Celebrating Lucille Ball at 100
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Photograph by John Florea/TIME & LIFE Pictures.
A Never-Before-Published Photo
Sure, we all loved Lucy, but which one? The rubber-faced Lucy Ricardo of her classic TV sitcom I Love Lucy, undoubtedly. But what about Lucille, the determined Hollywood starlet who spent two decades lingering in B-movie purgatory? Or the powerful Ms. Ball, TV’s first major female executive? Truth is, Lucille Ball lived several fascinating lifetimes—many of them captured by LIFE's photographers. In honor of what would be her 100th birthday Saturday, we offer these images, including several never-before-published photos from the magazine’s archives. Here, one of these previously unpublished images from the set of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour in 1958.
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Photograph by John Florea/TIME & LIFE Pictures.
Awaiting Her Big Break, 1942
As a teen, Ball worked as a model, touting everything from designer couture to cigarettes. But at 19, she was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis and couldn't work for two years. Once she recovered, she began working as an actress on Broadway, and a decade and a half later, she was in Hollywood. Here, Ball looks cautiously over her shoulder at the future in this outtake from John Florea's 1942 photo essay on the entertainer, which described her as being on the brink of fame after a decade of kicking around Hollywood. (This photo, like all the others in this gallery, has never before been published—all are gems left on the cutting-room floor as the magazine edited down its features.) At the time of this portrait, Ball was in the midst of shooting her first major lead in DuBarry Was a Lady, playing the role made famous by Ethel Merman in Cole Porter's hit Broadway musical. Florea also photographed her dancing on the set and bouncing on a trampoline; as it turned out, she had to spend another decade doing fancy footwork before she would vault into immortality on TV.
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Photograph by Murray Garrett/Getty Images.
Backstage at a Benefit, 1948
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Photograph by Gene Lester/Getty Images via LIFE.com.
Lucille Ball on CBS's Radio Show Suspense, 1944
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Photograph by Loomis Dean/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Oh, Dear.
In The Ballet, Lucy is determined to land a job at the club so she visits "Madame Lemonde" (played by Mary Wickes), who struggles to get her into proper position. (Actually, Ball had quite a bit of dance experience, having starred in several films and musicals before I Love Lucy.)
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Photograph by Ed Clark/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in 1953
As stars and producers, Lucy and Desi (shown with kids Desi Jr. and Lucie Arnaz) were a power couple on both sides of the I Love Lucy cameras. They split in 1960 after 20 years of marriage. -
Photograph by Gene Lester/Getty Images.
Lucy & Desi (third from right) Sign Autographs Outside the Theater, Feb. 5, 1956
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Photograph by Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Desi and Lucy in Character
I Love Lucy proper ended in 1957, but the characters carried over into The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, a series of occasional specials.
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Photograph by Leonard McCombe/TIME & LIFE Pictures.
You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do: 1958
Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball strike familiar poses as they survey their new empire, Desilu Studios. The camera set-up behind them is actually one of Lucy and Desi's greatest innovations. When they started I Love Lucy in 1951, most TV shows were produced live in New York, captured on low-quality kinetoscopes, then re-aired on the West Coast. The Arnazes insisted on working in Hollywood and shooting their show in advance on film. They invented three-camera staging so they could shoot from multiple angles and distances simultaneously while performing the show before a live audience in the studio. The couple also got CBS to let them keep the filmed episodes, which ended up making them a fortune in syndication before reruns had become commonplace. The three-camera set-up became the standard for shooting sitcoms (and it remains so today), and it began the shift of TV production from New York to Hollywood.
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Photograph by Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Husband and Wife Consult, 1959
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Photograph by Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Hard at Work, 1959
Lucy and Desi in costume as painters for a scene. "I don't suppose that hard work, discipline, and a perfectionist attitude toward my work did me any harm," Ball wrote in Love, Lucy. "And when life seemed unbearable, I learned to live in my imagination, and to step inside other people's skins—indispensable abilities for an actress."
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Photograph by John Florea/TIME & LIFE Pictures.
See more never-before-published images of Lucille Ball on LIFE.com, including Lucy performing for the president in 1944.