Lucille Ball.

On March 3, 1960, Ball filed for divorce from Desi Arnaz, the day after the last episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour; they divided their $20-million television empire equally, each retaining 25% of Desilu stock.

Before her movie career, she was a model at Hattie Carnegie’s in New York, mainly modeling heavy fur coats because she was startlingly thin as a young woman.

Stricken by rheumatoid arthritis early in her modeling career, she spent two years re-learning how to walk.

While contemplating whether to do I Love Lucy 1951, Ball claimed that in a dream Carole Lombard told her to Give it a whirl.

Ball was six years older than first husband Desi Arnaz and 13 years older than second husband Gary Morton; for years she and Arnaz obscured this by splitting the difference in their ages, each claiming to be born in 1914.

Few people recognize her role in the dawn of Star Trek; as head of Desilu, she decided to go ahead with the project against advisers’ warnings that it would bankrupt her—and it did, contributing to her selling the company.

TV Guide picked her as the greatest TV star of all time.

She gave birth to her first child, Lucie Desiree Arnaz, at age 39 on July 17, 1951 via Caesarean section.

In 1958, to raise funds, she and Desi Arnaz took Desilu public on the NYSE at $10 per share; each retained 25% and sold 25%, with Ball investing her $2.5-million windfall in bonds and securities.

Originally interred at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, CA, she was re-interred in 2003 in the Ball family plot at Lake View Cemetery, Jamestown, NY.

Her acting mentors were Buster Keaton and Red Skelton.

Contrary to their respective I Love Lucy personas, in real life Ball was frugal while Desi Arnaz was the spendthrift.

She put her Chesterfield cigarettes in a Philip Morris package to please her sponsor on I Love Lucy 1951.

Ball and Desi Arnaz were married a second time in 1946 in a church because his mother believed the couple could not have children without a Catholic wedding; their first marriage in 1940 was at the Byram River Beagle Club in Connecticut.

She was fired from an ice cream store because she kept forgetting to put bananas in banana splits.

A preview audience member for Follow the Fleet 1936 commented about bit-player Ball: ‘You might give the tall gum-chewing blonde more parts and see if she can’t make the grade—a good gamble.

Her company, Desilu Productions, produced The Untouchables 1959, Mission: Impossible 1966, and Star Trek 1966, among other series.

In 1966, her salary as President of Desilu Productions was $100,000, and her acting fees for that year were $130,172.

During a Barbara Walters interview, Jane Fonda stated that her father, Henry Fonda, was deeply in love with Ball and that the two were very close during the filming of Yours, Mine and Ours 1968.

During the filming of Roman Scandals 1933, Ball played a slave girl and had to have her eyebrows entirely shaved off; they never grew back.

She had a superstition about the letters A and R, which is why her character was named Lucy Ricardo on I Love Lucy, Lucy Carmichael on The Lucy Show, Lucy Carter on Here’s Lucy, Helen North Beardsley in Yours, Mine and Ours, and Lucy Barker in Life with Lucy; she also married Desi Arnaz.

When she and Desi Arnaz moved to 1000 North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills, Jack Benny was their next-door neighbor at 1002 North Roxbury Drive.

She gave birth to her second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV Desi Arnaz Jr., at age 41 on January 19, 1953 via Caesarean section.

She is pictured on a 34-cent US commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series issued August 6, 2001; in 2009, she and Vivian Vance were pictured on a 44-cent stamp in the Early Television Memories issue.

Her last television appearance was in 1989 on the 62nd Academy Awards with Bob Hope, announcing the nominations and winner of Best Picture; she died less than a month later.

She was one of 20 original Goldwyn Girls, along with Virginia Bruce, Ann Dvorak, Paulette Goddard, and Betty Grable.

She and Broderick Crawford announced their engagement in 1936 but never married; it was claimed RKO fronted the story to cover her affair with producer Pandro S. Berman.

Ball mentored not only her own children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., but also performers like Ruth Buzzi, Carol Burnett, and Carole Cook.

Early in her career she claimed she was born in Butte, MT, where her father died, earning her the nickname Montana.

She received the Women’s International Center Living Legacy Award posthumously in 1990.

It was at the urging of dance director Busby Berkeley that Samuel Goldwyn put her under contract for Roman Scandals 1933; the producer initially nixed the idea.

Her younger brother Fred Ball moved from Jamestown to Hollywood in the 1930s, often toured with Desi Arnaz’s band, and was on the Board of Directors of Desilu Productions; he later ran a motel in Cottonwood, Arizona.

When her later series The Lucy Show 1962 and Here’s Lucy 1968 became popular, co-creator Jess Oppenheimer alleged her character was Lucy Ricardo renamed and settled for $220,000 rather than go to court.

She was Frank Sinatra’s first choice for the role of Laurence Harvey’s mother in The Manchurian Candidate 1962, but John Frankenheimer convinced him to see Angela Lansbury in a play.

Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

Not long after the Arnazes bought their house on 1000 North Roxbury Drive, it was first featured in The Tour 1955 with Richard Widmark guest-starring; she climbs over the fence to pick a grapefruit from his backyard.

Though starring in many 1940s musical comedies for MGM, her contract allowed her to honor prior commitments; she starred in The Dark Corner 1946 for 20th Century-Fox and Lured 1947.

She once registered as a voter for the Communist party as a favor to her grandfather, Frederick Charles Hunt.