series, including Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. Ball did not back
away from acting completely. In 1985, she took on a dramatic role in a television film, Stone Pillow. The
next year she starred in Life with Lucy, which was, unlike her other sitcoms, not well-received; the show

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