In the 1930s, Lucille Ball and Judy Garland began appearing on the big screen in various films, the latter in larger-known films, and the former in B-pictures.
By the 1950s, they were both bonafide Hollywood legends, with Garland owning the movie musical, and Ball named the Queen of TV Comedy as the star of I Love Lucy.
A Closer Look
According to author John Fricke, a former theater publicist who was assigned to chauffer Lucille Ball, the famed redhead shared startling revelations about Judy Garland in the car with him one day in 1977.
“Now, she didn’t know me or anything about me and it was just the two of us in the car,” Fricke recalled, “…but at one point she was talking about how people always expected her to be funny. She said that her daughter, Lucie, was funny on stage and off, but Lucille Ball herself felt she was only funny because the writers gave her funny things to do.”
“I almost drove off the road when she told me, ‘You know who was really funny?’ I said, ‘No, who?’ and she said, ‘Judy Garland,'” Fricke continued.
At that point, Ball told him, “Judy Garland was the most naturally funny woman in Hollywood. In fact, Judy Garland made me look like a mortician.”
