Trivia: Left fatherless at the age of four, American actress Lucille Ball developed a strong work ethic in childhood; among her more unusual jobs was as a "seeing eye kid" for a blind soap peddler. Ball's mother sent the girl to the Chautauqua Institution for piano lessons, but she was determined to pursue an acting career after watching the positive audience reaction given to vaudeville monologist Julius Tannen. Young Ball performed in amateur plays for the Elks club and at her high school, at one point starring, staging, and publicizing a production of Charley's Aunt. In 1926, Ball enrolled in the John Murray Anderson American Academy of Dramatic Art in Manhattan (where Bette Davis was the star pupil), but was discouraged by her teachers to continue due to her shyness. Her reticence notwithstanding, Ball kept trying until she got chorus-girl work and modeling jobs; but even then she received little encouragement from her peers, and the combination of a serious auto accident and recurring stomach ailments seemed to bode ill for her theatrical future. Still, Ball was no quitter, and, in 1933, she managed to become one of the singing/dancing Goldwyn Girls for movie producer Samuel Goldwyn; her first picture was Eddie Cantor's Roman Scandals (1933). Working her way up from bit roles at both Columbia Pictures (where one of her assignments was in a Three Stooges short) and RKO Radio, Ball finally attained featured billing in 1935, and stardom in 1938 -- albeit mostly in B-movies. Throughout the late 1930s and '40s, Ball's movie career moved steadily, if not spectacularly; even when she got a good role like the nasty-tempered nightclub star in The Big Street (1942), it was usually because the "bigger" RKO contract actresses had turned it down. By the time she finished a contract at MGM (she was dubbed "Technicolor Tessie" at the studio because of her photogenic red hair and bright smile) and returned to Columbia in 1947, she was considered washed up. Ball's home life was none too secure, either. She'd married Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940, but, despite an obvious strong affection for one another, they had separated and considered divorce numerous times during the war years. Hoping to keep her household together, Ball sought out professional work in which she could work with her husband. Offered her own TV series in 1950, she refused unless Arnaz would co-star. Television was a godsend for the couple; and Arnaz discovered he had a natural executive ability, and was soon calling all the shots for what would become I Love Lucy. From 1951 through 1957, it was the most popular sitcom on television, and Ball, after years of career stops and starts, was firmly established as a megastar in her role of zany, disaster-prone Lucy Ricardo. When her much-publicized baby was born in January 1953, the story received more press coverage than President Eisenhower's inauguration. With their new Hollywood prestige, Ball and Arnaz were able to set up the powerful Desilu Studios production complex, ultimately purchasing the facilities of RKO, where both performers had once been contract players. But professional pressures and personal problems began eroding the marriage, and Ball and Arnaz divorced in 1960, although both continued to operate Desilu. Ball gave Broadway a try in the 1960 musical Wildcat, which was successful but no hit, and, in 1962, returned to TV to solo as Lucy Carmichael on The Lucy Show. She'd already bought out Arnaz's interest in Desilu, and, before selling the studio to Gulf and Western in 1969, Ball had become a powerful executive in her own right, determinedly guiding the destinies of such fondly remembered TV series as Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. The Lucy Show ended in the spring of 1968, but Ball was back that fall with Here's Lucy, in which she played "odd job" specialist Lucy Carter and co-starred with her real-life children, Desi Jr. and Lucie. Here's Lucy lasted until 1974, at which time her career took some odd directions. She poured a lot of her own money in a film version of the Broadway musical Mame (1974), which can charitably be labeled an embarrassment. Her later attempts to resume TV production, and her benighted TV comeback in the 1986 sitcom Life With Lucy, were unsuccessful, although Ball, herself, continued to be lionized as the First Lady of Television, accumulating numerous awards and honorariums. Despite her many latter-day attempts to change her image -- in addition to her blunt, commandeering off-stage personality -- Ball would forever remain the wacky "Lucy" that Americans had loved intensely in the '50s. She died in 1989.

Trivia: Born in Kansas, Vivian Vance began appearing in community theater productions when her family relocated to Albuquerque, NM. Her friends and neighbors financed Vance's move to New York, where she planned to study with Eva LeGalliene. When these plans fell through, she made the auditions rounds, landing a job in the long-running Broadway production Music in the Air. She supplemented her income with nightclub performances, then received her big break when, with only a few hours' notice, she stepped into the female lead of the 1937 Ed Wynn musical Hooray for What? Subsequent Broadway credits included Anything Goes, Red, Hot and Blue, and Let's Face It, each one a hit. In 1951, Jose Ferrer cast Vance in the La Jolla Playhouse production of Voice of the Turtle. It was on the strength of her performance of this play that Vance was offered the role of Ethel Mertz on the Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz TV sitcom I Love Lucy. She played Ethel from 1951 through 1960, winning an Emmy in the process -- which hopefully compensated for the fact that, throughout the I Love Lucy run, she was contractually obligated to outweigh star Lucille Ball by 20 pounds. In 1962, Vance signed on for another lengthy co-starring stint with Ball on TV's The Lucy Show. Throughout her five decades in show business, Vance appeared in only three films: The Secret Fury (1950), The Blue Veil (1951), and The Great Race (1965). Married twice, Vivian Vance's first husband was actor Philip Ober.

Trivia: Described by TV producer Hy Averback as "a combination of Laurence Olivier andCharley Chase," bombastic comic actor Gale Gordon was the son of vaudeville performers. His father was "quick-change" artist Charles T. Aldrich, and his mother was actress Gloria Gordon (best known for her portrayal of Mrs. O'Reilly on radio's My Friend Irma). Born with a cleft palate, Gordon underwent two excruciating oral operations as a child. By the time he was 17, Gordon's diction was so precise and his "new" voice so richly developed that he was invited to study acting under the aegis of famed actor/manager Richard Bennett. After several years on stage, Gordon moved to California in 1929, where he worked in Los Angeles radio as a free-lance actor and announcer. He appeared in heroic and villainous "straight" parts on such syndicated radio series as The Adventures of Fu Manchu and English Coronets, but soon found that his true forte was comedy. Gordon played the flustered Mayor La Trivia on Fibber McGee and Molly, several prominent roles on The Burns and Allen Show, and, best of all, pompous principal Osgood Conklin on Our Miss Brooks. In films since 1933 (he played a bit at the end of Joe E. Brown's Elmer the Great), Gordon proved a formidable comic foil in such films as Here We Go Again (1942, again with Fibber McGee and Molly), and Jerry Lewis' Don't Give Up the Ship (1959) and Visit to a Small Planet (1960). It is impossible to have grown up watching television without at least once revelling in the comedy expertise of Gale Gordon. In addition to starring in the 1956 sitcom The Brothers, Gordon was also seen in the video versions of My Favorite Husband, Our Miss Brooks, The Danny Thomas Show, Dennis the Menace--and virtually every one of Lucille Ball's TV projects, including her last, 1986's Life with Lucy.

Trivia: Running away from home at the age of 15, Arthur Godfrey held down scores of short-term jobs, sleeping on park benches whenever funds ran low. Despite his itinerant lifestyle, Godfrey was extremely ambitious, gleaning his formal education from the International Correspondence School and twice attempting to launch a naval career. Along the way, he discovered that he had an innate skill for self-promotion and salesmanship, a combination that enabled him to tour as a vaudeville musician despite a minimum of musical talent. In 1929, "Red Godfrey, the Warbling Banjoist" went to work for a Baltimore radio station WFBR. This led to a better job at NBC's Washington, D.C. affiliate, thence to a disc jockey at CBS' Washington outlet. Eschewing the declamatory style prevalent among radio pitchmen, Godfrey adopted what he called the "one guy" approach, delivering commercials, introducing songs, and casually dispensing small talk as if talking to one person rather than thousands. In the early '40s, he gained nationwide popularity as a staff announcer at CBS, briefly serving as announcer for Fred Allen's show. His career turning point came with his emotional coverage of President Roosevelt's funeral in 1945, which attracted the attention of network bigwigs and resulted in his own coast-to-coast morning program. Immediately winning a huge audience with his calm, straightforward style, Godfrey used his program to introduce a whole slew of talented newcomers, which he dubbed "the Little Godfreys." At one time or another, his staff of regulars included Julius LaRosa, Marion Marlowe, the McGuire Sisters, Pat Boone, Anita Bryant, announcer Tony Marvin (who stayed with him the longest), and orchestra leader Archie Bleyer. In addition to his morning show, he also hosted Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts; and in 1949, he moved into television, gaining ever greater success. At one point, it was estimated that Godfrey's programs generated 12 percent of CBS' TV revenues, making him one of the most powerful men in show business. As his influence grew, so did his ego; he held court over his "Little Godfreys" like a banana republic dictator, and made grandiose, arbitrary demands upon his home network. Publicly the soul of affability, the private Godfrey was a volatile, unpredictably temperamental man, forever reminding his minions, "I made you all and I can break you at any time." On October 19, 1953, Godfrey's huge radio and TV audience received its first real evidence of their idol's despotism when he fired singer Julius LaRosa on the air. As other members of the Godfrey entourage got the ax over the next few years, his disillusioned audience began to dwindle. Further nails in his coffin came with two à clef films inspired by the Godfrey phenomenon, The Great Man (1956) and A Face in the Crowd, both of which centered around powerful media icons with feet of clay. Godfrey's popularity enjoyed a short resurgence in 1959 when he survived a delicate operation for lung cancer, but public sympathy can sustain a career only so long. By 1960 he was completely off television save for a hosting job on Allen Funt's Candid Camera. Making his screen debut with a guest spot in 1963's Four for Texas, he played his first full-fledged screen role in The Glass-Bottom Boat (1966), playing Doris Day's father. On April 30, 1972, 27 years to the day after its debut, Godfrey's daily radio program was canceled by mutual agreement between the star and his network. He continued appearing on TV as a commercial spokesman, earning a short flurry of press coverage when he broke his contract with the Axion company because he felt that the product was a pollutant. He made several attempts in the 1970s at a TV comeback, but was never able to achieve that goal, partly because he was incapable of compromising his own values, and partly because he'd made too many enemies over the years. When Arthur Godfrey died in 1983, his obituary, which once upon a time might have been a headline story, was tucked away in the back pages -- an ignominious finale for a man who, for better or worse, was a true television giant.

Trivia: Actor Max Showalter learned his craft at the Pasadena Playhouse. An adroit, quick-witted comic performer, Showalter was one of the earliest participants in the infant medium known as television. He was an ensemble player on 1949's The Swift Show, and that same year was a panelist on the "charades" quiz show Hold It Please. 20th Century-Fox chieftan Darryl F. Zanuck was a fan of Showalter's work; the producer hired Showalter as a Fox featured player, but not before changing his name to the more "box-office" Casey Adams. While there were a few leading roles, notably as Jean Peter's obtuse husband in Niagara (1953), for the most part Showalter/Adams' film career was confined to brief character parts (e.g. Return to Peyton Place [1958] and The Music Man [1962]). While still travelling under the alias of Casey Adams, Showalter appeared in a half-hour pilot film titled It's a Small World (1956); on this one-shot, the actor originated the role of Ward Cleaver, a role that would ultimately be assumed by Hugh Beaumont when Small World matriculated into Leave It to Beaver. Shedding the Casey Adams alias in the mid '60s, Max Showalter remained a busy character player into the '80s, appearing as a regular on the 1980 sitcom The Stockard Channing Show.

Trivia: Actress Carole Cook showed a knack for comic timing from early on, so much so that the legendary Lucille Ball took her on as a protégé. Cook would make many appearances on Ball's TV shows, The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, as well as other shows like Magnum, P.I., Dynasty, and Grey's Anatomy. She would also appear in several movies, like Sixteen Candles and The Incredibles, while maintaining an active stage career and supporting many AIDS charities.