The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Fame

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Every era seems to have its defining values and concerns. The 18th century was characterized by conversations about knowledge and liberty. The 19th century was obsessed with progress. And in the 20th century, people were constantly wrestling with the chaos that progress wrought.

I wouldn’t be surprised if future historians look back on our own century as one shaped by an obsession with fame.

The century that started with a reality TV explosion now has a reality TV president. Every one of us has a motion picture studio/photo lab in our pockets. While historians will evaluate the effects this obsession will have on society, and psychologists are working on figuring out what it’s doing to our minds, it is artists and fiction writers who can help us make sense of the complexity of the moment in real-time—often through the lens of the past.

One of those doing exactly that is novelist Darin Strauss in his new book The Queen of Thursday: A Lucille Ball Novel (Penguin Random House, August 18). Inspired by an encounter Strauss’s real-life grandfather had with the Golden Age television star, the author began to wonder what would have happened if his decidedly non-famous family member had had an affair with the most famous woman in America. From this initial seed, Strauss embarked on a full-fledged exploration of the very nature of fame itself.

What Strauss found over the course of his research was that Lucille Ball was far from the best actor of her time. She was funny, but not quick enough to work without top writers. And though attractive, she had neither the raw beauty of contemporaries like Ava Gardner or the bombshell sexuality of Marilyn Monroe.

Lucille Ball’s preeminent quality—the one that would ultimately make her famous—was her hunger for fame.

Ball first left her upstate New York town in 1926 to make it in the Big Apple. She tried Broadway, singing, dancing, and the movies. The specific medium didn’t matter to her as long as it had the potential to make her famous. A quarter-century later she found her stride in the least-respected medium of all.

Today, most of us think of Lucille Ball as an innovator who helped television reach its full potential. What fewer people know is that it was her relationship to—and hang-ups about—fame which led to these innovations.

For example, Ball found it almost impossible to perform when she didn’t have an adoring audience to fawn over her in real-time. It was for this reason that she pioneered a live studio audience set-up with built-in spaces for laughs—a formula used by practically every subsequent sitcom.

Her experience of not becoming sufficiently famous in New York was so painful to her that she demanded to record the show from Los Angeles, where she lived, at a time where almost all shows were shot on the East Coast. To accommodate the time difference, Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz had the show recorded on 35mm film so that the entire country could see high-quality broadcasts regardless of when they were run, leading to the first-ever reruns.

Unlike the monocultural 1950s, there are now countless platforms and mechanisms through which people chase fame—from YouTube to TikTok to Comic-Con. As Strauss’ novel depicts, the naked pursuit (and achievement) of fame has the potential to create a great deal of unhappiness. However, there is another side to the story, and it is a hopeful one.

As Lucille Ball demonstrated, the desire for fame can also serve as a creative force. The trick is figuring out how to channel this urge without letting it control you.

Learn more about fame and hype with these book recommendations.