Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball is an autobiography set from when Lucille Ball was a little girl to the early 1960's. The book was published in 1997 (8 years after Lucille Ball's death), and was published by Berkley (both of Ball's children decided that this needed to be released.)
The biography starts off with a forward from Lucille Ball's daughter, Lucie Desiree Arnaz. She talks about how she found the manuscript when she was going through some things that she had of her mothers. She also mentioned how her mother never released this was because she didn't want to hurt her ex-husband, Desi Arnaz. She talked about the love and respect that they both had for each other. Lucille chronicles her earlier years from when her father died when she was 4, to moving to different relatives while her mother tried to figure out how to support her family to living with her grandparents as a big family. She also talked about how she modeled but really wanted to be an actress and how she dealt with rejection before going out to California and her rise to stardom.
One of my favorite things about the autobiography, was how Ms. Ball looked at the hardships in her life and she would find the lesson in it. When she went though a bad situation where a well known director was enthralled by her and wanted to leave his wife but Lucy decided to not pursue a relationship because it could have hurt his children, the wife found out about it and made it so that Lucy wouldn't get any parts in A movies (which led to her title the Queen of B) during that part of her career. But what I found so interesting was that she never named names, she accepted that was going to happen in her career and instead of giving up she put her all in every roll that she got. For about half of the book, was on her life with her first husband Desi, whom she did I Love Lucy with and a few movies. She talked about the passion and love, but she also talked about their dysfunction and difficulties. One thing, which I felt was important, was that Lucy didn't lay all of the blame on Desi, It wasn't all his fault, she looked at where they both went wrong, she didn't play the victim but she didn't make him out as the villain. The last few pages talk about their divorce, and Lucy's marriage to her second husband, Gary Morton (whom she was with till her death). I loved how she talked about how Gary and Desi would golf with each other, how they were all apart of their children's lives. She said something that I just thought was so powerful, and that was, "I'd rather have my children grow up in two loving house holds instead of growing up in one miserable home."
I loved this book, when I finished it, it left me with such a wonderful warm fuzzy feeling that I couldn't help but be happy. I honestly think that that this should be required reading for high school students, especially girls. Lucille Ball is the definition of classy, funny, smart, witty, and just all around a great woman. She didn't sing her praises she didn't place blame on anyone else. It just made me happy to read about one of my favorite actresses and comediennes. I recommend this book to everyone and anyone. Even if you don't think that you'd like it because you're not a big biography reader, you will. It was so easy to get through and really hard to put down.
Rating:
5 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment