It has taken a biographer with the skill and sensitivity of Kathleen Brady to look beyond the all-too-familiar image of the star who dominated television for two decades and to reveal the woman behind the icon. This definitive new biography presents an extraordinary portrait of the Lucille that her fans have never known, based on recollections of fellow performers and Lucille herself.

From her childhood, when her virtual abandonment instilled in her a relentless drive for love and attention, through her struggling early years in vaudeville and Hollywood, through her troubled relationship with Desi Arnaz, which became the basis for one of television's most famous marriages, Lucille vividly recounts the story of this passionate, vulnerable, and often fiercely demanding woman.