(we love Lucy)

I love Lucy. Which is odd, because I hate farce, loathe slapstick and can't stand shouting-acting, and yet … I love Lucille Ball. Always have. I must have first seen her on TV

when I was five or six, so it was probably her later incarnation (post-divorce) as mother of teenagers and hopeless assistant to Gale Gordon, rather than reruns of the earlier series' as the hapless wife Lucy Ricardo to Desi Arnaz' Ricky. And yes, I did (even at that tender age) notice that both Desi AND Luci Jnr were pretty damn cute -- but there was something about Lucy that made her eminently watchable. Ball said of herself that she looked like "everybody's idea of an actress" but she felt like a housewife -- and she certainly did fulfil the classic idea of an actress -- tall, elegant, slim, long legs, amazing cheekbones and huge round eyes. And yet, unlike everybody's idea of an actress -- especially unlike the film actresses of her own time -- Ball threw herself around the set, fell flat on her arse or her face, welcomed pies, water and mud in the face, and generally had no qualms about making an idiot of herself. There is little more appealing than a beautiful woman who doesn't take her beauty too seriously. Lucille Ball -- in all her character incarnations -- barely seemed to notice it. She was a consummate physical comedian, and like the men who came before her -- Chaplin, Keaton, the Marx Brothers, her ungainly quirks and pratfalls owed everything to physical skill and dexterity. Unlike those men though, she is rarely praised for her ability to fall over.

But Lucille Ball was far more than just a great performer. She pushed CBS to accept her and Desi as a couple worthy of their own show -- and when they got it they must surely have been one of the first white/Hispanic couples ever shown on US television. With Vivian Vance (the Ethel of 'Fred and') she created a buddy-girl duo that modern sitcoms have still to recreate. When she was pregnant with Desi Jnr, the viewers knew it -- the character Lucy's bump grew as did the real Lucille's. It is easy to underestimate how important a step this was, but at a time when pregnant women were rarely seen on TV and twin beds were still shown as the ideal sleeping arrangement for a married couple, Ball paved the way for modern actresses and their

celebrity bumps, doing so when it was shocking rather than fashionable to do so. Perhaps their greatest legacy to modern TV comedy is the live-to-film, 3-camera shoot in front of a studio audience Arnaz and Ball pioneered on I Love Lucy. It is how every modern sitcom is now shot, at the time is was certainly not the obvious format to choose. Together Ball and Arnaz formed their own production company Desilu (producing both Star Trek and Mission Impossible) and after their 1960 divorce Ball bought Arnaz out, becoming sole owner of the world's biggest production company at the time. The women running major production companies right now can probably be counted on the fingers of one -- maybe two -- hands. This was in 1960.

Of course there are probably websites full of nasty details about her private life. There always are when someone -- let alone a woman, a beautiful woman -- is that successful. But Lucille Ball was born in 1911. When she picked up again after her divorce with The Lucy Show it was 1962. A fifty-one year old woman starring in her own sitcom -- Jennifer Anniston (even with her impeccable comedy timing) is unlikely to do so well.

And she was a redhead. A flaming redhead who matched her vocal pitch to the vibrant tone of her hair. As someone who grew up a carrot-top, gingernut, period-head even, I loved it. Perhaps it's something to do with each country's attitude to the Irish -- US television has always been warmer to redheads, UK television limits redhead parts almost exclusively to mad women and tarts. S&TC's Miranda may be the most obvious starring example, but watch any current US show and you'll probably see at least one redhead in the line-up somewhere, the same cannot be said for British TV.

Lucy for me, at five, fifteen (and hopefully at fifty) was a shining beacon. Redheaded, loud, silly, brave, gorgeous, not afraid to appear stupid in character while brilliant in real work -- and sexy. With great legs. What more could a tart possibly want?