Today's book, "Although Lucille Ball died in 1989, this autobiography written prior to 1964 has only recently been discovered among her papers. She describes a childhood deeply affected by her father's death and her mother's withdrawal from her life. Raised by her grandparents, Ball craved attention and developed a tempestuous, vivacious, fiery, and yet insecure personality that would later lead her to comic stardom."
I really enjoyed today's book, once I fully recovered from seeing the scary eyebrows Lucille is sporting on the front cover.
Shallow thoughts:
- I already knew before reading this book that Lucy and Desi named their two kids after themselves, Lucie and Desi Jr. (did they not make baby name books in the 50s?), so that wasn't exactly a fun fact. But, I have now been inspired to name my first child after myself, all the while pretending like I'm not by changing the spelling - what do you think of Angee? Or how about Angy? Anjie? Okay, maybe not. After reading the book, it appears that neither kid had a nickname - they always called them Lucie and Desi Jr. What must life have been like in their house? Lucy, could you come here? No not you, didn't you pay attention to my tone of voice, I was clearly saying Lucy with a y?
- I wasted way too much time on the Internet looking up fried potato sandwich's (a favorite of Ball's) before finally stumbling across a recipe. Apparently you make a fried potato sandwich by cooking bacon, then frying potatoes and onions in the bacon grease, and then assembling the sandwich, which consists of bacon, potatoes, onions, white bread, and mustard. - That reminds me of a scene from a Golden Girls episode I watched a few days ago, where Rose and Sophia had set up a sandwich stand and had run out of tomatoes so they were trying to sell people bacon, lettuce, and potato sandwiches. It's really sad that everything that I read reminds me of something I watched on TV, but I should probably just surrender to it because it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon.
- And on that note, the whole time I was reading this book I kept picturing scenes from the really bad TV movie I watched a few years ago called Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter. It was just as bad as the title makes it sound. So of course, I've watched it three times. And I'm not going to lie, given the chance I'd watch it again.
- I was disappointed that the book didn't offer up any behind-the-scenes information about one of my favorite Lucille Ball movies, The Long, Long Trailer. And the book ends in 1962, so there was no information about my other favorite movies of hers, Yours, Mine & Ours (which was about a hundred times better than the crappy remake.) I highly recommend both movies. You're probably reluctant to take any movie suggestions from me after all the horrible TV movies I've mentioned, but I can assure you that I actually have standards when it comes to movies that didn't originally air on Lifetime.
- When Desi Jr. was born, Lucy and Desi received telegrams, letters, cards, phone calls, and baby gifts from one million people. - I can only imagine the childhood fights that produced, One million people sent cards and gifts when I was born. How many people sent you cards and gifts? About twenty - well I'm sure that was nice too.
And now, I'm going to go pack for vacation while watching The Long, Long Trailer.
