William Frawley before "I Love Lucy"

Never married?

Interesting.

Did Scotty Bowers fill his tank??

I got wind of it!

Ethel: Lucy thinks she looks more like Marilyn Monroe than I do.

Lucy: And Ethel think SHE looks more like Marilyn Monroe than I do. What do you think, Fred?

Fred: ......I think I look more like Marilyn Monroe than either of you two birds.

He was not a "huge and nationally known vaudeville and musical comedy star." He worked in both in his early years but was never a star or even close. He was a well respected character actor in what seems like hundreds of films at the time he started on ILL. He also had a reputation as a cantakerous drunk, and promised Desi Arnaz that he would never drink at work, and didn't.

He provides a Natalie Schafer-like moment of recognition in *Miracle on 34th Street*.

Hot porn, back in the day.

Fred relives the old days.

That Fred Mertz introduced "Melancholy Baby" is even more strange that Kaye Ballard's introducing "Fly Me to the Moon."

R9. While we think of Kaye either from The Mothers-In-Law or from her days as a crypto-lesbian-crone, she had a great belt in her prime and did great versions of torch songs.

Did the old drunk ever hit on Tim Considine or Don Grady?

Yes, R10, but the song for me is so associated with Frank Sinatra in its bossa nova version that I can't helped being piqued by its origin in Kaye Ballard's waltz version.

More Lucy-adjacent threads?

When did Lucie and Desi, Jr. take over here?

He always seemed like a sad guy to me.

Speaking of Kaye...

Waaaaaaaaaaa!

William Frawley was married for 13 years to a woman who was his vaudeville partner. After they divorced he never married again and never had any children. He was probably a gay blade who couldn't come to terms with himself back in the day.

I remember this incident, although I think it was on the Merv Griffin Show, not Carson

[quote]I remember a time when Kaye Ballard was apearing on Johnny Carson's show, sometime in the early '70s. She was center stage, with Arthur Siegel on piano behind her, and she started singing a romantic ballad from a recent movie (I want to say "The Way We Were", but I might be wrong on that). Kaye paused briefly to say that she loved to sing Academy Award-winning songs, but hen Arthur Siegel interrupted her to say that the song she was singing hadn't won. Kaye was miffed: "I only sing the winners!", and she told Siegel that she would only continue if he and the band played the winning song for her. So Siegel threw a cue to the band, and they launched into that year's Oscar winner: "Theme from 'Shaft'" And Kaye Ballard belted out: "Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine with all the chicks? SHAFT! Damn Right!" By the time she got to "They say that Shaft is a bad mother", Carson was on the floor, and the audience was cheering.

Here he is as a young guy.

Uh-huh

In keeping with this joyous time of year, here is a season appropriate clip of William Frawley as Santa.

Hmm, I wanted to see it so I looked it up, R18, found no video but several people saying it was on either the Tonight Show or Merv, but one guy saying it was on "The Mancini Gneeration." Another guy said she did it in concert.

Actress Patricia Barry and her two kids cozied up to Frawley in his final years. [She played William Shatner's wife in that Twilight Zone episode about the young couple and the fortune telling machine.]

When Frawley died, his will specified that Barry & her kids got the bulk of his estate. Frawley's brother and sister contested the will and ended up with a small settlement.

[quote]Actress Patricia Barry and her two kids cozied up to Frawley in his final years. [She played William Shatner's wife in that Twilight Zone episode about the young couple and the fortune telling machine.]

That was Patricia BRESLIN, dear.

Oh, sorry R24, of course it was Miss Breslin in that episode. Patricia Barry was in "The Chaser" episode.....