The truth behind Lucille Ball’s red hair

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I Love Lucy may have featured one of the most famous redheads on television, but its star didn’t always love her hair. In fact, Lucille Ball is naturally a brunette and early in her career experimented with tresses in multiple hues.

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“My hair has always been the bane of my existence,” she told Rolling Stone in 1983, per People. “I have never known what to do with my hair. It was just never chic.”

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When Ball first arrived in Hollywood, she went by the name of Diane Belmont and found work as a model with blond hair. The look was reminiscent of 1930s bombshell Jean Harlow.

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“You had to be a platinum blond then,” explained Ball. “They wanted you to be a platinum blond, so I was a platinum blond.”

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Ball later landed a gig as part of the Goldwyn Girls dance group, which was backed by film producer Samuel Goldwyn. She wore a long blond wig for the 1933 movie Roman Scandals, according to Parade.

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It was only when Ball became a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures that she found her signature colour. Hair stylist Sydney Guilaroff was the first person to dye Ball’s hair flame red, according to People, and she reinvented Ball’s appearance for the 1943 musical Du Barry Was a Lady.

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Ball loved the look and decided to keep it.

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“Red was a happy colour,” she explained to Rolling Stone. “It was good with my eyes, and it photographed well. It turned out to be a successful colour. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

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With her star on the rise, Ball and husband Desi Arnaz starred on the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy. The show aired from 1951 to 1957 and was later reimagined as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show (a.k.a. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour), which ran until 1960. Ball went on to headline The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy, and Life with Lucy.

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In her interview with Rolling Stone, Ball reflected on her most famous character.

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“Lucy, for me, is like a memory. I am nostalgic about Lucy. I could still be playing that part. Before I quit working in 1974, my ratings were high, and they wanted me to sign on for another five years of Here’s Lucy,” she revealed.

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“I said, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ The Lucy character is too old to run around like an idiot. I’d probably still be playing Lucy if I’d signed that contract, but it was silly to keep playing the same thing.”

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Ball added that she nevertheless looked back on Lucy and her time in television fondly.

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“But now I miss her,” she said. “I miss my arena. I miss getting up and going to work every day. I have my charities, and I’m getting my house in order, but it’s not the same.”

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Ball died in 1989 at age 77.

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