ABSTRACT
One Sunday evening in June 1950, top US TV star Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz sat down to listen to Walter Winchell’s compulsive weekly radio gossip column. Like most Americans, the Arnaz duo enjoyed Winchell’s machine-gun delivery and snappy language as he dished the dirt on the public and private lives of Hollywood’s stars. But their cosy evening in was shattered when Winchell announced in his usual barking style that Ball was expecting a “blessed event”. Though the hack could talk at a dizzying rate of 197 words per minute (the way he wrote was nicknamed ‘slanguage’ for its unusual informality), Lucy and Desi knew they hadn’t misheard – after several miscarriages and a hopeful pregnancy test that had recently gone off to the lab, this was how they were to find out they were expecting a baby. Wily Winchell’s far-reaching contacts included a medical mole on the lookout for splash-worthy test results. Though she later made light of the exposé to silence the baying press (“If Winchell says so, it’s gotta be true!” she joked), Ball never forgave Winchell for stealing an utterly private moment from her to offer up for public consumption. When he later accused her of being a Communist during the McCarthy witch-hunts and she was asked how the gossip hound was able to uncover such secrets, she replied bitterly, “Walter Winchell knew I was pregnant before I did.”
