A young fan
loves Lucy

By Rita Charleston
For the Times

The world over probably remembers her best as the First Lady of Television. But Lucille Ball’s star also shined on the silver screen in more than 80 films spanning five decades of Hollywood’s golden age.
However, it took Pine Valley’s Cindy De la Hoz to write Lucy at the Movies, a showcase for the star’s extensive film career, offering behind-the-scenes stories and information for every film in which Ball appeared.
Just 24 years old, De la Hoz wasn’t even born when the gorgeous, redheaded Ball hit Hollywood and began her film career. But once the young film historian saw Ball in a marathon of her early TV episodes, it was definitely love at first sight.
"I became an immediate fan of Lucy when I was nine years old and my parents sent me to my room on New Year’s Eve for something I had done," said the young author. "Honestly, I don’t remember what I had done, but since the only thing available to me was my television set, I turned it on and began to watch an I Love Lucy marathon."
The first episode De la Hoz watched was the one in a candy factory where Lucy and her pal Ethel start stuffing chocolates into their uniforms and mouths because they can’t keep up with the conveyor belt rushing the chocolates toward them. Shortly after that classic came an episode with William Holden in which Lucy throws a pie in his face, and eventually sets her own false nose on fire.
"That was my introduction to Lucy, and I’ve been in love with her and her work ever since," De la Hoz said. "But when I began to study her, I found out that her career had started out in film long before she moved on to television. She could do it all — drama, film noire, all kinds of genres. And since I had always loved reading books about classic film stars and there was a whole series of them, I found there wasn’t one on Lucille Ball, so I decided to write one myself."
It took five years for the Temple University journalism graduate to accomplish her dream, from the original design for the book to research to writing. She found research material at New York’s Public Library at Lincoln Center. Next, she traveled to Los Angeles to the American Film Institute and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to find more material.
She also went to Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, N.Y., where they hold a festival in the star’s honor twice a year. Later, when she sat down to begin writing, De la Hoz said she knew full well what the outcome would be.
"You’d think that getting published would be hard, but, incredibly, I never thought for one minute that I would not get my book published," she said without hesitation. "I had seen so many of these film biography books before, like The Films of John Carradine, that I thought well, if they have that book on the shelves, surely somebody will publish mine!"
And she was right. In fact, Philadelphia’s own Running Press saw the merits in her book and recently published Lucy at the Movies — a 368 page book filled with pictures and all kinds of biographical material, combined into a loving testament to the talented film and TV star, who died in 1989 at age 77.
Running Press has also just published De la Hoz’s second biography book in pictures and text, Marilyn Monroe: Platinum FOX, another of Hollywood legends.
Today, De la Hoz is an editor at Running Press and already has her third book, an in- depth look at the life of Lana Turner, in the works. She’d also like to do one on Philadelphia beauty Grace Kelly, and has plans for more.
She said, "I think it takes a positive attitude and a love of what you’re doing. That’s what’s been working for me." ••