Lucie Arnaz in Poltergeist

[quote] Sue Mengers told her to turn it down

It wasn't Gary Morton?

good catch r1. I thought of that as soon as I hit enter. You get the glory though!

They wanted Lucy to play Tangina but Gary talked her out of it

Did Gary Morton talk her out of doing the role?

Too^^ deadpan (before the grammar lectures start)

r3, beat me to it and said it better! :)

Did they want Neil Diamond for Steve?

Her big mouth would be heard mightily over all the special effects.

[quote] THE SWIMMING POOL!!!! THE SWIMMING POOL!!!!

I’d love if if this scene featured the skeletons of all the characters from The Lucy Show popping out of the water. Now THAT’S terrifying!

COVID update from Lucie in Palm Springs. She's a grandmother now.

Oh yes I'm turning down roles

Oh yes I'm turning down roles

And while I'm turning down roles everybody's gonna

watch watch watch

The magic on screen

its weaving its spell around you

But not here with me

I'm not on that screen...

Guess I'll talk about my Mom again on tonight's Larry King

Poltergeist must have been originally intended as a black comedy, you can still see some of the humor in the script. I've always suspected that Spielberg turned it into a more conventional horror movie when he inserted himself into the direction of the film, including starting a false rumor that Tobe Hooper had a breakdown and would need to be replaced.

An old thread on this suggests Mengers told Lucie not to take the part because of all the mud and stuff!

Well, at least she would have looked like the parents more than that albino girl did. Everyone else had brown hair and brown eyes.

no r13. She'd have played the mother.

Lucie is such a cunt for only donating $200 dollars to the Valerie Harper fund.

Wait, would she have played the Dominque Dunne role? Setting off a chain of events that would mean she was never murdered and her father wouldn’t have become a writer?

No she would have played the Jobeth Williams role, the mother.

Your new gray! (Lucy spider face.)

Oh yeah? What do you know about it? (Lucy spider face.)

What's happening? (Lucy spider face.)

r15 is there a list of who donated somewhere?

R15 How much did Sandy Duncan donate, that is the real question? She was the Alison Janney of Valerie’s Family.

WTF is the "Valerie Harper fund"? She was so jealous of me on Valerie. We were all so glad she got canned.

Her husband started a gofundme campaign when she was near the end of her life in order to pay for medical bills and 24 hour nurses

I'm assuming she was up for this role:

[quote] THE SWIMMING POOL!!!! THE SWIMMING POOL!!!!

No one could EVER have said that better than JoBeth Williams does.

I also love how Williams yells get away from my babies or something like that and then tries to run down the hall as it extends. She should have been nominated.

Williams gives one of the greatest performances ever in a horror film in this, IMO. She's right up there with Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby" and Sissy Spacek in "Carrie."

R26, LMAO. You daft troll.

I recall Jaws having a lot of humor in it, why was Spielberg opposed to infusing it in this film? That said, Lucie Arnaz was far from the First Lady of Comedy. Maybe one of those Laughin’ gals would have been a better choice, Tomlin, Hawn or Worley.

Or Ruth Buzzi...

[quote]No one could EVER have said that better than JoBeth Williams does.

You don't think Karen Valentine could have said that line just as good as JoBeth?

Seriously, Worley would have made it a real mad cap affair, yet would likely have come off as very maternal, unlike like Lesbian Lily or mother of the half baked Kate Hudson.

Liza would have wonderful as the mother on Poltergeist.

[quote] I recall Jaws having a lot of humor in it, why was Spielberg opposed to infusing it in this film?

There's actually a ton of humor in it. The ghosts arranging the chairs in that strange pyramid; the mom getting turned on by the ghosts at first when she makes the little game with Carol Ann scooting across the kitchen floor wearing the crash helmet; the subtle running joke throughout the film that the elder daughter is having sex with strange men in motels and her parents don't even realize it; the videographers saying they once filmed something moving an inch in over several hours and then being taken into the children's bed room where everything is flying around in circles; Tangina "overhearing" the Freelings from upstairs...

The Gilda Radner sketch as Lucy circa 1979/80 where she's interview by Bill Murray on the SNL news.

"No, Bill," Lucy said about a return to show biz. "I'm retired. I have two extremely untalented children and I'm content to sit in my garden with Rose Marie and talk about how times has ravaged our faces."

6 years later she comes back and does Life With Lucy, a disaster.