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Summary: My favorite book about my favorite commedienne
Review: When I was ten and heard that Lucy and Desi were divorcing, I was devastated. No one in my little village had ever divorced, and I did not know anyone who knew anyone who had. So, Lucy and Ricky, who were interchangeable in my mind with Lucy and Desi, were the first people I "knew" who took that drastic step. I couldn't figure out how they could be so happy on TV and still want to split. A few years later, when Lucy returned to television, along with Ethel, rechristened as Vivian, I kept longing for DesiRicky to show up. Of course he didn't. Later, I saw some of her early movies and became one of the three people in the US who loved her on the screen as Mame. Even though I appreciated her skill and talent, for me, she was always Lucy Riccardo. Somewhere along the line, though, I realized that Lucille Ball was more complex than her TV counterpart. Of the half-dozen books I've read about Lucy, which include the newly-released "Ball of Fire", a couple of the books about the series, and Vance's biography, Kathleen Brady's is my favorite. She comes closest to cracking the code, finding what drove Lucille Ball to the top of her profession. Brady treats her subject tenderly, but does whitewash the harder side of her character. Rather, she tries to bring the apparently incompatible parts of her personality together into one whole, very understandable person. As much as is possible, she succeeds. Where she is sure of details, she gives them. Where she is not, she offers alternate possibilities, for example, the unknown cause of Ball's paralysis that sent her home from NY and to bed for months or, on the more humorous side, exactly what happened the night that Tallulah Bankhead decided to disrobe during a production meeting of the LucyDesi Comedy Hour. Well-researched and well-written, this is mandatory reading for any die-hard Lucy fan and an excellent choice for anyone who intends reading only one book about America's most famous comedienne.
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