NYWIFT Blog

Women in Film & Television History: Meet Lucille Ball, Actor, Comedian, Producer

By Kathryn O’Kane

Most people are familiar with the extensive body of work that made Lucille Ball (1911 – 1989) famous. I Love Lucy is one of the most popular television shows of the 1950s, and she co-starred with her husband, Desi Arnaz, for 10 years. But did you know that Ball was also a savvy business woman?

After her marriage broke up, Ball eventually bought Arnaz’s shares in their company, Desilu Productions, making her the first woman to run a major television production company. Desilu developed and launched the beloved series franchises Star Trek and Mission Impossible before being bought by Gulf+Western for $14 million. It was rebranded as the television arm of Paramount Pictures.

lucille-ball-9196958-3-402
(via biography.com)

Learn more about Lucille Ball as the original TV Boss Lady at The Heroine Collective.

PUBLISHED BY

busyk

busyk Kathryn O’Kane is a director and producer with over 20 years of experience in television and advertising. She directed season 2 of the Emmy nominated series The World According to Jeff Goldblum for Disney+. She was the showrunner of the James Beard award-winning Netflix series Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and she produced six seasons of the Emmy award-winning series Friday Night Tykes. Her episodes of Iconoclasts for Sundance and Oprah Presents Masterclass for OWN have won NAACP Imagine awards. Kathryn has crafted short form narratives as diverse as Mission Juno for NASA, segments of AMC’s Talking Dead, and commercial assignments for Apple, Meta, United Airlines, and SAP. Kathryn served two terms on the board of New York Women in Film and Television, championing equal pay, diversity and inclusion, and safety in the workplace. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America and Television Academy. Learn more at www.busyk.com.

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