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Lucille Ball explained the most important lesson she took from her early career in the film industry
Ball appeared in various B movies in her early days as a film actor.
While B movies are often looked down upon, true cinephiles understand that there are plenty of B films that hold merit. Because of their lower budget, B films were believed to be a lesser sort of film. But fans of iconic directors like Roger Corman know that not to be the truth.
Plenty of our most beloved actors have appeared in B films, seeing as they provide a wonderful opportunity for a performers to gain experience while familiarizing themselves with an audience.
Before she was the ruler of television, Lucille Ball made a name for herself as a young actor by performing in a series of B films, though Ball insisted on calling them "B-pluses" during an interview with the Fort Lauderdale News.
"I was the queen of the B-pluses," said Ball. "I went from one-liners to these sort of mediocre B-Plus pictures. I would do anything, though. I was in the only Tracy-Hepburn flop ever made, and I got good reviews."
But while Ball enjoyed her time in these films, she felt stifled by the constraints that Hollywood attempted to thrust upon her.
"What you were encouraged to do at the studios was to become a flapper girl, a glamour girl, or some type," said Ball. "You were that type of girl belonging to that type of picture. It was very limiting, and I was really stuck."
Luckily, Ball was able to break free of those constraints by the time she began her foray into television with I Love Lucy.
"I don't know what I consciously learned from anybody," said Ball of her early life spent in the film industry. "What I mostly learned in those days was that there are a lot of people you can learn nothing from except to stay the hell away from them."
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5 Comments
There were at least THREE Tracy-Hepburn films that flopped at the box office: "Without Love," "Sea of Grass" and "Keeper of the Flame."
Oh, MeTV Staff! Do you perhaps mean Roger Corman?
