That’s New.

“She is beauty, she is grace, she will laugh in the face of a gender binding social structure”

It’s time for a throwback- Welcome to the mid 1900’s. 

We have just started a new project in humanities, it is a part the PLP famed “Cray Cray, Yay! Yay!” Unit. In this unit we have been talking about what makes a person crazy. We then chose a person from Apple’s “Think Different” campaign. 

https://youtu.be/cFEarBzelBs

THE KEYNOTE—

I to do my three minute keynote presentation on the one and only Lucille Ball. 

The slides I used to explain with the story were;

I had 20 seconds to explain part of the following story per photo. I didn’t end up fitting it all into the presentation because I had way too much information and not enough time.

THE STORY—

Lucille Ball was born on August 6th, 1911. She was born in Jamestown New York. Her father died when she was 3 years old, leaving her with her mother and grandparents. Her and her siblings grew up in a middle class home, they weren’t great financially, but they also weren’t poor.

Lucille’s career began when she was 14. She was dating 21 year old Jimmy Cagney at the time, and her mother was not happy with the relationship (rightfully). Her mother assumed the relationship would not last very long, a few weeks at most, but when this proved incorrect, she began to plan a way to split the two up. After some thinking and planning, Lucille’s mother decided to send her to John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City. This would mean that Lucille and Jimmy would be apart, I guess it worked.

She was kicked out of the art school after her teachers told her that she was “not built for show business”. Lucille took a short break from dramatic arts, but returned to NY pretty quickly, determined to prove her instructors wrong. AND SHE DID.

Once she returned to NY, Lucille Ball worked in modelling, on Broadway, and also did some acting roles (take that instructors). She took a short break from acting after a while but returned with a bang when she starred in 5 self-produced shows about herself. These shows were; I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy, Life with Lucy, as well as comedy television specials aired under the title The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour. 

One of the things that made Lucille Ball so special for her time was her willingness to laugh at herself. It was something that her and a few other female influencers in that age used to thrive in their industries. To allow yourself to be laughed at to laugh along was different and different didn’t always mean good back then. 

When Lucille married her husband Desi Arnaz and became pregnant, she faced a new problem. She was the star of her own show alongside her husband, but pregnancies were almost never seen on TV at that time. The WORD “Pregnant” was not allowed to be used on television at that time. Lucille fought and negotiated with the people working at the company she was with at the time until she was allowed to appear on screen pregnant and they agreed to use the word “Expecting” instead of “Pregnant”. 

Ball worked late into her life. Her last public (media) appearance was at the Academy Awards in February 1989. In April of that same year, she passed away from a failed heart surgery recovery. She was 77. 

Lucille Ball achieved many firsts in her lifetime. She was the first woman to ever head a motion picture studio. She started her studio production company with her husband Desi Arnaz, but after their divorce, she bought out his share of the company and ran it herself. Their company, Desilu, was the first ever studio to use a live audience and multiple cameras. This is a production technique used all the time now days. 

Her legacy is…

-She has TWO stars on the Hollywood wall of fame

-She was awarded the Presidential Medal Of Freedom on July 6, 1989 (after her death)

-The Little Theatre was renamed the Lucille Ball Little Theatre in her honour.

-Time Magazine named her in their “100 most important people of the century” article/volume/section

-TV Guide voted Lucille Ball as the ‘Greatest TV Star of All Time’ 

-On August 6, 2011, which would have been her 100th birthday, Google honored Ball with an interactive doodle on their homepage

-She has two statues near each other, after the first one was claimed scary by locals, and that not even all of it.

Lucille Ball used her determination and creative thinking and created the first ever woman-run major motion picture studio. 

She disregard the expectations of society, and changed the world of television forever.

LE CONCLUSION—

In this project, I learnt all about the need of practicing time-challenged projects, and the life of Lucille Ball. 

I will now have these facts forever, for any trivia night or television-revolutionaries conversations in my future. 

I also have a basic understanding of why people who changed the world are considered crazy. There is not just one answer. However a big part of it is thinking outside the box and not caring about other people’s boundaries. Break the expectation walls built by humanity and recreate them. 

Thanks for reading, have a lovely day/night/life.