On this date (Aug 6), in 1911, Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, NY. She was a groundbreaking comedian; a model; a radio, stage, TV, and film actress; and a film & TV executive. She nominated for 13 Emmy Awards (winning four of them), and was the first woman to run a major television studio.
I am not exaggerating when I say that Desilu was a major studio. In case you think Desilu was only famous for I Love Lucy, here’s just a partial list of other shows produced and/or filmed by Desilu:
• The Andy Griffith Show
• Mission Impossible
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• Family Affair
• The Untouchables
• I Spy
• That Girl
• Hogan’s Heroes
And the one for which I’m most grateful: Star Trek. In fact, in a very real sense, Star Trek would never have happened if not for Ms Ball. During the time the two Trek pilots were being produced, TV networks were changing the way they paid for shows – the end result being that Desilu was going to be on the hook for 20% of the costs of each episode… and for a budget-hungry program like Star Trek, that was a lot of money. Money that wouldn’t be recouped unless the show went into syndication.
Despite the reluctance of many of Desilu’s conservative board members, the decision to move forward was in the hands of the owner of Desilu… Lucille Ball herself. She went with her gut, made the decision.
Thanks to Lucille Ball, television allowed us to go to the final frontier.
So I love Lucy. I loved “Ba-ba-loo!” and “Vita-meata-veg-amins” and Lucy crushing wine grapes with her feet and losing her mind as those chocolates just kept coming down that conveyor belt!
But the biggest reason why I love Lucy is that she had a huge hand in helping us go where no one had gone before.
Do you find it a coincidence that that we’re all celebrating the fact that our new rover, Curiosity, landed on the red planet on the 101st birthday of everyone’s favorite redhead?
Fascinating… !