At 15, Lucille Ball convinced her mother & stepfather to enroll her in John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York. She was expelled after just a month because she was too shy to perform & felt especially intimidated by the school's star pupil, Bette Davis.
1/6

She found work as a model and a couple years later, bleached her hair blonde and moved to Hollywood. After 10 years of languishing as mostly an extra, Ball started to make some progress after MGM encouraged her to dye her hair red.
2/6

For the next 10 years, she earned the moniker "Queen of the B-Movies," appearing in nearly 20 low-budget films. On one of these films, she met a younger, fiery Cuban whom she would soon marry, Desi Arnaz.
3/6

Desi pushed Lucy to do radio & TV, which resulted in an offer from CBS. But when the network refused to let her cast Desi as her co-star, the couple walked and put together a very successful touring vaudeville act based on their premise.
4/6

Shortly thereafter, CBS came back, open to using Desi. They pushed their luck, insisting the show be shot on film, in Hollywood (most TV was shot on Kinescope in NY), & with 3 cameras. When CBS balked, the pair took a significant pay cut in return for entirely owning the show.
5

Incidentally, contrary to popular belief, NONE of Lucy's bits were improv. She spent hours practicing her lines, her physical comedy and facial expressions to perfect them prior to each week's taping.
6/6

Additional note - Desilu (their production shingle) is responsible for launching Star Trek, Mission Inpossible, Mannix and provided studio space for My Three Sons, Dick Van Dyke, Gomer Pyle, Hogan’s Heroes & My Favorite Martian, among many others.