Frederick Henry Ball was an American movie studio executive, actor, and brother of comedian Lucille Balliol
Background
Fred Ball was born on July 17, 1915, to Henry Durrell Ball (September 25, 1887 – February 28, 1915) and Désirée "Dede" Evelyn Hunt (September 21, 1892 – July 20, 1977) in Jamestown, New York, United States.A. He was named after his grandfather. He grew up in a Baptist family. His father was of Scottish descent and related to the first President of the United States, George Washington (whose mother was Mary Ball).
His mother was of French, Irish and English descent.
Career
Another direct ancestor, William Sprague, left England on the ship Lyon"s Whelp for Plymouth/Salem, Massachusetts. He helped found the city of Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father was a telephone lineman for the Bell Telephone Company, and his mother was a concert pianist.
His father contracted typhoid fever while DeDe Ball was pregnant with Fred, and died in February 1915.
He worked in the furniture industry. In 1927, a neighborhood child, Warner Erikson, was paralyzed by a shot accidentally fired from a gun Fred"s grandfather had given him for his birthday.
Erikson died five years later. The resultant publicity and lawsuit forced Mr.
Hunt to sell his house and enter bankruptcy.
He was even jailed for a time. After this incident (which was referred to in the family as "the break-up"), the family had to split and never lived together in one place again. Fred"s grandfather died in 1944.
He was Desi Arnaz"s band road manager in the 1940s and 1950s and was on the Board of Directors of Desilu Productions (the studio that Desi and Lucy purchased in 1951 and that produced I Love Lucy, as well as Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and The Untouchables).
Fred did not have an acting career after managing administration at Desilu Productions but instead continued to manage restaurants and hotels such as the Palm Desert Hotel, as well as self-manage and maintain his own holdings in motels, and mobile home parks. He was a real estate agent and broker in Arizona.
Death
Fred Ball died of natural causes in Cottonwood, Arizona, on February 5, 2007, at the age of 91. Fred"s wife, Zo Ball, died on May 12, 2013, at the age of 93.
Politics
Their grandfather (Fred Hunt) was an eccentric socialist who enjoyed the theater and frequently took the family to vaudeville shows.
