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Shop nowLucille
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Learn moreIn twenty years of show business, Lucille Ball had only modest and sporadic success. Her television program, I Love Lucy, was her last chance to fulfill the ambition that had sustained her through the frustrations of her professional life and the anguish of a failing marriage. The role of Lucy Ricardo revealed her true gifts, but it changed her life immeasurably, and the remarkable individual who was Lucille Ball became slowly obscured in the shadows of Lucy.
This definitive portrait of Lucille is based on the recollections of fellow performers like Milton Berle, Ginger Rogers, Bob Hope, and Katherine Hepburn; her closest friends and family; and Lucille herself. From her childhood, when her virtual abandonment instilled in her a relentless drive for love and attention, through her struggling years in Hollywood and her troubled relationship with Desi Arnaz, Brady vividly recounts the story of this passionate and vulnerable woman.
Kathleen Brady is co-chairman of the Biography Seminar at New York University. She has covered television and the media for Time magazine. For her biography of the investigative journalist Ida Tarbell, she was named a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. She was featured on the PBS television series, “The Prize,” and on A&E’s “Biography” of the Rockefeller family.
C. M. Hébert is an Earphones Award winner and Audie Award nominee. She is the recording studio director for the Talking Books Program at the Library of Congress’ National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband, daughter, cat, and assorted fish.
Reviews
“While Brady is a fan, she is also a fine biographer. Her admiration is both clear-eyed and penetrating. With insight and impressive detail, Brady goes beyond Ball’s most famous creation—Lucy Ricardo—to expose the complex, determined woman.”
“A beautiful portrait of someone with enormous talent as an entertainer and heartbreaking fragility as a woman. In giving Lucille Ball the serious appraisal she deserves, Kathleen Brady has really gotten behind the scenes and the cameras to provide an invaluable chronicle of several areas and eras of show business.”
“Well researched and well written.”
“Ball’s life is a captivating, ultimately cautionary tale; its similarity to the plot of a showbiz potboiler makes it all the more appealing.”
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