In 1942, about a decade before she would step into the role of Lucy Ricardo, Lucille Ball was ending a run as “the RKO comedy bombshell” and moving up into MGM’s glitz-and-glam musical comedy world. The height of Ball’s Hollywood stardom was in the early- to mid-1940s, and yet her success in Hollywood cinema pales in comparison to the mark she made on television.
Looking back on her career, it’s hard not to see the inevitable march to Lucy Ricardo, one of the most loved comedic characters in U.S. television history. But before Ball stepped into the role of Lucy in 1951 at the age of 40, she did have a robust “big screen” career, working her way up from an RKO contract player into starring roles of her own.
Ball’s film persona certainly contains some continuity with what we now think of as the canonical Lucy. Most of her film roles in the 1940s were comedies or musicals (though with occasional and notable dramatic roles sprinkled in), with Ball playing a zany character unafraid to look foolish. In fan magazines, she was known for her “madcap” but authentic offscreen personality that mirrored the quirkiness of her onscreen characters.
One Photoplay columnist in 1940 relates a story of Ball plopping down on the floor in public and dumping her purse onto the carpet. “It had everything in it from a radio script to hair curlers. But the curlers were what she was looking for and, sitting there, she rolled up her hair…” In another story from 1942, Ball talks about speaking at a major event and on the way off the stage, she tripped on a chair and ended up head over heels, in a pink satin dress, falling in an unladylike pose.
The pratfalls of her film comedies, if magazines like Photoplay are to be believed, are just an extension of Ball’s daily life.
However, Lucille Ball’s film persona from the 1940s doesn’t map exactly onto the Ricardo role. Instead, her film roles skew more adult and more risque. Lucy Ricardo is a wholesome character. She wants a taste of show biz, but not for any prurient reasons. She simply seems to want the fun and attention of appearing onstage. Desi always thwarts Lucy’s performance ambitions, leaving her canonically waaaa-ing like a toddler at the end of an episode, reinforcing the character’s innocence.
To contrast, Ball was known in Hollywood for her showgirl roles, where she was as likely to play a sexually experienced woman of the world as a wide-eyed housewife. In a 1946 profile of the star, Frank Nugent writes, “Give the average producer a script with a part in it for a show-girl type and he automatically begins thinking of Lucille Ball.”
Nugent characterizes Ball as the prototypical show girl, full of contradictions: “Like ninety-nine out of a hundred show girls, she looks dumb — and isn’t. She tries to be hard-boiled, yet gurgles over babies, puppies and kittens. She knows all the angles and is a push-over for anyone with a hard-luck story.”
Take, for example, Dance, Girl, Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940), where Ball plays the burlesque queen Bubbles. Bubbles owns her sexuality, at one point telling a nightclub owner, “I ain’t got an ounce of class, Sugar, honest.” She then does a flirty hula audition, waving her pelvis and smacking herself on the hips while the man looks on salaciously. She knows how to get the money and fame she wants, and she won’t be held back by shame. Unlike Lucy Ricardo, there’s nothing childlike in a showgirl role like Bubbles.
Lucille Ball also had the opportunity to play some meaty dramatic roles in the 1940s that showcased her skill as an actor. In The Big Street (Irving Reis, 1942), she plays a bitter victim of domestic violence, and in Lured (Douglas Sirk, 1947), she plays a taxi dancer caught in a noir murder mystery.
It’s easy for an actor’s legacy to be boxed in by their most memorable character. In the case of Lucille Ball, we’ll always love Lucy, but it’s good to remind ourselves that her film career possesses other dimensions.
The IU Cinema is screening Lured on Thursday, February 17 at 7 pm as part of the series 5X Douglas Sirk: Magnificently Obsessed.
The Cinema previously screened Dance, Girl, Dance in 2019 as part of the series 5X Dorothy Arzner: In a League of Her Own.
Laura Ivins loves stop motion, home movies, imperfect films, nature hikes, and Stephen Crane’s poetry. She has a PhD from Indiana University and an MFA from Boston University. In addition to watching and writing about movies, sometimes she also makes them.