Happy 100th Birthday Lucy!

Today would have been Lucille Ball’s 100th birthday. The comedienne died in 1989, but she still has legions of fans around the world.

On April 18, 1989, Ball was at her home in Beverly Hills when she complained of chest pains. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was diagnosed as having a dissecting aortic aneurysm and underwent heart surgery for nearly eight hours, receiving an aorta from a 27 year old male donor. The surgery was successful, and Ball began recovering, even walking around her room with little assistance. On April 26, shortly after dawn, Ball awoke with severe back pains. Her aorta had ruptured in a second location and Ball quickly lost consciousness. All attempts to revive her proved unsuccessful, and she died at approximately 05:47 PST.

Interestingly, Lucille Ball died of the same disease that caused the deaths of John Ritter and Richard Holbrooke. Yesterday’s blog talked about how Sean Kingston narrowly escaped the same fate.

Let’s just enjoy a couple of my favorite I Love Lucy sketches:

Here’s another:

Tell me your favorite “I Love Lucy” moment.