Love and comedy at first sight: Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball: "The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."

Allegedly, Ginger Rogers would confess to her friend Lucille Ball: “Let’s face it: Astaire is a great dancer, perhaps the best, but he has less sex appeal than Gabby Hayes… you know, the sidekick of Roy Rogers with the beady eyes?” It's rumored that Ginger would have a brief fling with Cary Grant when they co-starred in Monkey Business (1952) with Marilyn Monroe. Although Rogers continued to date Desi Arnaz on and off for a few weeks, her romantic attentions soon began to focus on David Niven, with whom she was making Bachelor Mother (1939). It was said that homespun Jimmy Stewart kept a diary of all the beautiful glamour girls he’d seduced, and whereas Ginger’s name was near the top, other conquests included Jean Harlow, Rosalind Russell, Lana Turner, Norma Shearer, Olivia de Havilland, Marlene Dietrich, Margaret Sullavan, and June Allyson.

Stewart had lost his virginity to Ginger Rogers. Ginger and Lucille shared something in common: They believed in ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em'. Ginger’s recent victories: She had received a Best Actress Oscar for her dramatic role in Kitty Foyle (1940), for which she beat out both Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis. Ironically, on that same night, her former lover, James Stewart, won the Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story, “stealing” the picture from Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant. As sometimes happens in Hollywood, Stewart competed against his best friend Henry Fonda, who had been nominated for his performance in the movie classic, The Grapes of Wrath (1940). The first time Desi Arnaz spotted Lucille Ball, he didn’t know who she was. He mistook her for “some broken-down hooker.” She had taken a lunch break from a fight scene with Maureen O’Hara during the filming of Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). 

Arthur Freed hired Brooklyn-born Edward Buzzell as director of the film adaptation of Best Foot Forward. Both Freed and Buzzell agreed to offer the lead role in Best Foot Forward to Lucille Ball, who would portray a glamorous movie star who visits a military academy filled with young men lusting for her. Harry James and his Orchestra provide the music, performing such numbers as “The Flight of the Bumblebee.” Freed wanted to employ some members of the original Broadway cast, notably June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven and Nancy Walker. According to Lucille, “When I was told that William Gaxton had been cast as my leading man, I told Arthur Freed, ‘You must be kidding.’ Then I found out he was to be my press agent, not my on-screen lover. What a relief.” The New York Daily Mirror proclaimed, “Lucille Ball handles the comedy and lines in a manner reminiscent of the late Carole Lombard.”

Returning from a USO bond tour, Lucille was notified by MGM that her next picture, Meet the People (1944) would co-star Dick Powell. In kidding fashion, June Allyson warned Lucille to keep her hands off Dick Powell, Lucille’s new co-star, even though he was still married to Joan Blondell. Lucille, still in her happy phase of her marriage with Desi, assured June she wouldn't betray their friendship, and she seemed to notice how cold Powell behaved towards Lucille during the shooting. Meet the People bombed at the box office, losing $720,000 for MGM. Dick Powell, cast in Meet the People as “Swanee” Swanson, has won a date with Lucille Ball as part of a fund-raising contest for War Bonds. At the time, though still married to Joan Blondell, a former friend of Lucille’s, Powell was “heavy dating” June Allyson.  

In his biography, Lucy and Desi, Warren G. Harris wrote: “To get back at Desi, Lucy started going out on public dates with other men, usually younger actors from MGM like Peter Lawford and Scott McKay. Each of them at different times was seen escorting her to such popular spots as Ciro’s or Cocoanut Grove.” She never spoke publicly about her affair with Lawford, although she sometimes discussed it with her longtime confidant Barbara Pepper. “I agree with George Cukor,” she confessed. “Peter is a lousy lay. Where is Desi when I need him?” For an actor who allegedly was such a lousy lay, Lawford seduced a number of world class beauties and movie stars: Anne Baxter, Dorothy Dandridge, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Rhonda Fleming, Janet Leigh, Marilyn Maxwell, Lana Turner, Kim Novak, and June Allyson. Lawford was also a key player in the life of Marilyn Monroe, to whom he became scandalously linked, especially at the time of her murder.

Lucille did not like her role in Easy Living as a secretary to Lloyd Nolan playing Coach Lenahan. She and Nolan had worked smoothly together ever since filming Two Smart People (1946) with John Hodiak. Victor Mature played Pete Wilson, the star professional quarterback who has no future in football. His doctor had diagnosed him with a diseased heart because of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. He doesn’t want to tell his scheming wife, Liza (Lizabeth Scott), who wants to be a big success as an interior designer, and will go far to achieve her goal, even if it means getting involved with other influential men. Pete’s best friend is Pappy McCarr (Sonny Tufts), who will eventually replace Pete as the team’s star football player. As his secretary, Lucille is in love with Pete, but in the end, he returns to his errant wife, who (unconvincingly) promises to mend her ways. 

In third billing, Liza, the wife of footballer Mature, Lizabeth Scott had a far better role than Lucille’s. One critic later called Scott “the most beautiful face of film noir to emerge from the late 1940s and early ‘50s.” Lucille had seen only one of her movies, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) in which Scott had co-starred with Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck. “Scott made me feel like a relic of the 1930s,” Lucille said. “Here I was still impersonating Carole Lombard as the wise-cracking, sexy, self-actualizing type in one of her screwball types.”

Lucille met with producer Robert Sparks, who was better known as the husband of Penny Singleton, who played “Blondie Bumstead” in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was one of the early members of the film colony urging Lucille to consider the newly emerging medium of television. In time, he would leave the movie industry altogether and join CBS as a producer, developing such superhit TV series as Gunsmoke (1955) and Perry Mason (1957), among other shows. Lucille became an expert on Manhattan after dark. She danced at the Cotton Club in Harlem to the music of Louis Armstrong. Still fully dressed in her evening clothes, she often watched the sun rise over Central Park, sometimes—after a long night—ordering breakfast in Greenwich Village. She was a familiar sight at supper clubs and at lavish parties.

Lucille Ball and Joan Blondell possibly dated film producer Pat DiCicco (who married Thelma Todd in 1932). Carole Landis was another one of Pat DiCicco's lovers. When she worked as a band singer in San Francisco, she allegedly turned tricks on the side and later Carole landed a job in the chorus at Warners she dated Busby Berkeley who featured her prominently in Hollywood Hotel and in the big dance finale of Varsity Show. Carole also tried her luck with Dick Powell during Varsity Show (1937) and with Ronald Reagan in 1938 (when Reagan co-starred with Joan Blondell's sister Gloria in Accidents Will Happen). Berkeley wanted to marry Carole but his mother did not approve of their romance. In the spring of 1938 Irving Wheeler, Carole's estranged husband, sued Busby Berkeley for alienation of affection. The story made headlines all over the country and although Wheeler lost the case the bad publicity hurt her reputation. Carole's romance with Busby Berkeley ended in the summer of 1938.

Lucille Ball was originally offered the Carole Landis role in the film noir I Wake Up Screaming. Wanting to star in The Big Street, Lucille turned down the role, in which she would have played the sister of Betty Grable, a former lover of Desi Arnaz, and the pinup girl of World War II. Lucille had long known of Betty Grable’s affair with Desi for a while. In 1959, at a recent dinner party, a former co-worker asked Lucille Ball and Ann Sothern if RKO Studios had changed since the days when they worked there together. 'Yes,' Ann replied, 'Lucille owns it now.' Lucille added: 'And Ann made over the wardrobe department for her dressing room.' Two decades ago, both Lucille and Ann were struggling for roles and recognition at RKO. In late 1950s, Lucille and Desi Arnaz were proprietors of the lot. 'I love Lucille and I know she loves me,' remarked Ann Sothern in her luxurious dressing room. 'Furthermore, I'm one of the few people who call her Lucille.'

'I understand her. A lot of people think she is gruff and tough. But that's just her way. She's soft inside.' 'My career was built on the roles Ann turned down,' Lucille claimed. 'I doubt that,' Ann countered. 'I wasn't that important.' 'Yes, but she didn't know some of the things that went on behind the scenes.' Lucille replied. At any rate, they became fast friends. Lucille recalls going to Ann with a problem: Her family was coming to California to stay and she wasn't making enough to fix up a house in the manner she hoped for. Ann went in and decorated the place with her unerring taste. 'I've always spent money,' Ann admitted. 'My theory is that whatever you spend will eventually come back to you. I've spent money even when I didn't have it.' —"Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz: They Weren't Lucy and Ricky Ricardo" (Blood Moon Productions, 2021)

About her meeting Desi Arnaz for the first time, Lucille Ball replied: "It wasn't love at first sight. It took a full five minutes."

Passionate love is rooted in the reward circuitry of the brain—the same area that is active when humans feel a rush from cocaine. In fact, the cravings, motivations and withdrawals involved in love have a great deal in common with addiction. Its most intense forms tend to be associated with the early stages of a relationship, which then give way to a calmer attachment form of love one feels with a long-term partner. This has a slightly different chemistry but still involves the reward centres of the brain. What all this means is that one special person can become chemically rewarding to the brain of another. 

Love at first sight is possible if the mechanism for generating long-term attachment can be triggered quickly. One line of evidence is that people are able to decide within a fraction of a second how attractive they find another person. This decision appears to be related to facial attractiveness, although men also favour women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, no matter what their overall weight is. Ayala Malack-Pines, a psychologist at Ben-Gurion University, found that a small fraction (11%) of people in long-term relationships said that they began with love at first sight. In other words, in some couples the initial favorable impressions of attractiveness triggered love which sustained a lengthy bond. It is also clear that some couples need to form their bonds over a longer period, and popular culture tells many tales of friends who become lovers. One might also speculate that if a person is looking for a partner with traits that cannot be quantified instantly, such as compassion, intellect or a good sense of humour, then it would be hard to form a relationship on the basis of love at first sight. Those more concerned only with visual appearances, though, might find this easier. Source: www.economist.com