Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball

by Kathleen Brady

Book Overview

Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball is an entertaining, informative, scholarly, and fascinating biography of one of the most revered actresses in television history. Moving beyond the typical celebrity bio, author Kathleen Brady separates the actress from Lucy Ricardo, the antic, enduring character she created on I Love Lucy.Brady is the only biographer to have spent extensive time in Jamestown, New York, Lucille Balls hometown, where she interviewed...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786860073
• ISBN13: 9780786860074
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: Hyperion Books
• Length: 397 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

I bought this book with a few other items about Lucille Ball. I thought it was put together well. Though the book has factual items in it there are some things that are not correct. Otherwise it is a wonderful read.

This book agrees with other bios I've read

"Love Lucy" was a great book written by Lucille Ball and so was "Laughs, Luck...and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time", by Jess Oppenheimer. "Lucille" by Kathleen Brady told the same stories that L. Ball and J. Oppenheimer told, but she gave more body to the characters and gave many more details in general. I've been listening to the book as I do my household chores and I'm enjoying the book so much that I'm performing quiet chores so I can resume listening to the biography. It's very good and so far I have only found one tiny flaw...Lucille Ball said that Vivian Vance did have to stay plump for the I love Lucy show (if I remember correctly) and Kathleen Brady said that Vance's agents claimed that was an untrue rumor. So either the agents knew it was true and didn't want to disclose the fact, or Lucille Ball told an untruth which doesn't make sense or K. Brady reported it incorrectly. I don't think it matters but I would guess that Vance's agents just didn't want to admit to the fact that their client agreed to stay overweight to keep the focus on L.B. For such a huge book...that's an insignificant detail so I think the book is honest and a great read or in my case a great listen.

My favorite book about my favorite commedienne

When I was ten and heard that Lucy and Desi were divorcing, I was devastated. No one in my little village had ever divorced, and I did not know anyone who knew anyone who had. So, Lucy and Ricky, who were interchangeable in my mind with Lucy and Desi, were the first people I "knew" who took that drastic step. I couldn't figure out how they could be so happy on TV and still want to split. A few years later, when Lucy returned to television, along with Ethel, rechristened as Vivian, I kept longing for DesiRicky to show up. Of course he didn't. Later, I saw some of her early movies and became one of the three people in the US who loved her on the screen as Mame. Even though I appreciated her skill and talent, for me, she was always Lucy Riccardo. Somewhere along the line, though, I realized that Lucille Ball was more complex than her TV counterpart.Of the half-dozen books I've read about Lucy, which include the newly-released "Ball of Fire", a couple of the books about the series, and Vance's biography, Kathleen Brady's is my favorite. She comes closest to cracking the code, finding what drove Lucille Ball to the top of her profession.Brady treats her subject tenderly, but does whitewash the harder side of her character. Rather, she tries to bring the apparently incompatible parts of her personality together into one whole, very understandable person. As much as is possible, she succeeds.Where she is sure of details, she gives them. Where she is not, she offers alternate possibilities, for example, the unknown cause of Ball's paralysis that sent her home from NY and to bed for months or, on the more humorous side, exactly what happened the night that Tallulah Bankhead decided to disrobe during a production meeting of the LucyDesi Comedy Hour. Well-researched and well-written, this is mandatory reading for any die-hard Lucy fan and an excellent choice for anyone who intends reading only one book about America's most famous comedienne.

An Excellent Biography

After reading Lucille Ball's own autobiography I read this book. It tell the rest of the story of Lucille's life. Well researched and written, this book tells vividly of Lucille's early life in Hollywood, and her relationship with Desi Arnaz. It also covers the latter part of Lucille's life after the tremendous success of I Love Lucy. A very good read!

A wonderful glimpse into the unknown life of Lucy & Desi

The title says it all. The book is great. I really like the pictures