Lucille's voice in the 80's sounded really... weird. She sounded kind of like a drag queen lol. Is this because of her smoking or was it just her old age or both? :confused:

I would say both played certain factors in the sound of her voice, but the smoking one is def. the one that more than likely caused the changes in her voice.

I swear I read somewhere that Lucie said her mother used to drink hard liquor (like straight scotch for example) and that also ruined her voice.

Using "full-voice" at all the show rehearsals didn't help either. The sound technology wasn't great when Lucille was making TV shows, so actors had to speak very loudly when on camera (similar to performing on stage). Lucy insisted on doing her rehearsals this way, too, and that strains the voice after a while.

You've also got to think that Lucy Ricardo was a much perkier, more bubbly character than Lucille Ball was in real life. She got in front of that camera and spoke in higher, more varied pitches to play the character. From what I've seen and heard, she wasn't like that in real life.

Lucy herself made mention of it herself once when she talked about coming out on the night of the Red Scare taping when Desi introduced her to the audience. She didn't know the reaction she'd receive (i.e. whether the fans would be mad and boo her or whether they'd be understanding) and when she saw how supportive they were, she thanked them in her real, low voice, and not in the perky tone they were perhaps used to hearing out of her as the Lucy character. Her natural, everyday speaking voice wasn't full of intonation.

So while I think the smoking contributed to making the voice even lower and deeper and raspier, I think it should also be noted that her voice was always low and drab, even when she was on ILL and before. We, the audience, just never saw it because we only experience her on tv when she was "on" and therefore not being or talking like herself. When she was on ILL I think that she could transform her voice like we saw, but as she got older it got harder to hide and change. Normal results of aging I think, but again I think the smoking made it much worse.