Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

To viewers worldwide Ball remains the ultimate screwball housewife, getting in and out of outlandish scrapes with hilarious finesse. Stefan Kanfer's biography looks behind the image, tracing Ball's comedic genius to its beginnings in a lonely childhood in upstate New York. En route Kanfer chronicles the runaway success of the sitcom I Love Lucy, the fiery marriage and eventual split from Desi - the Cuban bandleader who made her famous - and Ball's struggles to manage both a business empire and her own rebellious children.

Reviews

"'Ball of Fire reveals all about housewife superstar Lucille Ball. She made the top-rated TV show in America before her husband's serial adulteries practically sunk it.' Sunday Herald; 'A wonderful and poignant book... Kanfer portrays Lucille Ball as insatiably anxious and insecure, a woman whose search for a father figure would only ever find the unlikely and unholdable Desi... Kanfer pulls no punches over Lucy the pain in the neck, but he gives a superb picture of how she and Desi changed television.' David Thomson, New Republic; 'Easily the year's best Hollywood biog' Independent on Sunday"

Author Bio

Stefan Kanfer is the author of The Eighth Sin, A Summer World, The Last Empire, Serious Business and Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx. He was a writer and editor for Time magazine for more than twenty years. He lives in New York and on Cape Cod.