Celebrating Lucille Ball's 100th birthday

LOS ANGELES -- On the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball's birthday, her daughter asked fans of the "I Love Lucy" star to be joyous, The Associated Press reports.

"They shouldn't mourn. She had one of the best lives ever," Lucie Arnaz said. "She is one of the few people we can look at and say she left us something that can help."

"I Love Lucy," which starred the redheaded actress as a zany homemaker and then-husband Desi Arnaz as her bandleader-spouse, first aired from 1951 to 1957 and still is seen around the world on TV and on DVD.

Lucie Arnaz, 60, said she knows Ball's legacy of laughter has proved uplifting. "Every place I go, every country I'm in, I hear, 'If it wasn't for your mother, I wouldn't have gotten through cancer.' Or, 'I was in a low point of my life and watched [the show] and laughed so hard, and if I can do that I can make it.' "

She said the modest Ball always counted herself lucky to work with her husband, co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley and the show's writers, who mapped out the action for Ball's many wordless slapstick scenes that showcased the star. But she was "the consummate clown of the universe," Lucie Arnaz added.

The couple, who also had a son, Desi Arnaz Jr., 58, divorced in 1960 but remained friendly.

Desi Arnaz died at 69 in 1986. Lucille Ball, born 100 years ago yesterday in upstate Jamestown, died at age 77 in Los Angeles in 1989.

Saturday, 915 red-lipsticked, redheaded women and men gathered in Jamestown near a sign for "Vitameatavegamin," a health tonic Ball's character promotes in a popular episode, to set a Guinness world record in her honor, Reuters reports.