How Lucille Ball exposed a WWII Japanese spy plot with her dental fillings
Lucile Ball is a Hollywood legend with her groundbreaking and hit show I Love Lucy. Her career started in Tinseltown in 1929, and spanned the tail-end of the Silent Era, to talkie features, TV and into the home video, cable and satellite TV eras. She set the stage for women performers and was the first woman to run a top TV studio.
She was married to actor, singer and WWII veteran Desi Arnaz, who co-starred alongside her in the I Love Lucy show. Her legacy extends today with the American Comedy Awards being named “The Lucy” after her passing. She starred in many shows and films such as The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy, Yours, Mine, and Ours, The Dark Corner, Best Foot Forward, and The Big Street. She led her production company, Desilu Productions, to produce hit TV shows such as The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, Star Trek and Mannix. She sold the company to Gulf+Western in 1967 for $17M which is equivalent to $155M today. Ball was an American patriot through and through and her story of foiling Japanese spies during WWII exemplifies just that.
On The Dick Cavett Show in the early 1970s, Ball revealed how her dental fillings could receive radio transmissions. She had to have dental work done in the early 1940s and the dentist put temporary fillings in, which at the time were made of lead. She had several temporary fillings put in her upper and lower jaw. She was driving early in the morning around 1:15 AM alone and had a long way to drive. While driving, all of sudden she heard music with a “great beat” and she looked down to turn off her radio and “it wasn’t on.” She looked around to see if anyone was following her and the music kept getting louder and louder. At that point she realized, “…it was in my mouth.” She heard the tune and recognized and then it started to fade away. She said, “What the hell was that? What could it possibly be?”
The next day at the studio she mentioned her experience to Buster Keaton, a Hollywood icon and Silent Film star, and he replied, “What street were you on, Moorpark?” Ball said “Yes” and he retired, “You went by the radio station. You picked it up. Do you have any fillings?” She told him she did and he said, “You picked it up in your teeth.” She looked forward to driving by the radio station again. As she had to wait for a couple of weeks to get the temporary fillings removed, five nights later, she was driving again when she passed four vacant lots where the Birmingham [General Army] Hospital was to be built. When Ball drove by the lots she heard a code through her fillings, like Morse code. She stopped her car and checked out the area. The code continued in her head and she sought out the signal by backing her car up. As she backed up, the signal got stronger and stronger. She stopped once the signal was so strong her “whole jaw was vibrating.”
She got back to MGM Studios the next morning with her newfound experience. She went to the security office and reported what happened. The security office passed the information to the authorities who found an underground transmitting Japanese radio station. So, while she was working in Hollywood stateside, she helped to foil the Axis Powers and their plans via her temporary filings and late-night trips around Los Angeles. Of note, Birmingham General Army Hospital was for GIs, Desi Arnaz entertained troops through the USO during his WWII service and the site is now the Mulholland Junior High and William Mulholland Middle School. Some of the original buildings remain on site.
Watch Lucille Ball tell the story here:
