Iconic Redhead Lucille Ball Original 1949 Miss Grant Takes Richmond Photograph

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ITEM: This is a vintage and original Columbia Pictures production still photograph of Lucille Ball portraying an inept secretary who goes to work for a bogus real estate firm thinking it is real in the 1949 comedy crimer, "Miss Grant Takes Richmond."For Ball, "Miss Grant Takes Richmond" was part of a major career makeover. Frustrated after years of secondary films at RKO, she had moved to MGM only to be relegated to glamorous set dressing in their lavish musicals. All the while, however, she worked and watched, picking up comic tricks from the studio's resident slapstick star of the period, Red Skelton, and silent screen clown Buster Keaton, who was working there as a gag writer. "Miss Grant Takes Richmond" did well with the critics, while Ball's radio fans helped it turn a nice profit for Columbia.Photograph measures 8" x 10" on a glossy single weight paper stock.Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.More about Lucille Ball:As one of America's most beloved comediennes and one of Hollywood's more astute businesswomen, the legendary Lucille Ball rose from being a B-movie film actress to one of television's most iconic figures, boasting more than 50 years of continuous employment in Hollywood. Because of her eternally syndicated sitcom, "I Love Lucy" (CBS, 1951-57), which broke new ground in too many areas to count, Ball remained a constant presence on the small screen and, consequently, remained well-known to subsequent generations of fans. Prior to "I Love Lucy," Ball took over the mantle of "Queen of the Bs" from Fay Wray after appearing in a number of B-movies, with the occasional A-list project like the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicles "Top Hat" (1935) and "Follow the Fleet" (1936) classing up her resume. She delivered a fine turn in "Stage Door" (1937) and served as the Marx Brothers' foil in "Room Service" (1938). After meeting and marrying Cuban-born actor-bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940, Ball propelled her career as the star of the radio show "My Favorite Husband" (CBS, 1948-1951), which served as a precursor to "I Love Lucy." Though CBS was initially resistant to pairing the Caucasian Ball with the Cuban Arnaz as a believable husband and wife, the network had a change of heart after the couple launched a smash-hit vaudeville show, which green lit one of the most popular and enduring sitcoms of all time. Following Ball's painful split with Arnaz in 1960, she executed a number of savvy business moves as head of her own studio, Desilu, while launching two more successful sitcoms, "The Lucy Show" (CBS, 1962-68) and "Here's Lucy" (CBS, 1968-74). Though her popularity waned in the 1970s and 1980s, as evidenced by the rapid failure of "Life with Lucy" (ABC, 1986), Ball was forever cemented as a comic legend whose influence spanned generations.Born on Aug. 6, 1911 in Jamestown, NY, Ball was raised by her father, Henry, a telephone lineman who died of typhoid fever in 1915, and her mother, Desiree, a concert pianist. While her father was still alive, Ball moved around because of his job, taking up residence in Montana and Michigan. When her mother remarried four years after her father's death, however, Ball found herself placed in the care of her strict Puritan step-grandparents, who inflicted emotional and psychological strain. Meanwhile, her maternal grandfather loved the theater and frequently took the family to see vaudeville shows, even encouraging the young Ball to participate in school plays. When she was 12, Ball was further encouraged into show business by her stepfather to entertain his cohorts at the Shriners club. A few years later, she attended the John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton Drama School in New York, where she was a classmate of an 18-year-old Bette Davis. After adopting the stage name Diane Belmont and being fired from several chorus jobs, she retreated to her home in Celoron, NY, where she spent two years battling the crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis.Returning to New York in the early 1930s, Ball returned to working as a mode... read more

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Iconic Redhead Lucille Ball Original 1949 Miss Grant Takes Richmond Photograph

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