To viewers worldwide Lucille Ball remains the ultimate screwball housewife, getting in and out of outlandish scrapes with hilarious finesse. Stefan Kanfer's biography looks behind the image, tracing Ball's comedic genius to its beginnings in a lonely childhood in upstate New York. En route Kanfer chronicles the runaway success of the sitcom I Love Lucy, the fiery marriage and eventual split from Desi - the Cuban bandleader who made her famous - and Ball's struggles to manage both a business empire and her own rebellious children.