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Lucille Ball

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55
first
2022-02-07
most recent
2022-02-07
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1
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podcast

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  1. “So they get divorced in 1960. She gets remarried in 1961. She's writing this book in 1964. And fortunately, she still lives another 25 years after this, but there's a happy ending. Desi seems to be much happier and healthier now in retirement. I'm glad for our children's sake that they now have two happy homes rather than one miserable, unhappy home. Desi and I keep in close touch about the children in a way we never could when we were married. I'm grateful for the amicable feeling now between Desi and me and Gary, her new husband, and the children. Desi phones me often to discuss the children or the show, and he plays golf with Gary. Since our lives have been straightened out, the children have improved in their schoolwork and they laugh more. Children internalize their parents' unhappiness. Fortunately, they absorb our contentment just as readily. I'm happiest when I'm working, rising the challenges. I've become a woman with a capacity for happiness again.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I planned, and then she talked about just completely changing her life. I plan to do a movie with Bob Hope that summer, then a Broadway musical. After that, the children and I would live in Switzerland. I wanted to get as far away from Hollywood and Desi as humanly possible. He could run Desilu, and I would remove myself permanently. It didn't work out that way, but that was my original idea. And so the stress is too much for him as well. So he winds up leaving. And 1957 RKO studios became Desi Lu Studios. In 1962, Lucille bought out Desi's controlling interest in the company, thus becoming the first women president of any major television studio ever”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “In one of our last shows, I played a Geisha girl. My eyes were red from hours of weeping. Whenever I looked at Desi, I could feel my expression hardening, cold, implacable hate oozed through every pore, for Desi and for myself too. I loathed my new self, but I couldn't bring my new self, but I couldn't bring myself to ask Desi for a divorce. He had to be the one to make the break. Soon after this episode was shot, Desi asked me for a divorce. I had a lawyer in his office in twenty minutes.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “She was just looking for some kind of stability, which this fiery, passionate love affair she had for two decades is just, as she said, it's like living on top of a volcano. I'm a strong independent woman, but making myself weaker didn't help Desi. I had to realize that deep down he wanted to make all the mistakes in the book and wanted to suffer the consequences. He's also a full-blown alcoholic at this point. He needed to punish himself. Towards the end of our marriage, he was practically jumping out of windows. I was at fault too. I had lost my good humor and sense of proportion. When you're too mad and too rattled to see straight, you're bound to make mistakes. You can't go on and on for years being miserable about a situation and not have it change you. You get so you can't stand yourself. And I just wrote, damn, by the spring of 1960, Desi and I were totally estranged, although we still had to be both actor and director on the show. How crazy is this? The fun was gone. It saddened our entire crew to watch the painful disaster.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Better for Desilu, we wish we could say the same for Desi and Lucy. The following spring I made my last effort towards a reconciliation with Desi. Desi was restless, uncommunicative, and bored. I was completely disenchanted, bitter and unforgiving, and the kids saw and heard way too much. I realized that we never really liked each other. We had a great attraction going for each other in the beginning, but we didn't approve of each other. I was disapproved, he disapproved, excuse me. He disapproved of my moderation and my conservatism. I was a square, he said. I disapproved of the way he worked too hard, played too hard, and was never moderate in anything. It was like living on top of a volcano. You never knew when it would erupt or why. I want to pause here where she just said I realize we never really liked each other. She's like, we fell in love. We were in love before we were in like. Her next marriage is completely opposite. She's like, we liked each other and then we learned to love each other.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Essentially, just have leisure. She does find another activity. She winds up teaching, acting. She really likes teaching and helping young people. And so this is when she decides, hey, I want to give back just like Leela gave to me. Remember I said she had this little RKO theater, right? Well, now, in this point of the story, Lucy owns RKO. That's when I remembered how much I enjoyed my teaching experience and decided to reactivate Leela Rogers Theater Workshop on the RKO lot. Her original theater was still standing, although it cost $90,000 to put it back into shape. My idea was to give some talented youngsters a boost in show business. So she comes full circle. Unfortunately, she's at the peak of her professional success, but she is personally miserable. So says Desi was the studio's top salesman, chief executive officer, and programming director. We had just concluded our company's most successful year with $24 million of gross business and net profits over $800,000. Things had never been”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Having somebody to talk to. Remember, she's wildly successful, but the apex of her success is the worst time in her relationship. And then she also has to reconcile with imposter syndrome and just all this self-doubt. While we were at the peak of our popularity, I continue to feel guilt-ridden and anxious. I don't deserve all this love and adulation I would tell myself. So she's under an unbelievable amount of stress. Not only do they're running Lucy, but they have a bunch of other shows. They do like Star Trek, Mission Impossible. There's a bunch of shows that they own through their production company in their studio that is starting to weigh heavy on both Desi and Lucy. So says, I've never seen Desi in such a state. I was terrified he was going to seriously hurt himself. I realized for the first time how the strain of our snowballing empire was eating away at him. As we began, they thought they were going to leave, right? Check this out. This is wild. As we began the 1956 season, I Love Lucy's show was still on top of the heap, and we faced with a hard decision. Should we retire or not? Originally, we had planned a five-year stint with television and all of our contracts had been written with this deadline in mind. Then we had planned to quit.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “But she points out something here. It's like you have to be careful what you wish for. You might think, oh, I want to be the number one show, I want to be the best, I want to be the biggest. And she makes the points like, no, I would have taken, if you have half the success, you have more money you ever need, right? But you have way less stress. You might get 50% of the money and have 90% less stress. You want to take that transaction if you can. Having the love and adoration of millions was wonderful and thrilling, but I could have done with half of our success for it came with a lot of new stress. And she talks about in the book, like, you know, I'm loved by everybody, but she found her level of fame disorienting. Outsiders who don't understand think we have a chip on her shoulder, but it's not that at all. We're just so used to failure to being hurt and to being rebuffed that we can easily come unhinged by success. So she's got a couple breakdowns, emotional breakdowns in here. She winds up getting help, seeking like...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Can open up potential opportunities that you can't possibly predict in the future, so you never waste a day, you're constantly learning, constantly learning from the experience you have at work, doing professional research, reading, doing all this other stuff. And she talks about this here. To my delight, I discovered that I Love Lucy show drew from everything that I had learned in movies, radio, theater, and vaudeville. I wanted everything about the venture to be top flight. We argued a good deal at first because we all cared so passionately. Sometimes we discuss phrasing a word or emphasis in a line of dialogue until past midnight. And then it gets into just how crazy this experience was. I love Lucy's been called the most popular television show of all time. Our shows change the Monday night habits of America. Remember, there isn't, I was trying to explain this to my daughter the other day. She's like, she doesn't even understand commercials. But then she's just like, wait, so you had to, because she's also reading a biography of Lucille Ball at the same time I am, like a kids version. And she's like, she talked.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “The show. So CBS owns it when it is broadcast. Once that broadcast ends, Desi and Lucy own it. This is crazy that the CBS gave it up for so cheap, for $1,000 a week, right? Because what's crazy, remember this for later. They're going to, I think like eight years or into the future somewhere from here. Desien and Lucy are going to sell it back to CBS for millions and millions of dollars, then use that money to buy their own studio. Okay, so we're not there yet. And she's talking about their expectations at the very beginning. Just thought, oh, maybe it'll survive. Maybe it won't. Design and I were excited and happy planning our first big venture together. I thought that I love Lucy was a pleasant little situation comedy that might even survive its first season. 60 million people are going to watch the show. To my delight, I discovered that I love Lucy's show. Drew from...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Go with these phenomenons. And so Lucy was quick to that realization. So it's like, well, I'm going to try TV. They say I'll never be a movie role again. Well, I'll just do TV then. And then some other innovations says Desi suggested that we film the show live in front of an audience. This wasn't common at the time. The network people screamed. A film show cost twice as much as a live one. And what's crazy is so they would used to do all They would broadcast live, right? Instead of filming it. And so therefore after it ran, they wouldn't have copies of the show anymore. And so they do another smart thing here where they're like, okay, they're like CBS is like, no, we don't want to do this because a film show cost twice as much. So it says the sponsor wouldn't put up any more money and neither would CBS. So Desi made an offer. In return for a thousand dollar weekly salary cut for us, we were given complete ownership of...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Variation of what I'm doing on my favorite husband with this chemistry, this on-stream chemistry and talent that me and my husband have and will own the show. And so there's many innovations that they actually make. They're the first people to do a lot of things. Like I said earlier, they're the innovators of the syndicated rerun, which is pretty wild. But they're also talking about they embrace radio, or excuse me, they embrace TV, even though people said you can't do TV because you'll never act again. This is going to remind me something that Bill Gates and Walt Disney both learned. So it says at the time television was regarded as the enemy by Hollywood. So terrified was Hollywood of this medium movie people were afraid to even make guest appearances, meaning while she's embracing it. So Walt Disney, he backed out of a deal, I think it was with United Artists because at the time there's only like 2,000 television sets in the entire world. And I want to say it's United Artists, whatever the company is. They're like, hey, we want to do this deal. We'll give you the money that you need for the financing that you're looking for. But we have...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Version of Isle of Lucy and everybody said no. Remember they're saying no to what eventually turns into one of the most successful TV shows of all time, man. Just keep going. In 1950, Desi and I decided that since nobody else seemed to have faith in us as a team, we'd form our own company to promote ourselves. Desi Lou Productions was launched. We put together a Mr. and Mrs. Vaudeville Act, so he would do, she would do like a stand-up prop routine. He would play music. They wind up touring it around. It says we broke the act around San Diego and San Francisco at various army camps. This is a precursor I love Lucy. When Word got around that we were liked six months worth of theater contracts materialized throughout the USA. So they start doing it locally. People like it. Then they start taking it on the road. At the same time, her radio show is being successful. She gets approached by CBS, so she has idea, hey, let's combine these two. We'll make an amalgamation or a combination of the radio show.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Particularly this relationship, this connection would become particularly fruitful in the years to come. In 1949, Desi and I instituted a stay-at-home policy. I was still childless, which caused me great heartache. Desi and I talked far into the night. We finally decided that Desi would give up his cross-country tours and only take local engagements. We would also talk to the doctors to see why we could not get pregnant, so she had had, I think, two miscarriages up until this point. I told Desi that I would try to be a better wife, more loving, and more understanding. So they're just talking about, she's like, I'm doing okay in my career, but my relationship is still up and down. And so they want to do better in their career. They want to do better as a marriage, and they want to have kids. And the note I left myself on this page is just she's got founder mentality. In 1950, Desi and I decided to take that since nobody else seemed to have faith in us as a team, they'd went around trying to shop them having a show based on them. Almost like a”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So she's being manipulated, taken advantage of, and she talks about, hey, hey, they do this, they only do this to you because you're weak, so make yourself strong. But of course, I'm in a different position now. They only pick on you when you can be picked on. After you reach a certain level, they wouldn't dare treat you so rudely”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So she mentioned earlier how helpful was to have mentors explain stories of people in Hollywood and their ups and downs of the career. She says it was like reading an autobiography. You realized, hey, this has happened to me too. Her career is full of that until she gets to Lucy and then from there once she's in control. So she says, I had a driving consuming ambition to succeed in show business. But here's the problem. My movie career had seemed to be stalled. I wasn't getting anywhere. The years were speeding by. I was still childless and my dream of co-starring with Desi and working side by side by side as a team seemed hopeless.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I didn't expect Desi to be around when I got back, but he was. He looked white and stricken. Lucy, he said, the next time I marry, I'm going to be a better husband. And the next time I marry, I'm going to be a better wife, I answered truthfully. Desi's face brightened. Then why don't we both try it out on each other? He suggested. I didn't believe Desi could change, but he did for a time. I paid $2,000 in fees for the divorce I never got, but it was worth it. For a long time, Desi came home every night and we both tried very hard to make things work. I closed my eyes, put my blinders on, and ignored what was too painful to think about.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I don't believe he ever really intended to settle down and become a good, steady, faithful husband, but we remained very deeply and passionately in love. And she talks about that later on. She's like, I'm one of the most famous people in the world. And my husband is out there embarrassing me, getting photographed and caught with other women. Like, how much of this can I possibly take? And it seems like that was one-sided. It seems like she was completely faithful to him. She talks about this is still, she's relatively young. I think she's around 30. She's 30 years old around this time. She says my biggest disappointment in life then was not having children. My scrapbooks of my early days in Hollywood, even before I was married, are filled with magazine illustrations of adorable pink cheeked children. When I'd write next to each picture, when and when and when. So she's looking back on her diary, her notebook of that time. And so this is something you and I talk about all the time. Like, what is the main motivation for entrepreneurs? Like, why the hell are we doing this insane thing?”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “And so now I'm a few chapters later. This is in the movie as well. One night soon after we married. So this is a relationship of extremes. This is the note of myself here. One night soon after we were married, Desi and I had a loud, loud fight. The next morning I got out of bed at dawn and walked outside. We had a brand new station wack and park there. I took the hammer and walked around the new car, smashing every window. What satisfaction that was. Then I telephoned Andy Hickcocks. That's her business manager and told him to get it fixed at my expense. And in those early years, our fights were a kind of love making. Desi and I enjoyed them, but they exhausted our friends and family.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “relationship with like this you probably have seen friends that do this like they're not compatible they fight but they are completely addicted and obsessed with each other that's the way I would think about their relationship this marriage had to work I would do anything sacrifice anything to make Desi happy it was November 30th 1940 the most momentous day of my life”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So, Desi just said, or she just said that he doesn't think about tomorrow. Desi's phoning her, he's sending her telegrams. He told me that he was so upset about me staying in Milwaukee. He had been arranging an elopement. He had postponed it five times. But I thought we decided we couldn't get married, I said. That's right, he agreed, but we are. I went to bed deliriously happy. And so what she did, she has a contract to be in a show in Milwaukee. She dips out on the contract. She goes back to New York and they wind up getting married. Inwardly, I was terrified at what I was doing. I knew how funny, I knew how Latins can be, how jealous and possessive in many ways marrying Desi was one of the boldest things I ever did. I wanted him and only him as the father of my children. And so this goes on. These quotes I'm reading, you are having over many, many pages. This gives you an insight into just how they were, you probably, I don't know if you have an experience.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “or went overboard drinking or gambling. So he loved to drink, he loved to gamble. Obviously loved to be with different women all the time. We were both head over heels in love and we both longed with all of our hearts for a home, for our own of our own and children. But everything else in the picture seemed hopelessly negative. We agreed that night we could never marry. So they wanted to be married. I think it's like within the first few months of meeting. So they're having this discussion They're having this long talk. She's about to leave to go to a show and they're just saying, you know, we're too different, we have different religions, we have different everything. Like we love each other, we're addicted to each other, but we can't get married. This is a bad idea. So she leaves the next day. I thought everything was over, but Desi couldn't say goodbye. He phoned me almost every hour. Then I took a train to Milwaukee.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Soon learned that in striking out on your own, you have to throw out your chest and sell yourself. And then she brings us back into present day when she's telling the story. Everyone at the studio knew I was starry-eyed over Desi, and most of them warned me against him. But I had flipped. I had never been so sold on any man before, and so she talks about.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Wild woman he had met at lunch and had to be introduced all over again. He invited me to dinner and I accepted. We went to a nightclub, but instead of joining the Congo line, we sat at a small table talking and talking and talking. I met as well admit here now and there. I fell in love with Desi in five minutes. There was only one thing better than looking at Desi and that was talking to him.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “My talent. I wound up trying radio. This turned out to be one of the smartest things I ever did. And so that's what I was tying together earlier, how the fact is this weird circumstance causes her to not get rules for a little bit. And then she's like, okay, I'll do radio. The fact that she was so good at radio winds up getting her noticed by CBS Television and then that's going to launch to her. She goes from orders of magnitude, higher levels of fame than when she was just on the radio, whether she was playing minor roles in these B-list movies. So then she gets into one of the most important relationships, the most important relationship she ever has in her life, and that's the one with...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “And so they're constantly getting approached. And so she gets approached by a married man. He's very powerful, but she's like, I can't, like, I'm not going to break up, he's got young kids. I'm not going to break up their marriage. And so she winds up getting blackballed because of this. So she says, that's the kind of marriage I wanted. I respected this producer's talent. He was attractive, young, and vital, but I couldn't allow myself to fall in love with him because of his wife and children. And so his wife winds up finding out he's trying to leave her for Lucy. Lucy's like, no, I don't want to be with you. And all of her friends are saying, you know, you messed up. You don't understand how this business works. All of my friends said, you dope if you had married that guy. You would be on top. Now you'll never make it. And the wife will get all the other Hollywood wives to blackball you. So this winds up, she's stuck to her convictions. It winds up at the time she didn't realize. It winds up being a good thing because she has a lull in the role she's getting. And so she has to look around. So she says, I had to give Hollywood a rest and look around for other showcases.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “growing up, she had a very fractured family. She moved around a lot, lived in different places, ran away, and she's like, I want home. I want home. And so she talks about her grandparents' relationship. I knew no force on heaven or earth would be strong enough to pull those two apart. That's the kind of marriage I wanted. I respected this producer's talent, so she talks about in Hollywood a lot of these stars are sleeping their way to the top.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So, one of the saddest things is that by far, she winds up having a second marriage. She gets married to her second husband. She's married to him until she dies. They're actually married longer, like for 31 years. She was only married to Desi for 20. But Desi's, you could see in the book. In this book, she's already remarried, and it's about, she was completely obsessed with Desi, but they had a very tumultuous relationship. It's in the book, but it's also in the movie. They're either fighting or having sex. And it's the extremes of like they had an intensely passionate love affair. And unfortunately, it didn't end the way she wanted because she talks a lot in this book about the kind of marriage that she wanted. She starts saying what her grandparents had, and she just talks about having a home and what she meant is like not having a house to live in, but like a home with a husband and kids and like a loving environment. But essentially think about it, like what she didn't have.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “having a positive mental attitude, the importance of learning from other people's experience and just don't complain. There's something that Trumpy Munger said that popped in my mind when I was reading this, and I'll tell you that in a minute. So, Lucy says, I believe that we're as happy in life as we make our minds to be. All actors and actresses, no matter how talented or famous, have ups and downs in their careers. It's just the nature of business. One of her other mentors, I'll skip over the name, used to tell me about dozens of Hollywood people who ran into trouble. This was comforting, like reading an autobiography and thinking, well, that happened to them too. I'm not the only one. At RKAO, I was known for being the starlet who never complained. And so something that I think about all the time is what Charlie said. I mean, I think about a lot of things that Charlie says, but Charlie”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Leela advised us to work on ourselves and pay no attention to corporate machinations. Leela taught us never to see anyone as bigger or more important than ourselves. And then she takes this mindset and runs with it. I'm going to tell you something else that's smart that Lucy said. There's all these inserts with pictures and a quick caption. I do want to read one to you because this was also surprising to me and it's something that's also in the movie if you happen to watch it. The fact that radio gave Lucy the audience recognition and claim that it had so far eluded her in movies. So again, she's a B-less actress in movies. She does this radio show that's a 30-minute weekly radio show that is so successful CBS television is like, hey, we want to adapt this idea, a show very similar to the radio you're doing for, can we adapt this to TV? I'm not being clear at all there. So take the radio show, put it on TV. That's when she's like, okay, I'll do it, but I'm going to do it with my husband and I want to own the show. So that radio show becomes the cornerstone of her empire. But this is something smart that Lucy's realizing even when she's young. Really the importance of...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “And then she realizes that Lucy has talent and she has a conversation with her. What would you give to be a star in two years? Leela asked me, gee, what do you mean, I responded. Would you give me every breath you draw for two years? Will you work seven days a week? Will you sacrifice all of your social life? I certainly will, I promised. Okay, she said, let's start. Leela was the first person to see me as a clown with glamour. It was such a busy, happy time for me. Leela took off the dungarees and put me into a dress. She made us she talking about doing this for her and also a bunch of other young stars, our young struggling soon to be stars or want to be stars. She made us read good literature to improve our English and expand our understanding of the character. Leela taught us to dedicate ourselves to our work and to ignore the nerve-wracking rumors of calamity issuing from the front office. I never played politics at RKO and it wouldn't have helped if I had. RKO had eleven presidents in fourteen years.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “She's saying I had to get up at six, I had to get up at seven. But now she's writing this. She worked at RKO. Now when she's writing it, she owned the studio. And she says something here that's a great flex. The same guard greets me at the front gate today. So I mentioned earlier the role she played for Arnold. She mentored her and she tried to take care of him. She tried to do whatever she could. She winds up doing live theater and being mentored by a master. And so this is Ginger Rogers' mother, Ginger Rogers was a famous actress at the time. And her name's Leela. So it says the wonderful thing about Leela was that she was a mom, quote unquote, to a bevy of young stars, young struggling stars. She directed RKO's Little Theater. Remember this for later? Remember this part for later. This is wild. I just remember this now rereading it. She directed RKO's Little Theater, where promising young people from other studios came to be tutored by this wise, warm woman.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “DeeDee to come out to Hollywood. When DeeDee saw the little white bungalow in Hollywood, she burst into tears. This was one of the few times I ever saw her give away to her feelings. She came prepared to find work as a sales lady, but I put my foot down. Her working days were over, I told her. So her and her brother, she's a younger brother that's also working in Hollywood. She came out first and her brother comes out and then they start moving out the entire family. They move out her mom. They move out her grandfather, which she calls daddy. And so this is what she says about that. Keeping the household afloat was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I cherished every minute of it. It was tough going financially at times. I was earning only $50 a week and Freddie was making about the same, but it gave me a real purpose in life. I felt wanted and needed and I was grateful to have the family together again. Each morning I'd get up at 6 so I could be at the studio by 7 o'clock. And the crazy thing is she's working for RKO Studios, right? And so she's still in her early”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Keep that in mind. So it says, I thought I was doing good, but Russell impressed upon me on the necessity of saving. You don't have to start a savings account with $1,000, he used to tell me. You can start with $1. On his advice, I put $25 into the bank every payday. Otherwise, he'd said, I would never survive the parched periods in between pictures. And so she says, by this time I was determined to stay in Hollywood. I would do what I had to make sure I could survive for the long haul. That's that long-term perspective again. I worked long, hard hours without complaint. I would work 16 hours a day. So there's a lot in her career that I'm obviously skipping over. She gets contracts. She's essentially like a B list actor for a very, very long time. You could consider her a B-list actor until she starts I Love Lucy. And so she gets all these different contracts. She's making a little bit of money. And so she's like, okay, I need my best friend out here. I need my mom. The next day I phoned my mom and told.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Then loaned out en masse to 20th century Fox. And so think about this as something she also didn't like too, is like you're on contract work. So she has a contract for a month and then sometimes she has a contract for six months. And then she goes to different studios and the studio will renew a contract on a yearly basis. But she didn't like that because then you could just end your contract. You could try to go somewhere else, but she wanted control of her career. So this is going to say 15 years, 15 to 20 years of doing stuff like this before she's like, I want to run my own show. I want to own the show. I want to be in complete control. I don't want to just be a contract person. But before I get there, she does have some good advice that she gets from this guy that recruited her, this Russell guy. He says, life was hectic, but the money was good. I thought I was doing great. And so she's probably making maybe $50 a week, $75 a week is what she's talking about here. She's going to sell her company for the equivalent of like $150 million today. So keep in mind.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “So it says, in those days there was no definitive working hour. She's talking about early Hollywood. We slaved all day and sometimes until 3 in the morning. So she's like a, I don't even think she has words. I'm pretty sure she's just seen in the movie. It's called Roman Scandals. She says Roman scandals were supposed to be filmed in six weeks, but it's stretched into six months. I loved everything about movie making, the money, meeting so many different kinds of people, the high excitement of each day. And then so on this movie, she winds up being, because this was supposed to be a contract, and then once the contract the movie's over, like your contract's up, she says there was another remarkable stroke of good luck. And so a young man was on the set. He said, hi, Lucy. He introduced himself as Russell Markert and reminded me that we had already met one time in New York. He was going to be a choreographer for a big film that was going to be filmed called Mulan Rouge. He was visiting the set to see if he could pick up some showgirls for the film. He wanted to know if I wanted to be in the film. The Goldwin girls, which she was a part of was...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Say that I was discouraged for some incomprehensible reason. I knew that someday I would make it. She says, remember, there are practically no overnight successes. Before that brilliant hit performance came ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty years in the salt mines sweating it out.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “At the end of the term, the school wrote my mother and said, sorry, but I didn't have what it takes to be an actress. She would just be wasting her money if I continued. And so she gives a takeaway from this. She gets kicked out and she just goes to New York and just tries to take any job possible. And this is the lesson here. I soon learned that to survive in theater, you have to be very strong, very healthy, and damned resilient. Rarely does anyone give you an encouraging word that the same advice for entrepreneurs right there, right? You have to be very strong, very healthy, very damn resilient. Rarely does anyone give you an encouraging word. And then we go into this excessive work ethic that she has her entire life. I'd show up early for rehearsals and stay until they had to sweep me off the stage. I didn't give up. I wore out the souls of my shoes trudging up and down the street to casting offices. So there's years of this experience. I want to get to the punchline.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Later, people from the school, her former teachers, asked to meet her backstage like, we always knew you could do it. And she's like, no, you didn't. She said the very opposite. You kicked me out of the school.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “So she goes to acting school in New York, and it does not go well. In short order, they discovered that I couldn't sing, I couldn't dance, and I couldn't control my body or my voice properly. Both students and teachers ignored me, which almost seemed fitting. To me, everyone was head and shoulders above me in every way. At the end of the term, the school wrote my mother and said that they were sorry, but I didn't have what it takes to be an actress. Remember, this is a school that teaches acting, telling what is going to wind up being one of the most successful actresses that ever lives, that she can't do it, sorry you're not cut out for this. Remember what the advice that she gave, Arnold, when they tell you no, you hear yes and you act accordingly. Someone says, no, we can't do this movie, you hug him, and you say thank you for believing in me. There's so many examples on this book that she's giving that advice because that was her lived experience. Because these idiots right here are diminishing a young person's dream. And then what happens is many, many years ago.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Not, she would sit up until midnight many nights sewing us costumes. Such is a reminder to support our kids' goals. And then this continues at the end of high school. She's like, okay, I want to do this. This is how Lucy gets into acting school. And again, it's because of the love and support of her mother. I itched to go places and do things. Didi was beside herself with worry about me. She finally decided that if I was bound to run away, it would be better if she helped and guided me. She said to me one day, Lucille, how would you like to go to dramatic school? My eyes popped. Could we afford it? I've already been to the bank and remember they do not have, I don't know, I should say, remember, I haven't told you this. They don't have a lot of money at all. So the fact that this is what her mom does is just really, really amazing. My eyes pop. Could we afford it? I've already been to the bank and they'll lend me the money she said to me. My mother was always willing to go into debt for a good cause.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Get to her marriage with Desi. It is wild. That summer that I was 14, and if you want an illustration of that, watch that movie Being Ricardos because it's in that movie as well as in this book that summer that I was 14, an immense restlessness swept over me. Things weren't going too well at home. My mom and Ed got divorced five or six years later, but the first real fights and arguments started around this time. I worried about her and the hard life that she led. And even though her mom's going through a difficult time, she's extremely supportive mother. And then Lucy hits on something here. She's like, I don't know what I want to be. I just know this ain't it. This is not life has to be better than this. I had no thought of being an actress at that time. I just wanted to be somebody. And so she gets encouraged to try out at a school play. And her mom is supportive from day one. DeeDee never tried to hem me in. Be an actress? Sure.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “To teach me, we constructed a laboratory of sorts. He was a skin specialist, so he was in the beauty industry, and that's obviously where she built her empire. Uncle John had worlds to teach me. We constructed a laboratory of sorts in the tiny stable behind the house. Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams quite seriously to teach her secrets? And so that is something she's writing many decades after it happens in her case, the foundation of what the Empire, the cornerstone of the empire that she's going to build. And she's saying, this is extremely important. If we have the ability to encourage young people. And so this idea, it's like, well, no, you're not a runaway. You're not a screw up. Who cares if you're not good at school? You're funny. You're an entertainer. People will pay for those skills. Why don't you get on the stage? And then her mother, she starts to become worried for her mother because her mom remarried and that marriage was not a good marriage. So there's another tumultuous relationship that she's seeing play out. Wait till we...”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “And then Lucy goes into more of being just this runaway teenager, being very unhappy about her life circumstances. And we see this, that usually there's somebody in these life stories where you have an older person that actually takes time and demonstrates, hey, I actually care about you. Like you have worth as an individual. Estay Lauder's uncle, her uncle John, played the role that this principal is going to play for Lucy. So she says, I ran away a lot. I'd leave the classroom for a drink of water and I would just never come back. I think my main need was for somebody to talk to, to confide in, some wise and sympathetic older person. My school principal Bernard Drake became such a person. And so she comes back and visits him many, many years later after she's world famous. Mr. Drake was the first person to label my exuberant feelings as talent and to urge me to get on the stage. And so from S.A. Lauder's autobiography, she says, Uncle John had world.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “And then she picks up on something at the very end of the chapter about her childhood that, yeah, it's a negative to go through. But if you can survive these environments, it makes you extremely strong. The way I would summarize what she's about to tell us is this investor, Josh Wolfe, has this great saying. It's a great maxim, I think, of all the time. Chips on shoulders puts chips in pockets. People with happy childhoods never overdo. They don't strive to or exert themselves. They're moderate, pleasant, well-liked, and good citizens. Society needs them. But the tremendous drive and dedication necessary to succeed in any field not only show business often seems to be rooted in a disturbed childhood. And so Josh's point is if you go through a tumultuous childhood, you have a disturbed childhood, it's going to put a chip on your shoulder and you're going to want to have that tremendous drive to show people that they were wrong for discounting you. And so chips on shoulders puts chips in pocket.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “This knowledge comes to you later in life once you have children of your own. And so later on in this chapter, she talks about learning from those mistakes and doing something different. At this point in her life, her dad is dead. Her grandmother is dead. Her grandmother dies of, so her dad dies of typhoid fever 28. Her grandmother dies at 51 years old of cancer. So her dad is dead. Her grandmother's dead. Her mom is gone all the time, and she's 11 years old. And she says, I miss not having her around all the time. It winds up being like her best friend. That day-to-day closeness that I try to give my own children. And so she's writing these words when she's now older than her grandmother was when she died. So her grandmother dies at 51. She's around 53, 54 when she's writing these words.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “My grandmother Peterson to think for the gnawing sense of unworthiness and insecurity that has haunted me for years, the Puritan idea that everything pleasurable is somehow bad almost ruined for me the first joys of our big I Love Lucy success. The hardest thing for me was getting used to the idea that I deserved it. Throughout the book she calls her mother DeeDee and her grandfather Daddy, so I don't want to confuse you there, but DeeDee's a big character. She's essentially like Lucy's best friend and talks about looking back, you know, she had to leave to make money. She had really no choice and she felt really guilty about it. DeeDee still feels guilty about the time we were part, but I understand that circumstances forced our separation. When we speak of the slights, this is really important and I found what Lucy's about to tell us to be true in my own life. When we speak of the slights of our childhood, it is hard to remember that often people were struggling to do their level best.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “So she has this very disjointed childhood. Her mom has to find work. She's sent sometimes to live with grandmothers or family members. In this case, in the story, she's sent to live with her now new stepdad strict parents while her mom looks for a job and she hates it. And so she says, they were like a very strict disciplined family. She says, I don't suppose that hard work, discipline, and a perfectionist attitude towards my work did me any harm. This is something she actually learned from them. And that's another thing that's surprising to you is just how committed she was to being the very best comedic actress she could ever be. She was a flat-out workaholic.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “And then luckily this discovery rectifies that problem. And so I would say 80% of this book is her life story before her wild success with I Love Lucy. She was 40 years old when that show started and her life starts with tragedy. And her dad dies extremely young. He dies of typhoid fever. So as my father's condition never improved, he died not long after the storm. He was only 28 years old and my mother's 23. I was not yet four, but I remember vividly the moment she told me daddy was gone. I could tell you where the tables were, where the windows were, and what they looked out on. And she says, I think my mother was stunned by her unhappy circumstances. I can remember her shaking her head, saying softly, married before I was 18, a mother before I was 19, and widowed before I was 23.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “And she puts it into the words why this is so important because they discovered this after her mom died. So she's with her mom a few weeks before she passes and she says unfortunately no one else had a chance to help her remember either. She died less than three weeks later. I remember thinking then how sadly ironic it was that my father should have gotten the chance to tell his story during his lifetime because he wrote and published an autobiography while he was alive. I'm probably going to read it too because his life story is insane as well. But then we never get to hear moms and this is the important part. These two sentences right here is why I think it's so important for you and I to learn from this and to document the life stories of the loved ones that are still alive to see her life as she saw it. It was sad for the family and it was sad for the world.”

    2022-02-07 · Founders · #230 Lucille Ball (TV's biggest star) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source