Article: LUCILLE BALL

She had the rarest gifts, the ability to make fun of herself and the ability to pull some improbable stunt that made the world -- in its official robes of sober pomposity -- laughable. When Lucille Ball died yesterday, her fellow comic Dick Van Dyke said, "She was a great physical mime with all the body instincts of a Charlie Chaplin." True, but a beautiful mind animated that body and signaled the world that it was OK to laugh.

She was a feminist before her time. Although circumstance, Vivian Vance and madcap capers made her the frightened foil early in any "Lucy" episode, Desi Arnaz, William Frawley or Gale Gordon would emerge as a bigger chump before the half-hour was over. After ...

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