Lucille Ball

Otto McCain never met Lucille Ball, although his wife, Harriet, was the late comedian's maid for 22 years. When his wife was hospitalized for three years before she died nine years ago, Ball paid the medical bills. "You hear about (Frank) Sinatra helping people out, but you never hear how kind-hearted Lucille Ball was," said McCain, 82, of South Los Angeles, as he joined an overflow crowd at St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica on Monday night for a memorial Mass for Ball.

Ottavio Missoni, who died last week at age 92, was laid to rest on Monday after a funeral service in Gallarate, Italy. “Fashion passes but style remains. We are here to take lessons in style from a man of style,” said the minister  Don Giulio Della Vite. [WWD] Rihanna's second apparel collection for British retailer River Island is imminent and the singer gives a preview in a video in which she explains why she wanted to design clothes: "I just wanted stuff that I wanted to wear because at the end of the day that's what got me into designing - seeing things on the rack that were great, but that could have been a little more me .... Maybe they could have been a little longer or shorter, or have a little more sex appeal or a little less.

Channel 11 offered a 10-hour feast of old "I Love Lucy" shows last Saturday as a kind of memorial wreath to Lucille Ball and the 11-year-old in our household--who loves the show--taped them all. That necessitated getting some blank tapes, and when we picked them up, the clerk at the video store said, "Oh, you must be taping 'Lucy.' I've had a run on blank tapes today, and that's what people tell me they're doing." So at least my part of Orange County has a permanent record of Lucy--and what a glorious legacy of laughter to leave behind.

When the delivery truck pulled up at the base of their steep driveway, the Beardsley children knew what to do. The crew, clad in hand-me-down clothes, poured out of their eight-bedroom Carmel home and down the hill. They helped unload 50-pound bags of flour and huge tubs of jam. Grocery shopping for 22 was pandemonium; instead, a restaurant supply company brought the food to them. "A jar of peanut butter? Gosh, that would last one meal. Maybe," said Susie Pope, a middle child in a big, blended family that inspired a Lucille Ball movie.

Lucille Ball would have turned 100 on Aug. 6, and it would seem that Americans have loved her for nearly that long. But in fact, it took years for audiences to love Lucy. She had been kicking around Hollywood for nearly two decades before her performance in the seminal CBS sitcom "I Love Lucy," which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. Her portrayal of the sweetly daffy redhead Lucy Ricardo, whose slapstick antics and schemes exasperated her Cuban bandleader husband, Ricky (real-life hubby Desi Arnaz)

The first time actress Debra Messing heard herself compared to Lucille Ball was during the taping of the pilot episode of "Will & Grace." In the show, Grace's best friend, Will, committed the unpardonable sin of advising her not to marry her fiance, and she'd stalked off, angry and hurt. In a later scene, Grace was to show up at Will's office, attired in a wedding gown and floor-length bridal veil, to tell him she had ditched the fiance.

This country has its priorities upside down. Fly the flags at half-mast for Lucille Ball? We should have done that earlier when all those sailors died. What is next, Rin Tin Tin? STEPHEN MATZNER Culver City

Actress Lucille Ball's condition improved Thursday and she was out of bed and sitting in a chair after emergency heart surgery. "She's really doing well," said Ron Wise, spokesman for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "She is continuing to show a constant improvement that supports original optimism that she was going to have a full recovery." Doctors upgraded Miss Ball's condition from critical to serious Thursday and she got out of bed for the first time since the surgery Tuesday evening.

A great fear has been unleashed in Hollywood. No, not dwindling audiences or the epidemic of sequel-itis that threatens to incapacitate the movie industry. Those are mere worries. What Hollywood fears is that Nikki Finke, considered by most of the industry to be the single toughest journalist in the history of the known world, might soon have some sort of editorial control of Daily Variety, the most venerable trade publication in Hollywood. Of course, Nikki has been making show business insiders uncomfortable since she launched her blog, now known as Deadline.com, in 2006.

Doris Singleton Actress worked with Lucille Ball Doris Singleton, 92, an actress best known for playing Lucy's friend Caroline Appleby on the classic TV comedy "I Love Lucy," died Tuesday in Los Angeles of complications from cancer, according to her nephew Henry Isaacs. Singleton, who was married for 61 years to comedy writer Charles Isaacs, worked in radio as an actress and singer before moving into television in the early 1950s. Besides her recurring part on "I Love Lucy," she had guest roles on several of Lucille Ball's later TV series, as well as "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "My Three Sons," "Hogan's Heroes," "All in the Family," and other comedies and dramas.

Doris Singleton, an actress on "I Love Lucy" who played one of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo's neighbors and called her character "Lucy's nemesis," has died. She was 92. Singleton died Tuesday in Los Angeles from complications of cancer, according to her nephew Henry Isaacs.   Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz , posted on Facebook that Singleton died the same day that writer-director Nora Ephron passed away, according to the Associated Press.

Charles Higham, a poet, critic and prolific celebrity biographer who found political and sexual intrigue in the lives of Hollywood icons such as Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich and, most controversially, Errol Flynn, died April 21 at his Los Angeles home. He was 81. The cause was apparently a heart attack, according to Todd McCarthy, a close friend. Higham was the author of two dozen biographies, many of which were so salacious that a book critic reviewing "Howard Hughes: The Secret Life" in 1993 quipped that the writer had "reached the point where most of his subjects have slept with one another.

A new musical-comedy tribute to an old favorite — TV's "I Love Lucy" — aims to be more than just another rerun. For starters, says director Rick Sparks, "I Love Lucy Live on Stage" offers the rare chance to see "those beloved black-and-white characters in living color. " The show, which premieres Saturday at the Greenway Court Theatre, also takes audiences out of their living rooms and into the studio to watch the "filming" of two episodes from the classic '50s sitcom, which starred Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley.

Lucille Ball would have turned 100 on Aug. 6, and it would seem that Americans have loved her for nearly that long. But in fact, it took years for audiences to love Lucy. She had been kicking around Hollywood for nearly two decades before her performance in the seminal CBS sitcom "I Love Lucy," which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. Her portrayal of the sweetly daffy redhead Lucy Ricardo, whose slapstick antics and schemes exasperated her Cuban bandleader husband, Ricky (real-life hubby Desi Arnaz)

A nice little piece on the Lucille Ball museum ["A World of Funny" by Jay Jones, July 10] but Jones might also have noted that in and about the area is the resort town of Bemus Point on Lake Chautauqua, the Chautauqua Institution itself, across the lake, and the home and museum of Roger Tory Peterson, whose "Birds of North America" is the standard reference book on the subject. I'm not from the area but passed through there a number of years ago and … discovered that there were a number of interesting things besides the Lucy museum, which, by the way, is terrific.

THE BEST WAY TO JAMESTOWN, N.Y. From LAX, connecting service (change of plane) to Buffalo, N.Y., is offered on Southwest, AirTran, Delta, United, US Airways, American and Continental. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $318. The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center operates the Lucy-Desi Museum, 10 W. 3rd St., and the Desilu Playhouse, 2 W. 3rd St., in Jamestown, N.Y., (716) 484-0800, http://www.lucy-desi.com . Adult admission for both is $15, children ages 6 to 18, $10. Single admission is $10 and $7, respectively.