Lucille Ball: The Beginning
Author: Trudy Stroup
Lucille Ball was referred to as everyone's favorite redhead, but did you know she wasn't a redhead?!
Motion pictures had made progress from one minute shorts in the 1890's, to the full feature length of about an hour in the early 1900's. Motion pictures were an immediate phenomenon. People waited in lines to see the moving pictures. As with all inventions, the technicians sought out ways to improve the experience. In 1916 technicians were experimenting with adding sound and color to pictures but didn't hit on a process for colorization until the following year. Using two color panels - red and blue-green - they overlaid the color onto the already captured film using the projector lens. However, this process was not too successful. The projectionists found it difficult to synchronize two projectors with different lenses to come up with the desired effect. Later, they found a way to filter the color onto the film as the moving pictures were shot by using two cameras, one with a red lens and the other with the blue-green lens, but when they were spliced together, the result was fuzzy due to the different angles of the two different cameras being used. Significant progress was made in the 1930's that used a "3 strip Technicolor" film. This process was developed by Herbert and Natalie Kalmus. There was never an article written about them and their astounding progress that didn't include the word "bitch". So I take it from the articles that I read that Natalie was a difficult person to work with. But the studios wanted that technology! As their groundbreaking process progressed, they needed to test their system on real actors. The brighter the colors in real life, the better they looked on film, so the head of the studio asked Lucille Ball to dye her blonde locks bright red and thus, her signature was born. (Just a note: she wasn't a blonde either!)
Lucille Desiree Ball was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Her father, Henry "Had" Durell Ball, was an electrician and her mother, Desiree, a young homemaker. Henry's job required him to be gone from time to time, and occasionally, the family had to move from state to state so that he could find work. The economy was starting to slow down in the east and other families were moving about trying to find work as well. States like Montana were just getting started and there was an abundance of jobs to be had. So the Ball family moved to Montana in search of employment. Unfortunately, there were a lot of men trying to support a family in an economic slump, so there was a lot of competition for those jobs. So after a short job in Montana, Had took a job as a lineman with the Michigan Bell Telephone company and moved his little family once again.
In 1915, Desiree found she was expecting another baby and life was good. Later that year, Had contracted typhoid fever and passed away. Lucy later said in an interview, "I do remember everything that happened: hanging out the window; begging to play with the kids next door who had measles; the doctor coming; my mother weeping. I remember a bird that flew in the window…a picture that fell off the wall." A pregnant and distraught Desiree did the only thing she could do and moved back to Jamestown, New York, to live near her family. She took a job in a factory and soon met Ed Peterson. It is unclear to me whether she met him at the factory or not. What is clear is that she married too quickly. Desiree was still pregnant when she married Ed and gave birth to her second child, a son named Fred, soon after. It became quite clear that Ed wasn't fond of children and he soon had them sent away; baby Fred to Desiree's parents and 3 year old Lucy to his.
Lucy did not have a happy childhood. Ed's mother wasn't happy about being burdened by a toddler. She didn't afford Lucy anything more than the basic necessities of life and she was a very stern woman. Lucy once said that she couldn't afford pencils for school. It would be 8 long years before Desiree convinced Ed to let her children return home to her.
Even though Lucy had very little while growing up, she had her dreams of being a stage actress. She harbored these dreams and kept them close to her heart until she was allowed to go home to her mother. Lucy told her mother all about her dreams and eventually convinced her to let her quit school and enroll in John Murry Anderson-Robert Milton Dramatic School in New York City. So at 15 years old, Lucy moved to New York City on her own in search of her happy ending. While at school, she met the very big personality of Bette Davis. Bette was the star pupil and oh so mesmerizing. Lucy was overwhelmed and in awe of Bette. She found herself nervous and inadequate. It didn't take long for the director of the school to let Lucy’s mother know that Lucy was "wasting her time and ours".
Lucy didn't give up. Instead, she redirected her focus. Following a bout of rheumatoid arthritis, she dyed her mousy hair chestnut, took on the moniker Diane Belmont and went to work as a model in a high end, women’s fashion store for Hattie Carnegie. From there, she was featured as a Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in ads for the tobacco company and continued working throughout the 1920's as a model in New York City. She never left her dreams of being an actress behind. As the decade closed, she made the decision to head west to Hollywood, but she had to make one more change before she did. She dyed her chestnut hair again, turning it blonde this time. The 1930's were hard as she continued to try to find a place for herself in Hollywood. She worked as a Goldwyn Girl for Metro Goldwyn Meyer doing unmerited work in ads and as a fill in for background work in films, but she craved to be in the headlines.
Up next…Getting Noticed and Noticing Desi
© 2015-2016 Trudy Stroup. All rights reserved.
Author: Trudy Stroup
Lucille Ball was referred to as everyone's favorite redhead, but did you know she wasn't a redhead?!
Motion pictures had made progress from one minute shorts in the 1890's, to the full feature length of about an hour in the early 1900's. Motion pictures were an immediate phenomenon. People waited in lines to see the moving pictures. As with all inventions, the technicians sought out ways to improve the experience. In 1916 technicians were experimenting with adding sound and color to pictures but didn't hit on a process for colorization until the following year. Using two color panels - red and blue-green - they overlaid the color onto the already captured film using the projector lens. However, this process was not too successful. The projectionists found it difficult to synchronize two projectors with different lenses to come up with the desired effect. Later, they found a way to filter the color onto the film as the moving pictures were shot by using two cameras, one with a red lens and the other with the blue-green lens, but when they were spliced together, the result was fuzzy due to the different angles of the two different cameras being used. Significant progress was made in the 1930's that used a "3 strip Technicolor" film. This process was developed by Herbert and Natalie Kalmus. There was never an article written about them and their astounding progress that didn't include the word "bitch". So I take it from the articles that I read that Natalie was a difficult person to work with. But the studios wanted that technology! As their groundbreaking process progressed, they needed to test their system on real actors. The brighter the colors in real life, the better they looked on film, so the head of the studio asked Lucille Ball to dye her blonde locks bright red and thus, her signature was born. (Just a note: she wasn't a blonde either!)
Lucille Desiree Ball was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Her father, Henry "Had" Durell Ball, was an electrician and her mother, Desiree, a young homemaker. Henry's job required him to be gone from time to time, and occasionally, the family had to move from state to state so that he could find work. The economy was starting to slow down in the east and other families were moving about trying to find work as well. States like Montana were just getting started and there was an abundance of jobs to be had. So the Ball family moved to Montana in search of employment. Unfortunately, there were a lot of men trying to support a family in an economic slump, so there was a lot of competition for those jobs. So after a short job in Montana, Had took a job as a lineman with the Michigan Bell Telephone company and moved his little family once again.
In 1915, Desiree found she was expecting another baby and life was good. Later that year, Had contracted typhoid fever and passed away. Lucy later said in an interview, "I do remember everything that happened: hanging out the window; begging to play with the kids next door who had measles; the doctor coming; my mother weeping. I remember a bird that flew in the window…a picture that fell off the wall." A pregnant and distraught Desiree did the only thing she could do and moved back to Jamestown, New York, to live near her family. She took a job in a factory and soon met Ed Peterson. It is unclear to me whether she met him at the factory or not. What is clear is that she married too quickly. Desiree was still pregnant when she married Ed and gave birth to her second child, a son named Fred, soon after. It became quite clear that Ed wasn't fond of children and he soon had them sent away; baby Fred to Desiree's parents and 3 year old Lucy to his.
Lucy did not have a happy childhood. Ed's mother wasn't happy about being burdened by a toddler. She didn't afford Lucy anything more than the basic necessities of life and she was a very stern woman. Lucy once said that she couldn't afford pencils for school. It would be 8 long years before Desiree convinced Ed to let her children return home to her.
Even though Lucy had very little while growing up, she had her dreams of being a stage actress. She harbored these dreams and kept them close to her heart until she was allowed to go home to her mother. Lucy told her mother all about her dreams and eventually convinced her to let her quit school and enroll in John Murry Anderson-Robert Milton Dramatic School in New York City. So at 15 years old, Lucy moved to New York City on her own in search of her happy ending. While at school, she met the very big personality of Bette Davis. Bette was the star pupil and oh so mesmerizing. Lucy was overwhelmed and in awe of Bette. She found herself nervous and inadequate. It didn't take long for the director of the school to let Lucy’s mother know that Lucy was "wasting her time and ours".
Lucy didn't give up. Instead, she redirected her focus. Following a bout of rheumatoid arthritis, she dyed her mousy hair chestnut, took on the moniker Diane Belmont and went to work as a model in a high end, women’s fashion store for Hattie Carnegie. From there, she was featured as a Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in ads for the tobacco company and continued working throughout the 1920's as a model in New York City. She never left her dreams of being an actress behind. As the decade closed, she made the decision to head west to Hollywood, but she had to make one more change before she did. She dyed her chestnut hair again, turning it blonde this time. The 1930's were hard as she continued to try to find a place for herself in Hollywood. She worked as a Goldwyn Girl for Metro Goldwyn Meyer doing unmerited work in ads and as a fill in for background work in films, but she craved to be in the headlines.
Up next…Getting Noticed and Noticing Desi
© 2015-2016 Trudy Stroup. All rights reserved.