Teenage Years and Early Career
In 1925 Ball, then only 14, started dating Johnny DeVita, a 23-year-old local hood. DeDe was unhappy with the relationship, but was unable to influence her daughter to end it. She expected the romance to burn out in a few weeks, but that did not happen. After about a year, DeDe tried to separate them by using Lucille's desire to be in showbusiness. Despite the family's meager finances, she arranged for Lucille to go to the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City where Bette Davis was a fellow student. Ball later said about that time in her life, "All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened."
Ball was determined to prove her teachers wrong, and returned to New York City in 1928. Among her other jobs, she landed work as a fashion model for Hattie Carnegie. Her career was thriving when she became ill, either with rheumatic fever, rheumatoid arthritis, or some other unknown illness, and was unable to work for two years. She moved back to New York City in 1932 to resume her pursuit of a career as an actress, and supported herself by again working for Carnegie and as the Chesterfield cigarette girl. Using the name "Diane Belmont", she started getting some chorus work on Broadway but the work was not lasting. Ball was hired – but then quickly fired – by theatre impresario Earl Carroll from his Vanities, by Florenz Ziegfeld from a touring company of Rio Rita, and was let go from the Shubert brothers production of Stepping Stones.
Read more about this topic: Lucille Ball
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