Lucille Ball

American actress and comedienne in more than 50 films from her debut in 1933, yet best known for her sitcoms I Love Lucy (1951-1957) and The Lucy Show (1962-1968). Originally a brunette, she was nicknamed "Tessie Technicolor" for her flaming red dyed hair as she became "Queen of the B pictures." For her TV work she was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times.

Lucille was the daughter of a telephone lineman who died when she was four. When her mom remarried, she was left in the care of in-laws in upstate New York. To keep her under control, they put a dog collar on her and leashed her to an overhead wire in the backyard. At 12 she made her first attempt to run away from home. At 15, she made it, heading for New York to be a movie star. With plain brown hair but a great shape, she was hired and fired from a number of jobs. Within a year Lucy was modeling, but at 17, she came down with rheumatic fever. She spent two years as an invalid. At 20, back on her feet, she got a small movie role, as a slave girl in a flashy 1933 musical called Roman Scandals. Frantic for fame, she toed her mark, knew her lines and dyed her hair the color of boiled shrimp. She began playing roles as the leading lady's smart-ass sidekick.

As a 29-year-old contract player, she met 23-year-old Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz on the set of the film Too Many Girls, which later proved an ironic omen. They married six months later, in 1940. A decade later Lucy was starring on radio in the popular CBS show My Favorite Husband. Desi was spending much of the time on the road playing rumba gigs and looking for hot tamales. When the network launched a version of the show for the new medium of TV, she insisted that Desi be cast as her spouse, considering that they might salvage their marriage if he was working locally. The result was magic.