Hollywood (Jan - Mar 1943)

Hollywood had Lucille Ball typed as a decorative showgirl who couldn't act. It took her a long time to convince them that she was a dramatic actress. Now she has the title role in Metro's DuBarry Was a Lady H Hollywood is a funny town with many peculiar notions. One of them is that people are unchangeable, that they will always remain the same as they were when they first arrived in the fabulous city. This attitude has a definite bearing on the life history of Lucille Ball. Lucille was brought out to California by Eddie Cantor for Roman Scandals. She was a show-girl then. She had been in Broadway productions, could dance, sing a bit, and look very decorative on a stage. After the epic was finished, nearly all its other imported beauties went home. Not Lucille. She stayed in Hollywood. She was put under contract to R-K-O as a stock player and, as it turned out, a glorified "extra." In fact, not so glorified. Lucille sweated and slaved with the best of them. And, while doing so, she learned about pictures. But there came a day during the filming of The Three Musketeers, when the revolution arrived. The company had been working out at the R-K-0 ranch in the middle of San Fernando Valley. It was exactly 132 degrees, and Lucille and the other girls were all done up in heavy wigs, plumes, brocade dresses and three petticoats apiece. The result was that several girls fainted, and Lucille took the step that finally led her to stardom. She rebelled. She announced to the assembled throng that she might never make another picture, but she was never going to play "extra" again! They could tear up her contract. She was finished. She came back to town and into the office of the casting director. She issued her ultimatum for the second time. To her amazement, he said, "Okay. From now on, you play bits." But even after she started doing bit parts, as far as Hollywood was concerned she was still a show-girl. Whenever anyone suggested Ball for a part in anything, the reaction was, "Oh, Lucy? Great kid! Fine pair of legs! But she can't act!" No one bothered to find out whether she could or not. In the beginning, it must be admitted, she was no Duse. But as time went on, she decided that her profession was worth investigating thoroughly. By dint of reading scripts with every available person, of rehearsing with a coach until she was blue in the face, of declaiming until she was hoarse, Lucille learned something about acting. Then, she started looking for a part. At that crucial moment, a Broadway scout popped up with an offer of a role in a Broadway production. Would Miss Ball be interested? And how! The show was called Hey, Diddle, Diddle and Lucille made a name for herself. Meanwhile, R-K-O had not been idle. They had signed up Gregory LaCava to make Stage Door and they began sending frantic wires to Lucy to come home and be in it. She did, and bounced off the plane thinking, "Stardom, here I come!" LaCava took one look at her and said, "Once a show-girl, always a show-girl. She won't do for a dramatic part." He refused even to test her! The upshot was that, in her capacity of stock girl under contract to R-K-O, Lucille was called in to read opposite all the girls who were being tested for the part she had been brought back from New York to play! She threw lines around until she jittered — lines, incidentally, which got onto the film they were shooting of her rivals. And, one morning, LaCava, after seeing Ball emote for the ninety-sixth time, finally broke down. "She can act," he admitted. And the part was Lucille's. Even after notices on her performance in Stage Door which should have made the bosses throw her a lead in a B-picture at least, nothing happened. There was no part, no build-up — just bits, and more bits. She made seven pictures after Stage Door in which she did entrances and exits. Once in a while she even had a line or two. But she was still a showgirl. Then it happened again. She made Five Came Back. She played a honky-tonk girl and was sensational. It was a dramatic part and she handled it beautifully. The public loved her, the critics loved her. And the frontoffice put her into dancing costumes and told her to look pretty for three months. She was still a showgirl. Finally a gent named Damon Runyon produced a picture called The Big Street. In the first reel the heroine has an accident which cripples her. From then on she's in a wheelchair until she dies in the last five minutes of the play. She doesn't move. She only acts, with her hands, her eyes, her voice. And, Runyon, bless his soul, picked Lucille Ball for the part. She's at M-G-M now, starring in DuBarry Was a Lady. Dancing, singing, doing comedy. But she'll go on to roles that haven't a single song or a dance. Hollywood, a little late, but on its toes, has finally decided that Lucille Ball is more than a show-girl. It's taken the sixtyseventh look, and discovered she's an actress! ■ 32