For Lucille Ball completists, the release of Life with Lucy (1986), her ill-fated final sitcom, is most welcome. I Love Lucy/The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1951-60), The Lucy Show (1962-68), and Here's Lucy (1968-74) kept her on the network airwaves nearly constantly for a quarter of a century, but her return to theatrical features with Mame (1974) flopped badly, with Ball singled out for atypically harsh reviews. After that she did annual television specials for a few years, and was a frequent presenter at award shows. In November 1985 she starred in The Stone Pillow, a TV-movie in which she played an elderly homeless woman, and while that program received mixed reviews it did well enough in the ratings to prompt Ball and her (second) husband, comedian-producer Gary Morton, to dip into the sitcom well that had served her so reliably well and for so long....Read the entire review
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