Image by elena-lu via Flickr

Biographies provide insight into little known facts about their subjects. According to Desilu – The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz , Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy fame was found swiping pencils from work.

     “Lucy’s concept of money and spending had been severely affected by the early days of her childhood,” Leeds explains, noting that about eighteen months after joining the company he was approached by an assistant who told him. ” ‘I don’t know what she does with them, but every week we buy a gross of pencils for the program, and after the last rehearsal, even though they have only used about ten or twleve of them, Lucy takes the balance home.'” A week later, at the Arnazes’s house for dinner, Leeds confronted Lucille about the pencils. “She took me by the hand and led me over to a closet, opening the door and showing me about ninety gross of pencils. ‘Why are you taking them?’ I asked. ‘You are only stealing from yourself. You own them.’ She replied, ‘Martin, when I was a little girl, we were poor and couldn’t afford pencils. We used pieces of charcoal. Pencils are a symbol of having enough to eat.’ She later told me I had unintentionally ruined a symbol.”

…swiping from lucy…for lucy…different.

Lucy’s other eccentricities? Birds…

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     ” ‘I can’t stand pictures of birds on wallpaper or plates or in paintings–anywhere. Whenever I check into a hotel room with bird lamps and pictures in it, I have them all taken away at once. Why? I haven’t the faintest idea–particularly since I love real birds.’ ”

…and Indians.

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

      “She also was said to have a ‘compulsive rejection of Indians in native costumes, though not of Indians dressed in regular clothes.’ According to her friend, writer Katherine Albert, ‘She told me she could never see Annie Get Your Gun because she couldn’t stand the idea of all those Indians in it. It’s some sort of fear that dates back to her childhood.’ “

The star’s greatest phobia?

Image via Wikipedia

     ” …her inordinate fear of being too close to people, of being touched. ‘I get numb. The first day I went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1942, I wasn’t really aware of this phobia. But a new hairdresser spent forty-five minutes working on the bangs on my forehead, leaning against me, breathing on me. At the end of that time, I had tears streaming down my face. My makeup was ruined, and I was paralyzed.’ (Vivian Vance, aware of this peculiarity, quickly learned to work with Lucy a bit of a distance from her.) ‘I have the same feeling away from work, at parties. I can’t bear the idea of dancing with some man I don’t know and like well. Desi knows this, so he’s always ready to help me explain that I’m too tired to dance. Or else he cuts in after a minute or two.’ “

Image via Wikipedia

…you never know…what makes people tick………hugmamma.