From her dyed orange hair to her image as America's most adorable housewife, nothing was ever what it seemed with Lucille Ball.

With I Love Lucy, she became the biggest star in television history with a sitcom in which she and her real-life husband, Cuban band leader Desi Arnaz, played out a happy if chaotic marriage to a hooked audience of tens of millions. 

But off camera they were rarely not at each other's throats or — in his case — in someone else's bed.

Arnaz was the type of philanderer who once expressed shock that his wife should be upset — they were hookers, he said, so they didn't count. Ball was hardly much better, a Hollywood tyrant prone to violence.

The B-movie actress from the 1940s who became an A-list megastar in the 1950s with the most popular show that has ever aired on U.S. TV is soon to get another turn in the spotlight.