LUCILLE "LUCY" BALL - CONTRACT SIGNED 07/25/1967 - HFSID 176948

LUCILLE BALL
Star comedienne from "I Love Lucy" signs a contract in 1967 to receive twenty-five thousand shares of the Gulf & Western Industries Inc. $5.75 Sinking Fund Preferred Stock, Gulf & Western had bought out Desilu Productions earlier that year
Contract signed: "Lucille Ball", 3 pages, 8½x11, single-sided sheets. Hollywood, California, 1967 July 25. Ball signs a contract with Gulf & Western Industries, Inc. Where in Desilu Productions, Inc. receives twenty-five thousand shares of the G&W $5.75 Sinking Fund Preferred Stock. In February 1967 Lucille Ball was talked into a deal with Charles Bludhorn of the Gulf & Western company to sell the Desilu, which merged it with its film studio Paramount Pictures, and renamed it Paramount Television around December 1967. As a result, Desilu's series on television at the time, Star Trek, The Lucy Show, Mannix and Mission Impossible changed packagers to Paramount. Show business veteran Lucille Ball (1911-1989) appeared in the chorus of Broadway productions before breaking into films in the 1930s. By 1938, she was a star of "B" movies, having appeared in Stage Door (1937), and her later roles in films such as DuBarry Was a Lady (1943) made her a popular star. Lucy was offered her own television show, but she refused unless her husband, Cuban musician and bandleader, Desi Arnaz, would co-star. After I Love Lucy debuted on the small screen in 1951, Lucy became an American institution. Nominated for 13 Emmy Awards and the winner of four Emmys for her role as Lucy Ricardo in I Love Lucy (1953 and 1956) and Lucy Carmichael in The Lucy Show (1967 and 1968), Ball was also a television pioneer and astute businesswoman. She and her husband, Desi Arnaz, pioneered the three-camera technique that is now the standard in filming TV sitcoms and the concept of syndicating TV programs. She and Desi also formed Desilu Productions, which was highly successful in producing other TV shows, and later purchased the facilities of RKO, where both had been contract players. Filing holes at top center. Lightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.