Loving Lucy | Thank you, Lucille!

(This is part of the Loving Lucy blogathon which is being hosted over at True Classics. Go and check out all the other brilliant posts!)

Today marks the 100th birthday of one of the world's most loved actresses and comediennes, Lucille Ball. It's 60 years since I Love Lucy started airing and, as a testament to it's greatness, it is still one of the most loved tv shows of all time. Even if someone has never seen ILL, show them a picture of a certain ditzy red head with a flaming putty nose and they will know it's Lucille Ball. She becomes part of your life whether you realise it or not.

I didn't grow up watching I Love Lucy because it is rarely, if ever, aired over here in UK, but when I discovered Lucille Ball, and subsequently ILL, it was at a time when I needed to laugh and needed to be taken out of myself, even if just for half an hour. I didn't need just anyone though, I needed someone I could understand and relate to, someone who I could feel was my friend. Lucille Ball was just who I needed. Even in the darkest moments, she could make me smile and feel as though everything wasn't so bad after all. She was one of us, not some aloof movie star that very few could feel close to, but someone who shared with us (as Bob Hope said) one of the greatest gifts to mankind, laughter. Lucy knew how wonderful the gift of laughter is, and she shared it in the most real and tangible way possible through a (then) new medium which assured it reached and touched the lives of thousands of people. 

The world has changed a tremendous lot in the past 60 years but one thing is certain, we need Lucy now just as much as we did in the post-WWII years. I firmly believe that in another 100 years the world will still love her as much as it does now. Thank you, Lucille Ball, for brightening so many people's lives ♥

Happy birthday, Lucille!

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I wish I could have written something with a bit more depth to it; I had so many things I wanted to say about Lucille but I've been trying to write them down all week and it just hasn't happened. I haven't been feeling too good so perhaps that's why, but at least I managed to write something as at one point I was so frustrated I didn't think I'd be able to post anything!