Wanda Clark, who served as Lucille Ball ’s devoted secretary for 26 years until the famed comedienne’s death in 1999, died Sunday in Langley, Oklahoma. She was 87.

While working as a secretary at Look magazine, Clark struck up a friendship with a woman named Cleo Smith. Clark left to take a job as a travel assistant on Queen for a Day , but the TV game show got canceled shortly after she got there.

Smith, however, told her about a job opening at Ball’s company, Desilu Productions — and as Ball’s cousin, she would have known. The I Love Lucy star hired Clark in 1963 without an interview based solely on Smith’s recommendation, and she was her valued assistant until Ball’s death in April 1989 at age 77.

Wanda Clark, who served as Lucille Ball ’s devoted secretary for 26 years unt

See Full Page