Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedian, model, and film studio executive. She was the star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, and Life with Lucy. In 1929, she landed work as a model and later began her performing career on Broadway using the stage names Diane Belmont and Dianne Belmont. She performed many small movie roles in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, being cast as a chorus girl, or in similar roles, and was dubbed the "Queen of the Bs" (referring to her many roles in B-films).[citation needed] During the 1950s, she became a television star. Ball had met and eloped with Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940. In 1951, Ball helped create the television series I Love Lucy with Arnaz. On July 17, 1951, at almost 40 years of age, Ball gave birth to their first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz. A year and a half later, she gave birth to their second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known as Desi Arnaz, Jr. Ball and Arnaz divorced on May 4, 1960. In 1962 Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu, which produced many successful and popular television series such as Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. She continued making film and television appearances for most of the rest of her life, albeit without ever attaining the success she enjoyed in the 1950s. Ball was nominated for an Emmy Award thirteen times and won four times. In 1977, Ball was among the first recipients of the Women in Film Crystal Award. She was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1979, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986, and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1989. On April 26, 1989, Ball died of an abdominal aortic dissection at age 77. At the time of her death, she had been married to her second husband and business partner, standup comedian Gary Morton, for more than 27 years.