She did not appear in film or television roles for the rest of her career and died in 1989, aged 77, from an abdominal aortic aneurysm brought about by arteriosclerotic heart disease due, in part, to her heavy cigarette smoking habit of at least six decades.

[21] Ball's mother returned to New York, where maternal grandparents helped raise Lucy and her brother Fred in Celoron, a summer resort village on Chautauqua Lake.

Its boardwalk had a ramp to the lake that served as a children's slide, the Pier Ballroom, a roller-coaster, a bandstand, and a stage where vaudeville concerts and plays were presented.

Despite the family's meager finances, in 1926, she enrolled Ball in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts,[28] in New York City,[29][30] where Bette Davis was a fellow student.

Of this time in her life, Ball said: "Hattie taught me how to slouch properly in a $1,000 hand-sewn sequin dress and how to wear a $40,000 sable coat as casually as rabbit.

[34] In 1932, she moved back to New York City to resume her pursuit of an acting career, where she supported herself by again working for Carnegie[35] and as the Chesterfield cigarette girl.

Ball was hired — but then quickly fired — by theater impresario Earl Carroll from his Vanities, and by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. from a touring company of Rio Rita.

[21] After an uncredited stint as a Goldwyn Girl in Roman Scandals (1933), starring Eddie Cantor and Gloria Stuart, Ball moved permanently to Hollywood to appear in films.

She also appeared in several Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers RKO musicals: as one of the featured models in Roberta (1935), as the flower shop clerk in Top Hat (1935), and in a brief supporting role at the beginning of Follow the Fleet (1936).

[37] Ball played a larger part as an aspiring actress alongside Ginger Rogers, who was a distant maternal cousin, and Katharine Hepburn[38] in the film Stage Door (1937).

Unable to agree on a solution, the play closed after one week in Washington, D.C., when Tearle became gravely ill.[40] Like many budding actresses, Ball picked up radio work to supplement her income and gain exposure.

The pair went on the road with a vaudeville act, in which Lucy played the zany housewife, who wants to get into a Cuban band leader's (Arnaz's) show.

[47] I Love Lucy ran on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, and was not only a star vehicle for Lucille Ball, but also a potential means for her to salvage her marriage to Arnaz.

[48] For the production of I Love Lucy, Ball and Arnaz wanted to remain in their Los Angeles home, but prime time in Los Angeles was too late to air a major network series live on the East Coast; broadcasting live from California would have meant giving most of the TV audience an inferior kinescope picture, delayed by at least a day.

After I Love Lucy ended its run in 1957, the main cast continued to appear in occasional hour-long specials under the title The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour until 1960.

[54] Desilu and I Love Lucy pioneered a number of methods still in use in TV production today, such as filming before a live studio audience with more than one camera, and distinct sets, adjacent to each other.

[56] The 1960 Broadway musical Wildcat ended its run early when producer and star Ball could not recover from a virus and continue the show after several weeks of returned ticket sales.

[69] Ball starred in a 1985 dramatic made-for-TV film about an elderly homeless woman, Stone Pillow, which received mixed reviews, but had strong viewership.

Her 1986 sitcom comeback Life with Lucy, costarring her longtime foil Gale Gordon and co-produced by Ball, Gary Morton, and prolific producer Aaron Spelling, was canceled less than two months into its run by ABC.

[72] Her last public appearance, just one month before her death, was at the 1989 Academy Awards telecast, in which she and fellow presenter Bob Hope received a standing ovation.

[75] Two years later, Vale affirmed this testimony in a sworn deposition: ... within a few days after my third application to join the Communist Party was made, I received a notice to attend a meeting on North Ogden Drive, Hollywood; although it was a typed, unsigned note, merely requesting my presence at the address at 8 o'clock in the evening on a given day, I knew it was the long-awaited notice to attend Communist Party new members' classes ... on arrival at this address I found several others present; an elderly man informed us that we were the guests of the screen actress, Lucille Ball, and showed us various pictures, books, and other objects to establish that fact, and stated she was glad to loan her home for a Communist Party new members' class; ...[76]In a 1944 Pathé News newsreel titled "Fund Raising for Roosevelt", Ball was featured prominently among several stage and film stars at events in support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fundraising campaign for the March of Dimes.

After approval from several religious figures,[84] the network allowed the pregnancy story line, but insisted that the word "expecting" be used instead of "pregnant" (Arnaz garnered laughs when he deliberately mispronounced it as "spectin'").

The episode aired on the evening of January 19, 1953, with 44 million viewers watching Lucy Ricardo welcome little Ricky, while in real life Ball delivered her second child, Desi Jr., that same day in Los Angeles.

[87] In October 1956, Ball, Arnaz, Vance, and William Frawley all appeared on a Bob Hope special on NBC, including a spoof of I Love Lucy,[88] the only time all four stars were together on a color telecast.

She immediately installed Morton in her production company, teaching him the television business and eventually promoting him to producer; he also played occasional bit parts on her various series.

[107][108] Posthumously, Ball received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush on July 6, 1989,[109] and The Women's International Center's Living Legacy Award.

[113][114] On August 6, 2001, the United States Postal Service honored what would have been Ball's 90th birthday with a commemorative stamp as part of its Legends of Hollywood series.

[128][129] Rachel York and Madeline Zima portrayed Ball in a biographical television film titled Lucy which was directed by Glenn Jordan and originally broadcast on CBS on May 4, 2003.

It premiered in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018, co-starring Oscar Nuñez as Desi Arnaz, and Seamus Dever as I Love Lucy producer-head writer Jess Oppenheimer.

[137] BBC Radio 4 broadcast a serialized version of the play in the UK in August 2020, as LUCY LOVES DESI: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, starring Anne Heche as Ball.