NYTimes: When Lucy tried to conquer Broadway

Wildcat was almost as big of a flop as Mame.

Lucy funded this entire project out of her own pocket

Lucy said that audiences didn't want to see her in this role, so eventually she just started doing the Lucy Ricardo "schtick" on stage.

Lucy also said that nobody, except the kids in the chorus, would be honest with her about what a stinker the show was.

Lucy goal was to be a Broadway star - she was finished with TV and wanted new mountains to conquer. She saw herself living in NYC forever and being like Mary Martin, A new broadway musical every year,

But nobody wanted to see her as anything but Lucy - so after the musical flopped, she moved back to California and once again did a "Lucy" series.,

You have to admit that it's sort of sad that she tried to do something different and the audiences only watched her as Lucy. That's gotta be awful for an actor to be rejected for trying to stretch yourself because your fans only want to see you as one particular character. I'd imagine playing one character for years and years must be hell on an actor who has an interest in playing other kinds of roles.

Especially then - the audience was even less sophisticated than now, and so they practically thought she WAS Lucy Ricardo.

Perhaps, R5. But the money is great!

It's so weird she had so much trouble understanding she couldn't sing. It's a constant joke throughout "I Love Lucy" that she can't sing, but she must have thought the writers conceived of Lucy Ricardo as someone very different from the real Lucille Ball.

J'adore r5!

But Broadway doesn't go for a boozing dope!

[quote] It's a constant joke throughout "I Love Lucy" that she can't sing

Back then you could get away with doing "Sing-Speak" (think rap) - Rex Harrison got away with it for years, just speaking the melody.

I wonder if she was considered for the original Mame on Broadway. The role could've been slightly changed to suit her better.

Ball could sing in the same way Rosalind Russell could. She could hit a few notes well enough, but didn't have a big range and, if the score wasn't tailored to her voice (like Mame), she'd sound like shit. She's fine on the Wildcat recording. She's no Barbra Streisand, but she isn't being called upon to sing the same kind of rangy material either. On Mame, even with lowered keys, she sounds awful because it wasn't written for her.

I thought Lucy actually began as a Broadway chorus girl and model.

And the show was selling fine. Audiences were eating up the Lucy crap she started doing because audiences were unhappy not seeing it out of town. Didn't the show shutter because of her health? She couldn't handle eight shows a week and collapsed more than once. Too much liquor and tobacco takes its toll on someone that age.

It's not a great score but I've always enjoyed most of it.

I think in the beginning that people only wanted her as Lucy, especially so soon after the marriage had ended. But over time, I think the reverse happened. She came to depend on that character to the detriment of her own career. She did do some drama specials that were successes.

Though it's often derided, Stone Pillow was a huge ratings hit when it was shown on CBS, and that was as far away from Lucy Ricardo as you could get. ABC offered her another show on the back of that. But instead of trying to do something current, she fell back on her old formula, bringing along Gale and all of the people she had surrounded herself with for thirty years.

She persisted!

What's interesting is that also in the 50s (Wildcat was at the very tail end of that era), both Rosalind Russell and Judy Holliday starred in Broadway hit musicals even though they both (as opposed to Lucy) ADMITTED they couldn't sing.

Russell told Leonard and Bernstein and Comden & Green that she could only hit four notes, and she was right--but those four notes she could hit very loudly. And there was a musicality to her speak-singing in "Wonderful Town" like Rex Harrison showed later in "My Fair Lady."

Judy Holliday also said she couldn't sing, but she had even more musicality than Russell. She actually sang all her songs in "bells are Ringing" without much speak-singing, and she put them over--in fact, with "I'm Going Back," she put over one of the greatest eleven o'clock songs of all time (Faith prince, a much better singer, could not put it over nearly as well as Holliday could).

But I never heard Lucille Ball admit she couldn't sing, and she had none of the musicality of Russell or Holliday. She was always off the beat and out of tune and scratchy. My dad was like this (and so is Rosie O'Donnell)--they love musicals and they want to be in them, but they just can't sing.

Theater legend has it that Lucille Ball was offered "Wildcat" or "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

The fact Lucy was reading the part of cue cards didn't help.

I told her!

“Lucy...” I said...

^^She hadn't met Gary yet.

Lucy's co-star Keith Andes (probably the only reason people bought tickets)

Lucy was never considered for Molly Brown. Ever. But when Tammy Grimes was having major difficulties with the part out of town, Grimes looked at the house during a preview and saw Barbara Cook sitting with the producers, studying her intently.

Lucy's sister was played by Paula Stewart who had just divorced Burt Bacharach. Can you imagine the two of them sitting around the rehearsal room, blowing smoke in each other's faces and complaining about marrying "musical" men.

Lucy: Yeah, but Paul, at least yours spoke English. I didn't know what the hell loser Desi was saying half the time.

Paula: But, Lou, you don't understand Jewish men. They have this unnatural attachment to their mothers.

She had limited range as an actress,as well as singer. She ended the show despite advanced sales because of her health, although I suspect she knew what a disaster this was.

I wish people would stop talking about her a studio mogul. She played very little role in running Desilu once she bought out Desi. It turned into a rental lot until Herbert Solow was hired to develop shows. He wisely did hour dramas which she didn't understand.

[quote]Lucy was never considered for Molly Brown.

I dunno. Dory Schary directed Molly Brown. Maybe he wanted to work with Lucy on a Broadway musical.

She said she was "stuck in a hit".

Why would Schary have cared about her? He was a liberal and what passed for an intellectual in corporate Hollywood. Lucy may have been popular but she her comedy was shrill, obvious and derivative. She was not a thinking person. She had limited range as an actress and couldn't sing. It sounds as though Lucy bought Wilccat, in which case there was no "offering".

She was more lucky than an actress?

Judy Holliday said she couldn't sing? That's funny, because I've always found her voice rather pleasant.

[quote]Why would Schary have cared about her?

Because he allowed Lucy to use his name/persona in her show where Ricky goes to Hollywood. He was supposed to play himself, but backed out of doing it.

R17, you need to get out more.

Paula & Swen

Motherofgod. Isn't there a Lucille Ball website and message board somewhere you obsessed cunts can post? Every day there's a new damn thread on this dead bitch.

So rousing...

Lucy may not have been a trained dancer, but she moved well.

"The Queen of Tuesday"

Excuse me?

Lucie sings Hey Look Me Over...

Valerie reminding Lucy...

Viv getting sufficient...

[quote]Viv getting sufficient...

That bitch couldn't put her cigarette down long enough to hug me. Burned a hole in my new cape.

She was no Eleanor Powell. But she could prevail in a musical number.

Lucy and Valerie Harper were once on the Dinah Shore Show (DINAH!) and again, Lucy seemed bewildered when Valerie mentioned being in the chorus of "Wildcat" Lucy didn't recall and even said Valerie was mistaken, but Valerie had photos from the show and pulled them out and pointed at herself in the musical numbers and Lucy said, "That was YOU?" IT was very funny.

Figures Lucy couldn't be gracious.

[quote]but Valerie had photos from the show and pulled them out

Why should Lucille Ball remember some chorus girl in her failed Broadway musical? What did Val think she was Marie Jane Croft or something?

[quote]but Valerie had photos from the show and pulled them out and pointed at herself in the musical numbers and Lucy said, "That was YOU?"

I distinctly had it in my contract that there were to be no Jews in my show. I already got in trouble once for their Communism bullshit.

Valerie Harper was not Jewish. Not ever. Protestant.

Summer of 1961: Martha Raye did Wildcat at the Westbury Music Fair opposite Keith Andes. Saw it and she was hysterically funny and even raunchy in some of her business/shticks with stud Keith. She did a very funny curtain speech and ended the evening with "Bless you". Love the Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh score!

DID SHE YELL ALL HER LINES?

[quote]Valerie Harper was not Jewish. Not ever. Protestant.

She was for 22 minutes each Saturday night. then later Monday night in the 70s

[quote]Back then you could get away with doing "Sing-Speak" (think rap) - Rex Harrison got away with it for years, just speaking the melody.

How about the kid who played the Artful Dodger and later on HR Puffnstuff. He was HORRIBLE. All he did was yell not sing.

I never miss a Keith Andes musical.

[quote]I never miss a Keith Andes musical.

I have never seen one, but I love his mints

In retrospect, rewriting the script so Wildcat gets her head stuck in a loving cup and does an ad for a vitamin elixir wasn't the best idea.

Lucy improvised nudity into her Wildcat performances, much to the shock of the other cast members, and it didn't go over well.

It was also a pretty big mistake when Lucy replaced Andes with Gale Gordon a month into the run.

Book and Lyrics

by

Bob Carroll and Madelyn Davis

In her new memoir Lucy Loved Me, Paula Stewart says Gary Morton was a money-grubbing opportunist. He never loved Lucy, which Lucy knew, and stayed away from her as much as possible during their marriage. She also said Morton was hung and wore a toupee even before he met Lucy.

Stewart is still kicking at 91.

[quote] I'd imagine playing one character for years and years must be hell on an actor who has an interest in playing other kinds of roles.

Kelsey Grammer played Frasier Crane for 20 years and managed to find success on the stage afterward. He received good notices and was nominated for a Tony in the revival of LA CAGE. His co-star, David Hyde Pierce has also been successful, post-FRASIER, starring in SPAMALOT, and HELLO, DOLLY!, and winning a Tony for CURTAINS.

Maybe audiences are more sophisticated now, maybe men have it easier, or maybe Lucy Ricardo was so memorable and unique that nothing she would've done post I LOVE LUCY would've erased that character from peoples' minds.

In any event, to steal a phrase from Liberace, I'm sure Lucy cried all the way to the bank.

Just looking at the production photos, you can tell the show was a giant turd.

R31: That was in the days when movie studios discovered they could use tv to publicize their films but often were ambivalent about doing their own shows---tv operations were kept separate from film and Columbia (just coming into its own) used a different name for its tv subsidiary. Disney wrote promotion of his films into his contract with ABC and did it shamelessly through the different iterations of his show on ABC and NBC. Warner and 20th Century Fox did it with their maiden tv efforts. MGM had no real tv presence of their own so they did this through relationships with Ed Sullivan and later with ABC, showing shorts. It was advantageous to to promote the studio via ILL because they really didn't have their own shows until the late 50s after Schary had been fired.

Once MGM fired him, he quickly became a successful Broadway producer and already had success well before Wildcat with serious, Tony award winning plays. He would have been smart enough to know that a straight play revamped with show tunes and a non-singing, barely acting star would have been a disaster.

If there really is a Paula Stewart book, it sounds like ancient nobody making a last ditch attempt at attention whoring. Helen Keller would have recognized that Gary Morton probably started wearing a toupee when he was a teenager.

Of course Lucy knew Valerie was in Wildcat. They would have had to have rehearsed this number...

Tall Hope

Lucy croaking out her songs in her cigarette-ravaged gravel voice is not pleasant to listen to.

more about Paula!

[quote]That was in the days when movie studios discovered they could use tv to publicize their films

Lucy was famous for this. You can hear the theme from "Forever Darling" in I Love Lucy. Of course Lucy and Desi were heavily invested in the Broadway show "The Most Happy Fella," which was also featured on I Love Lucy

[quote] Maybe audiences are more sophisticated now, maybe men have it easier, or maybe Lucy Ricardo was so memorable and unique that nothing she would've done post I LOVE LUCY would've erased that character from peoples' minds.

Or it could be that Lucy, talented as she was, had an incredibly limited range - one that did not include any talents necessary to make "Wildcat" a success.

R64: It looks like Pauls really is an old has-been attention whore.

Or maybe, since it has never been revived, Wildcat was just a dud of a show that even Mary Martin would have crashed and burned in.

Gang Way for Lucy!

Lucy had greater ranger when she way young and starring in all kinds of movies at MGM in the 40s, not only comedies but also film noirs, dramas, and musicals (singing dubbed). She never got a star-making role, however, but was respected for her multi-talents. And she could do sophisticated comedy without the slapstick which came in later.

r60 Why would you think someone would make up Paula Stewart writing a book?

Lucille Ball was best when she played hard-boiled dames.

Lucille does an early (less slapstick) version of Lucy in Miss Grant Takes Richmond and she's quite charming in it.

Wow. The typing teacher is the same actor who staffed the Passport Office when Lucy shows up to get her passport and she is intoxicated on Dramanine.

Lucy hired her pals over and over. She was certainly loyal.

R67 Paula's sizzle reel features both ex husbands!

The Passport Clerk is Charles Lane. His credits on imdb span 65 years. He died in 2007 at the age of 102.

[quote]Wow. The typing teacher is the same actor who staffed the Passport Office when Lucy shows up to get her passport and she is intoxicated on Dramanine.

Yes, Charles Lane. He also played Lucy's business manager, Mr. Hickox, in the episode when she tries to get around him by getting cash for taking grocery orders (Buy Can AllPet). Lucy was very loyal to those she had worked with in the past.

Charles Lane played the bank manager on the Lucy Show's first season. Gale Gordon took his place in the second season.

I guess he wasn't shouting his lines loud enough.

Charles Lane is in my personal favorite episode of television, "Weigh In, Weigh Out" (St. Elsewhere). Go to minute 44 if my link doesn't work.

Charles Lane played Joan Crawford's ex-husband in Mildred Pierce.

Paula Stewart can write ever she wants. But a non-entity writing a memoir at age 91 is just pathetic, esp. if the lead revelations involve Gary Morton's toupee.

[quote]Charles Lane played Joan Crawford's ex-husband in Mildred Pierce.

No, dear. That was Bruce Bennett. Please leave your gay card at the door on your way out.

[quote]Please leave your gay card at the door on your way out.

Is there anything more annoying than this phrase?

[quote] Why should Lucille Ball remember some chorus girl in her failed Broadway musical? What did Val think she was Marie Jane Croft or something?

A chorus girl speaking to the star! Sure, it was more than a decade later, but Lucy still should have had Valerie fired right on the spot!

Charles Lane was Mr. Finch on Dennis the Menace and Homer Bedloe on Petticoat Junction. Great character actor.

[quote]Is there anything more annoying than this phrase?

Yes. People posting erroneous information that could be cleared up with a minute or two of research.

Why is this book called " THE QUEEN OF TUESDAY ." ILL was in Monday nights .

[quote]Yes. People posting erroneous information that could be cleared up with a minute or two of research.

Is there anything more annoying than cunts who act all superior and pissy over simple mistakes?

Get her, R87!

[quote] Is there anything more annoying than cunts who act all superior and pissy over simple mistakes?

Yes. The fat whores who wallow in being wrong and hiss and fuss over being corrected. THOSE cunts are really annoying.

The r83/r87 types make me want to join the Westboro Baptist Church.

[quote]Yes. The fat whores who wallow in being wrong and hiss and fuss over being corrected. THOSE cunts are really annoying.

THEN STOP CORRECTING PEOPLE WITH A SHITTY, PISSY ATTITUDE YOU MISERABLE FUCKING CUNT.

What r83/r87/r91 looks like on everybody's caller ID:

[quote] THEN STOP CORRECTING PEOPLE WITH A SHITTY, PISSY ATTITUDE YOU MISERABLE FUCKING CUNT.

How vivid.

Lucy was *nothing* without Vivian Vance. It was VV that really made that show funny.

And she had Viv for a while on the new show.

R51, Keith Andes did other musicals on Broadway, TV, and on tour. He sang well.

She liked to 'sing' a lot on "The Lucy Show" as well. We all just clapped politely.

Oooof.

Can you imagine being stuck on an airplane and having to watch in-flight entertainment from Lucy and Carol Burnett? Hijinks ensue at 19:15

Americans really bought these hokey plots in the early 1970s? Was Nixon pumping drugs into the water supply?

During the run of Wildcat, Lucy rented an apartment in Imperial House at 150 East 69th Street. It's here that Joan Crawford lived from 1967 to 1977 and much later Liza had a duplex there. Friend lived there and had horrendous problems with upstairs neighbors. No insulation and shitty, cheap constructions. That's why Joan had lots of wall-to-wall carpeting.

r82 Actually, Stewart's lead revelation about Gary Morton is the girth of his sizemeat, which explains why Lucy married him. Second is that he was a mostly absent, unloving husband to Lucy. Third is he was a loser in show biz until he married the golden cow. Fourth is that Stewart disliked him intensely. Then comes the toupee.

Verifcatia of sizemeat?

Lucy wanted to be a star but didn't want to work for it, just like on I Love Lucy.

r105 Oh, my.

These are the kind of threads I love. So sick of all the political BS.

Lucy was a doll!

Why was she the queen of Tuesdays? I Love Lucy was on Monday nights at 9pm.

It was in one of the books that I read a singing coach said she had a good voice and range and was a much better singer than Desi, who was more of a performer. In the musical stuff on I Love Lucy when she isn't trying to sound terrible, she sounded pretty good, like the Queen Of The Gypsies thing or the Scottish thing. She sounds pretty good singing in The Long Long Trailer. Not saying she was Judy Garland but she wasn't bad.

r106

Why Oh My? There was an episode where Ricky put Lucy to work and she quit.

r109

I don't buy she was better than Desi. Lucy had a small range and if you kept the notes in it, she could sing it.

R111 Desi was not a good singer.

R105 Everyone knows she was a workaholic. She worked hard on Wildcat even though she was sick - she lost a lot of weight. She wasn't even sensible about it.

Long, Long Trailer, r109....

Desi...Spic 'n Span

[quote]During the run of Wildcat, Lucy rented an apartment in Imperial House at 150 East 69th Street.

Not too far from her old neighborhood.

Right in the middle of the East River.

I don't know why Ricky wouldn't let her work at the Tropicana. She seems well suited to it.

Such dulcet tones...

r112

Yes he was. He certainly wasn't the best of his generation but he was above average.

Lucy could shake those hips when she had to.

r121

So could William Frawley but that isn't something anyone wants to see now, is it?

Did you know that during his vaudeville career, Frawley introduced and helped popularize the songs "My Mammy," "My Melancholy Baby," and "Carolina in the Morning." Pretty impressive. Of course, Jolson made "My Mammy" one of his signature songs. I wonder if Frawley ever did blackface.

Lucy thought blackface was funny. We had a recent thread about it on the show.

[quote]Lucy thought blackface was funny.

That makes sense if you embrace the reality that she was born 109 years ago. Lots of things were different then. She was born only 8 years after the Wright brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk and 3 years before World War I began.

Do you seriously think you are not a product of your environment?

I don’t judge her. I was just noting.

[quote]Yes he was. He certainly wasn't the best of his generation but he was above average.

If you watch him try to sing a ballad on ILL he's always off key.

I was just saying that in the book Desilu there's a vocal coach or expert who says she had a stronger singing voice than him. And - it's not like she was incapable of doing a musical, she sounds good in Hey Look Me Over (the clip above) and as someone else said, Roz Russell was a hit in Wonderful Town and you don't need to be a perfect singer to do a musical. Angela Lansbury (though better than Lucy) wasn't either.

Even back then people knew blackface was offensive.

It also was was out of date.

How did Gary feel about it?

Angie was pretty darn good, r127.

R131 I saw her in Gypsy (I was a fetus). Good singer for that type of role, not a "great singer" - she was fantastic in the show, still think it was the best show I ever saw.

Angie makes a mention of Lucy...

When she went back to Hollywood if she had done Angela's part in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE that Frank Sinatra wanted her to do - she would have left LUCY behind for good.

Instead we got THE LUCY SHOW.......which was okay, the first couple of seasons.

I remember only the antenna and shower stall episodes really being in league with the ILL episodes.

She wasn't as good without the the comedic threat of a husband finding out about whatever she had done, or was about to do (same with Viv's character). They tried giving her a neighbor or boyfriend or two and then Gale Gordon, which was not the same. And Desi was the perfect foil for her.

[quote]her vocal coach suggested she confine her singing to only “one note, while the orchestra played the melody,

Ouch.

[quote]She caught colds, had crying spells, broke two fingers; she sprained her ankle three times, pulled a tendon, and sweated off 19 pounds...Then she fainted onstage. Then she fainted onstage another time — and the production set up an oxygen tank for her in the wings. Then she fainted again. It happened during a number called “Tippy Tippy Toes”; a castmate tried to catch her and broke a wrist.

She sounds like an accident prone klutz. The type who takes everyone else down with them.

[quote] I remember only the antenna and shower stall episodes really being in league with the ILL episodes.

Aw, go fuck yourself

Sorry, Miss Zimmerman, but Lucille wasn't very funny on that episode. You, of course, were gangbusters! I also thought the roller skating episode gave Lucy a chance to do some physical comedy that was worthy of ILL.

The official acronym for the show was LUCY. During the first couple of rehearsals, Lucy saw ILL on the scripts and said she didn't want to have to look at ill all the time......so LUCY it was.

So it really wasn't an acronym at all.

Bitch Ball couldnt ain’t. How in the fuck did she ever believe she she be carrying a musical.

Couldn’t *sing

I bet she could ain't like a son of a bitch!

I just imagined Ball trying to stumble her way through "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" and got sick.

Well, we really should watch this again....

[quote]I remember only the antenna and shower stall episodes really being in league with the ILL episodes.

Lucy was actually drowning in the shower stall episode and Vivian was the only one who realized what was happening. She pulled Lucy's head out of the water by the hair and those two old pros just kept on with the scene. The first and only take -- where Lucy almost died -- was the one used.

Desi is so charismatic and charming in that "Cuban Pete" number. He was never a great singer, but had something better, musicality. He moved well and could sell a song with his personality, plus he was a very cute guy for awhile.

Lucy is merely "okay" in the same number.

She was no Joan Davis.

I liked you better, Joa- ...eh, Anonymous.

The shower and antenna shows were slapstick at its most predictable. Even as a kid, it was obvious what would happen in those episodes. "Lucy in London" is classically bad and should get posted every time one of the Lucyfans kvells too much.

I loved Lucy & Viv Install a Shower.......I watch it now and then when I need a laugh.

When Viv pulls the screwdriver out of her back pocket, Lucy's reaction is priceless!

[quote]Lucy was actually drowning in the shower stall episode and Vivian was the only one who realized what was happening.

I think that's just a legend they made up over the years. Like Lucy was suffocating in the grape stomping episode or Lucy almost really lit herself on fire during the putty nose episode. Lucy was known to be a stickler for rehearsal and they rehearsed these scenes several times.

R153.....after Viv pulls her up, Lucy says "I didn't know the water was so deep!"

I don't think it was part of the routine......

Also, Madelyn Pugh supposedly rehearsed stunts before Lucy did them. there was nothing "spontaneous" on that show.

[quote]there was nothing "spontaneous" on that show.

I was surprised to find that even the Vitametavegamin scene was tightly scripted. I thought some of that was Lucy's natural talent, but one documentary showed a copy of the script and it had line by line directions on what she should do.

She was a product of the studio system, in a somewhat bad way. She knew her marks, knew her laughs, could move or "sing" within the limits of her natural abilities, etc. but couldn't get beyond any of that. She had none of the naturalism of the more talented Golden Age stars or the chameleon or improvisation qualities encouraged by the Method and other modern approaches.

I've read bios of other B players like her who went into television and they often were pros about about the routine stuff that moves production forward, regardless of whether they were particularly great actors.

Predictable, yes r151, but expertly performed.

When Lucy got locked in the freezer that was real icicles on her face.

Yes, and when she had a baby on the original show, that was real.

As were the “costume” shoes she wore on her feet - they were actually [italic]real shoes[/italic] (!)

The one thing about Lucille Ball that I always think about is how much she loved Desi. Even after their divorce and until the day they died. Her emotions went way overboard and she fell in too deeply. Her move to New York City to do WILDCAT was to get away from the emotions of her divorce. They remained friends throughout their lives but she loved him more than anyone else. That emotional pain was something she never got over.

[quote]The first and only take -- where Lucy almost died -- was the one used.

Well since it was the only take they probably had to use that one.

[quote]The one thing about Lucille Ball that I always think about is how much she loved Desi. Even after their divorce and until the day they died. Her emotions went way overboard and she fell in too deeply. Her move to New York City to do WILDCAT was to get away from the emotions of her divorce. They remained friends throughout their lives but she loved him more than anyone else. That emotional pain was something she never got over.

This is true and I believe he produced Wildcat, though maybe not officially. The books say so. He also was the original producer and director (I think) of The Lucy Show. I was watching some Here's Lucy BTS stuff with commentary by Lucie and Desi Jr and at one point he says, "There's dad" - he was in the mix, backstage. So he was around a lot more than people think.

Interestingly, Desi was one of the biggest TV stars of the 50s but after ILL he basically never acted again except very sporadically - on The Mothers In Law and a few movies. He was a good comedian and a good actor, though. He was a professional performer right up until and during ILL, then he more or less quit performing.

The heaping of praise on Lucy's limited acting skills gets tiresome, but Desi was at least as limited. He was a an ethnic supporting player in movies. Not a leading man. His real skill was behind the camera and in the business end. He was a bit like Lucy in that he couldn't move forward---the Mothers-in-Law was really cut from the same cloth as the various Lucy ventures with plenty of warmed over plots and schtick.

A frowsy redhead and a dishwater blonde......

[quote]The heaping of praise on Lucy's limited acting skills gets tiresome, but Desi was at least as limited. He was a an ethnic supporting player in movies. Not a leading man.

"In movies" - who cares? They made their success in TV and it was huge. Everybody is unsuccessful until they're successful. If either of them were that limited, people wouldn't still be watching I Love Lucy. Basically the only 50s TV show that's still being shown on TV and still popular. Everyone's acting skills are limited. I find your post tiresome.

[quote]Basically the only 50s TV show that's still being shown on TV and still popular.

All down to Miss Vivian Vance. If Bea Benadaret had played the role, like Lucy wanted, it would be a forgotten show. No, it has been the comic timing, the great singing and the sheer force of Miss Vance that has kept the show on tv.

Vancebot

It is remarkable that an almost seventy year-old sitcom can still easily be found on any day to watch and enjoy.

Whole families can still laugh at it together. Oddly though, my parents who watched it as teenagers in the 1950s never had any interest in watching it again with us, but my nieces and nephew can spout ever punchline and know all the major gags and episodes.

[quote]Basically the only 50s TV show that's still being shown on TV

Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Jack Benny, Alfred Hitchcock, Highway Patrol, the Honeymooners, and Burns and Allen are being shown daily on Antenna TV and MeTV.

[quote] It is remarkable that an almost seventy year-old sitcom can still easily be found on any day to watch and enjoy.

It was well done, at least for most of its run. The situations were for the most part universal and timeless, and the chemistry was magic. Not surprising it's still on.

I remember when Wildcat was playing in NYC. And I also remember that Lucille Ball moved into my grandparent's apartment building (on 69th St, as referenced in the article.) And I also remember it being known that she broke through walls of her apartment. At the time the word was that she rented two or three apartments next to each other and broke through the walls. Not sure if that was the real story. The building was the Imperial House. 150 E 69th Street between Lexington and Third. The building was built in 1960 I think. Joan Crawford lived in the same building (and died in the same building) in the 1970s. Liza Minelli also lived in the building when she lived in NYC.

[quote]Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Jack Benny, Alfred Hitchcock, Highway Patrol, the Honeymooners, and Burns and Allen are being shown daily on Antenna TV and MeTV.

I get your point but those are nostalgia channels. And hasn't CBS shown some colorized prime time ILL episodes? They're not doing that with Gunsmoke. Jack Benny's show is a huge favorite of mine and I loved Highway Patrol and some of the others - but I Love Lucy still has universal popularity none of those shows have

Yes, ILL stands out among all the others in its continuing success.

Even the Mesothelioma channels don't program ILL any more. Beyond that, the idea that someone might show it at 5 in the morning says more about cheap programming than its enduring appeal.

[quote]Even the Mesothelioma channels don't program ILL any more.

"I Love Lucy" airs daily on MeTV (definitely one of the mesothelioma/Medicare networks) and the Hallmark Channel.

I wonder if Lucie Jr and Desi Jr have anything to say about this book? It's a fictional account of how their mother had an affair with the author's grandfather.