Betty White and Lucille Ball were contrasting personalities. White was a self-described, “cockeyed optimist,” easygoing, charming, and often irreverent, and felt it was important to live life that way. As she told ABC News, “It’s your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don’t take yourself too seriously, pretty soon, you can find the humor in our everyday lives.” In reply to the question, “How do you stay with the mindset of a young woman?” on the Reddit AMA, she quipped, “Oh, because I’m childish at heart!”
Lucy, on the other hand, was a challenging person in real life, according to her daughter, Lucie Arnaz, who told Aaron Sorkin, “I know my mother wasn’t an easy woman” (via The Hollywood Reporter). As Arnaz told Outsider, Lucy was a driven, responsible personality with strict rules on sets and a consummate list-maker. And surprisingly, unlike White, she wasn’t particularly funny in person. Director Pamela Mason Wagner told American Masters, ” I was intrigued by Lucille Ball because she’s full of contradictions … She was a funny actress who couldn’t tell a joke, and was quite serious in real life.”
