Kathleen Brady

Kathleen Brady

When Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown, New York on August 6, 1911, William H. Taft was president, there were forty-six states, and U.S. women were nine years away from achieving the right to vote. For all that she is synonymous with the immortal Lucy Ricardo, Lucille Ball is fixed in time. The year 2011 was her centennial and the occasion of a new (and sixth) edition of Kathleen Brady's Lucille the Life of Lucille Ball from iUniverse.

In recognition of the author's biography Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker (now a University of Pittsburgh Press paperback), she was named a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. She co-authored Your Pain is Real with the neurologist Emile Hiesiger.

The author has written passionately about New York City issues: Giuliani's short-sightedness, New York City's flawed bid for the 2012 Olympics, corporate and state hostility toward Gotham's workforce, plus shenanigans that compromise the city's electoral clout, are among topics Kathleen Brady has considered in opinion pieces about New York City, most of which appeared in New York Newsday and Our Town. Until recently, as the Director of Communications of the non-profit NYC Employment & Training Coalition, she wrote the popular niche e-newsletter Workforce Weekly. She was also Senior Writer in the Communications Department of the New York City Department of Education in 2004 and 2005.

Brady was featured on the American Masters PBS special about Lucille Ball and narrated the first installment of the 1993 PBS series "The Prize." She also appears on the A&E Biography of the Rockefeller family and has discussed her work on NPR.

The 1994 ABC-TV movie, "A Passion for Justice," starring Jane Seymour, was based on Brady's research into the life of Mississippi journalist and civil rights activist Hazel Brannon Smith. Brady is Director of Communications for NYC Employment & Training Coalition, a nonprofit organization that advocates for job training and advancement for entry level and mid-skill workers. She is a past co-director of the Biography Seminar at New York University and a former reporter for Time Magazine.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

Lucille The Life of Lucille Ball

“The strengths of Lucille The Life of Lucille Ball are as manifold as they manifest.
Brady is meticulous.” -- Toronto Globe and Mail

“The best biography of Lucille Ball. -- Nashville Banner

“Without ignoring the darker aspects of Ball's life, Brady portrays a woman of impressive determination and resilience.” -- Time Magazine

“Every so often there comes along a book with new insights into the contradictions of show business – new even to those of us who have studied it for years. She makes the reader feel for Lucy in the upsets and errors she experience, making her far more vulnerable than her popular image would suggest.”
David Shipman, author of Judy Garland and The Story of Cinema

IDA TARBELL: Portrait of a Muckraker

“Kathleen Brady brings to life the personality of Ida Tarbell, queen of the muckrakers, who was one of the first women to break the gender gap in American journalism…The biography is replete with revealing anecdotes." The New York Times

“…a graceful new biography” --Time Magazine

“It is with some joy that I read Kathleen Brady’s fine new biography, Ida Tarbell: Portrait of A Muckraker, and have at last made the acquaintance of surely the bravest and most determined woman in American journalism and among the most diligent and scrupulous in her work.” Gloria Emerson, Washington Journalism Review

“Based on thorough research in manuscript collections and on a knowledge of most of the relevant secondary literature IDA TARBELL: Portrait of A Muckraker is a well-written and lively book. It should be read by all those interested in the history of journalism and the Progressive era as well as by those concerned with the role of women in American history.” The American Historical Review