Hollywood Museum Celebrates 100 Years of a Comedy Queen

It's Lucy's birthdays, that's right, two birthdays in one year.

The Hollywood Museum is celebrating one to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth and the other to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the TV show I Love Lucy, which she created with her husband Desi Arnaz.

The museum held a gala reception Thursday night for the exhibit, "Lucille Ball at 100 and I Love Lucy’at 60," that will be on display through November 30.

The exhibition is a collection of TV costumes, letters, scripts, photographs, trophies and memorabilia  honoring the career and achievements of one Hollywood's most famous comediennes.

Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, was on hand to cut a birthday cake in honor of her mom at the gala.

“People ask me why my mother became such a phenomenon,” Lucie Arnaz said to the crowd before cutting the cake. “All I can say is my parents wanted a family. My father was traveling all the time with his band, and my mom was acting in Hollywood. So they decided to do a show together with Desi as a bandleader, and my mother liked a live audience, so it had to have an audience. My father decided it had to be on film, and that’s why we still have it."

“They put together an amazing creative scene, and these people did this show not to make money, and not to be better than some other show, but because they loved it," she said. "They did it for the right reasons, and when you do  it for the right reasons, God gives you a gift."

On Aug. 6,  the day of Ball's birthday, the museum will stage a Lucy look-alike contest  and a contest to declare the best birthday cake. Ball died in 1989 at the age of 77 due to a ruptured aorta.

Featured guests at Thursday's gala included Wanda Clark, Ball's personal secretary for more than 25 years; Dann Cahn, head editor and member of the original Lucy creative team; Bernard Weitzman, executive vice president of Desilu Productions; songwriter Arthur Hamilton, writer of several songs for Lucy and her shows; Doris Singleton, actress and co-star on Here’s Lucy from 1968 -1974;  Shirley Mitchell, actress and co-star on I Love Lucy; Tom Watson, Lucy’s publicist for 20 years; TV legend Rose Marie; actress Ruta Lee; comic Rip Taylor; and Bob Schiller, one of the original writers for the show, and the creator of the famous grape-stomping episode.

Rose Marie, who starred on The Dick Van Dyke Show and was Ball's friend, called her the “ Queen of Hollywood."

“There will never be another Lucy,” she said. “People watch her every single day in every part of the world and they always laugh. Everyone loves Lucy.”

“The Hollywood Museum is the perfect venue for this exhibit because it’s where Max Factor gave Lucille Ball her famous red hair,” said Museum President Donelle Dadigan of the venue that is housed in the historic Max Factor Building.

“The ‘Red Heads Only’ Room has been carefully preserved in her memory,” he added.

The Hollywood Museum at 1660 N. Highland Avenue is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.