“FOREVER DARLING was Lucille Ball, at the left, when she returned to Jamestown, her hometown for the premier of her picture by that name,” the caption for this photo in the Feb. 9 Warren Observer read. “Between her and her husband, Desi Amaz, are two Warren residents who attended Tuesday’s afternoon reception. They are Mrs. Jack Seymour and Mrs. Leroy Schneck, left to right. Leroy took the shot.”

By 1956, the iconic sitcom “I Love Lucy” was at the height of its popularity.

But it wasn’t the only work that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were doing at the time.

“Lucille Ball thrilled thousands of waiting spectators when she arrived for the world premier of her latest film, ‘Forever Darling,’ at the Palace Theatre in Jamestown, N.Y., Tuesday evening,” the Warren Observer reported on its front page – above the fold – on Feb 9, 1956.

“The premiere ended two days of activities in which the people of Jamestown honored the hometown girl and her husband, Desi Arnaz.”

The story of the visit to Jamestown was picked up in newspapers across the region – and the country.

The Evening Blizzard (Oil City, Titusville), Feb. 7, 1956:

“More than 5,000 persons welcomed television and movie star Lucille Ball to her hometown today when she arrived in a helicopter with her husband, Desi Arnaz,” the Evening Blizzard, an Oil City/Titusville publication reported.

“A heavy drizzle failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the fans, who broke through police lines in the scramble to glimpse the stars,” that report detailed. “School pupils spelled out the words “Hi, Lucy, Desi” on the Jamestown High School athletic field, where the helicopter landed.

“Thousands more lined the streets as the party entered the city behind bands, banners and floats.”

That report indicated that it was Ball’s first visit to her hometown in nearly a decade.

It shouldn’t be surprising that some Warren folks were part of that throng in Jamestown. A photo published in the Observer shows that.

“FOREVER DARLING was Lucille Ball, at the left, when she returned to Jamestown, her hometown for the premier of her picture by that name,” the caption read. “Between her and her husband, Desi Amaz, are two Warren residents who attended Tuesday’s afternoon reception. They are Mrs. Jack Seymour and Mrs. Leroy Schneck, left to right. Leroy took the shot.”

Shifting to the regional coverage, the Holland (Michigan) Evening Sentinel reported that “Home Town Opens Arms For Lucy.” “Her hometown loves Lucy too,” that story led. “It let loose a royal welcome today when Lucille Ball, a native of Jamestown, and her husband Desi Arnaz arrived by helicopter from Niagara Falls for a big two-day celebration.

“It was the biggest thing to hit this southwestern New York city in years. And Jamestown… made the most of it…”

Library of Congress images These are a couple of the thousand images taken of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz during their 1956 trip to Jamestown, Ball’s hometown. The couple were here for a world premier of the movie “Forever Darling.”

That wire report said that events on the first day included a parade, private tea, a reception “given by old-time friends and school chums, a sports dinner for Desi and a homecoming dance in advance of the world premier of the movie on the second day of the visit.

“It was in the same Palace Theater sold out for both performances that Lucy made her first stage appearance in an ‘amateur night’ performance many years ago,” the paper reported. “‘It was,’ said Lucy, ‘a miserable dance act.'”

The Syracuse Post-Standard pointed out how the “Shutterbugs” (a reference to people looking to take photographs) were out for the visit.

Their reporting of the visit took on a personal tone.

Lucy, who was on display as a movie star all the time she was in Jamestown, would like to go back there someday with the children and take a cottage on the lake.

“I want to show them how wonderful it is here,” she declared. “I want them to see the four seasons, smell the wild strawberries, pick mushrooms and eat hot buttered corn on the cob.”

The story of the visit also went coast-to-coast.

By the time the San Mateo Times in California picked it up, the parade size had grown from 5,000 to 15,000 people – “almost half of the population of this community.”

A picture book – Lucy Comes Home, published in 2018 and available on Amazon – recounts the story of the 1956 visit. It was written by Chris Olsen, whose mother, Janice Swanson, was “homecoming queen” during the visit, according to a story published in the Jamestown Post-Journal in 2019.

Included in the 200-300 photographs are the megastars’ visit to Lucy’s former home in Celoron, to Jamestown General Hospital and to Bigelow’s Department Store; their appearances at the Crystal Ballroom in the Hotel Jamestown and at the Temple Hesed Abraham’s Sports Night at the same venue; and the warm and enthusiastic reception they received from the Western New York town that Lucy once called home.

Over 1,000 images were taken by Charlotte Brooks of Look magazine, whose job it was to capture every aspect of Lucy’s visit to her hometown. Those images are now in the collection of the Library of Congress.

“What I love most about the book and the photos is it really connects Lucy and Desi to Jamestown in a way that few people could really appreciate until you see the photographs,” Olsen told the Post-Journal. “Here she is, the biggest star in the universe, and if you look at her face there’s elation, there’s joy, there’s emotion. It says it all. … You really see in those photos and, hopefully, the book portrays how much it meant to her. You can clearly see what it means to the people in the town.”