Abdominal aortic aneurysm
Actress Lucille Ball died April 26, 1989 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. At the time of her death, she was in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center recovering from emergency surgery performed just six days earlier because of a dissecting aortic aneurysm near her heart. Ball was at increased risk, as she had been a heavy smoker for decades.
Lucille Lund
In 1933 she won a nationwide contest, "The Most Beautiful College Coed", which included a small Universal Pictures contract as a prize. Her first film was "Horseplay" in 1933, in which she had a minor role, with her first noticeable film being opposite Robert Young in the 1933 movie "Saturday's Millions". In 1934 she starred in six films. That year she starred in "The Black Cat", a horror film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. She also starred in the lead role opposite Reb Russell in "Range Warfare", and would be named a "WAMPAS Baby Star". Of the thirteen girls selected that year to be "WAMPAS Baby Stars", only four would see any success as actresses. It was the last year that "WAMPAS" selected actresses for that title. Lund had roles in 21 films from 1935 through 1939, many of which were B-movies, such as "Prison Shadows". Of her last four films, she was uncredited in three.
In 1937, she married Kenneth Higgins (1937-1973), a radio producer-writer. They were the parents of two daughters. In 1939, she ended her acting career after the birth of her two daughters. After the death of her husband in 1973, she return acting in commercials. In 1997 she took part in the documentary "Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula", about the life and career of Bela Lugosi. In 2000 Lund took part in the documentary "I Used to be in Pictures", which featured many actresses from the early years of Hollywood, which included Beverly Roberts, Muriel Evans and Miriam Seegar, in addition to Lund and others. The documentary searched into Hollywood's early beginnings, and its pioneers. It would be Lund's last on-camera work. She died at her home in Rolling Hills, California in 2002, aged 88.