Did Viv and Lucille get along with Gary and John, respectively?

VV's husband looks kinda good looking.

Vivian Lance...

He was the OG DLer, r1

I assume Lucille knew Dodds was gay?

Lucy probably didn't have much use for Gay men, always having to pry them off Desi

I'm looking at you, Cesar Romero

R5- Cesar Romero gave Desi Arnaz a blow job- ONCE.

I thought that was just DL lore r6

Cesar Romero also gave a blowjob to the actor who appeared on I Love Lucy as a negligee/nightgown salesmen. The actors name was Hal March.

Hal had a bigger claim to infamy, r8...

@r6, "Cesar Romero gave Desi Arnaz a blow job- ONCE. "

But Lucy was standing right there, she never got over it

Hal March looked like Desi, so Cesar clearly had a type

R11- Cesar got some quality hetero cock in those days.

Lucille didn't like gay men because they weren't potential customers

What's a good bio of Cesar?

Shortly after Vance's death, Dodds hooked up with artist Barry Clinton, who died of AIDS a couple of years later in 1981.

Here's one of his paintings:

R6 But it's okay because he didn't ENJOY it.

Why did Dodds marry Vance? That still remains a mystery to me. He was pretty openly gay and continued to have male hookups throughout the marriage. It was a main source of conflict for them.

With all due respect, how can one prove that Cesar Romeo gave a blowjob to Desi Arnaz?

I think the first time I heard about the Cesar Romeo thing was not DL, but Howard Stern during the old Mark Harris days. Mark used to hang out with all of Martha Raye's friends and Cesar was one of them and Mark spilled the tea on all of Cesar's hookups on one episode.

Thank you, R19. I appreciate it.

Nobody liked Gary Morton, including Lucy. He was just someone that Lucy had around because she felt she needed a husband. He was more personal assistant than husband.

Gary just kind of hung around, and played a lot of golf. It's true that nobody liked him, they thought he was a leech.

R22- The fact that Vivian Vance's husband was a QUEEN increases her status as a dl icon GREATLY.

@r16, "But it's okay because he didn't ENJOY it."

Oh, yeah, he did

[quote]Lucille didn't like gay men because they weren't potential customers

Someone should have let her know that "Mame" requires gay customers.

R18- I read about Cesar Romero giving Desi Arnaz and Hal March blowjobs in a book about Edgar J Hoover which also said that in the 1940's when Desi was an unknown actor- Hoover saw Desi in a play and was HOT in the pants for him so he had police arrest him on trumped up charges then forced Desi to strip completely naked and had photographs taken of him- which were given to Hoover presumably so he could masturbate to them at a later time.

^ Now that's some good gossip

On Decades right now...

J Edgar Hoover was such a corrupt, amoral asshole.

Christ, r26 is disturbing.

What Sorkin didn't show was J. Edgar Hoover jerking off when he talked to Desi before filming.

I saw a Johnny Carson interview with Lucy recently. In talking (briefly) about Gary she sounds very spontaneous and it's hard to miss that she thinks the world of him. Maybe she was the only one, but it's understandable, as he was probably easy to live with and let her be the boss. Her previous marriage to Desi was a nightmare regardless of the deep love and strong bond they felt for each other. (I couldn't re-watch the interview to give it a time stamp.)

In the book, Desilu, Carole Cook says something about (I forget, exactly) Lucy talking to Gary bossily or dismissively, and C. C. says, about Gary: "You pay the price."

Wait! Sorry, I think it was this interview, actually (she's dressed similarly so I made a mistake browsing YT.

r33 lost her virginity ... to a woman?

Thanks for sharing r33!

I love these old interviews

I read somewhere -- maybe in an interview? -- where Lucille referred to John Dodds as "artistic."

A not-so-subtle euphemism I'd say.

Gary Morton was 13 years younger than Lucille. I didn't realize the spread was that wide.

Ms. Ball was a cougar, apparently.

And of course Desi was six years younger than her.

Many of Lucy's old friends hated Gary, accusing him of keeping her away from them as she grew older. Paula Stewart, who played Lucy's younger sister in Wildcat on Broadway in 1959, tore Gary apart in her recent autobiography.

Interesting, r38

They wanted to like him, but Gary talked them out of it.

Is Sorkin directing "Being the Mortons" next?

[quote]But Lucy was standing right there, she never got over it

In fairness, her dick was bigger.

Can someone clarify for me the basis of "but Gary talked her out of it."

What did he talk her out of that spawned the idiom.

^ I would, but Gary talked me out of it. Sorry

What did Paula Stewart say about Gary?

I thought Gary talked Lucy out of playing the Kim Novak role in The Man with the Golden Arm. Too depressing.

Was Lucy straight? Both her husband's seemed an odd match. The fact she was a female comedian almost guarantees she was a lesbian. Lavender marriages always seem like a mismatch. Melissa Gilbert/rob Lowe or Sarah Jessica Parker/jfk jnr etc

[quote]Was Lucy straight?

She went straight to Viv's dressing room when the urge called, r47

[quote] The fact she was a female comedian almost guarantees she was a lesbian.

You're ridiculous.

[Quote] Lavender marriages always seem like a mismatch. Melissa Gilbert/rob Lowe or Sarah Jessica Parker/jfk jnr etc

As examples, you mention two couples who never married each other.

Those quotes are so stupid they can't be anything but trolling.

The Enquirer trots out this story every few years.

[quote]Vivian was apparently in the closet, and there were whispers of a lesbian affair between her and Lucy for years. It haunted them both until their deaths!

The truth is, Vivian's ghastly then-husband told her something like "You should be more careful about the hugging and kissing you do on the show. You act like a couple of dykes in heat." This tormented Vivian.

Are you suggesting that most of the stuff we read about Hollywood is made-up bullshit?

Say it ain't so

r52 = the ghost of Joan Crawford

^ Don't fuck with me, fella, this isn't my first rodeo

[quote]Paula Stewart, who played Lucy's younger sister in Wildcat on Broadway in 1959, tore Gary apart in her recent autobiography.

Don't leave it at that, none of us are going to read Paula Stewart's autobiography!

Can't find anything about Gary but Paula Stewart has a lot of complimentary things to say about Lucy in this video. (Those are some bad pictures of Lucy, though.)

This clip always makes me MARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never heard anything about Lucille being a lesbian

^ She wasn't. She was a whore, darlin', ask anyone in Jamestown

[quote]The fact she was a female comedian almost guarantees she was a lesbian.

Huh?

She never claimed to be a comedian, she was an actress with great comic timing and sensibility, but she'll be the first to tell you that she wasn't funny

I had all the natural wit.

^ You were mostly at wits end

[quote] Paula Stewart, who played Lucy's younger sister in Wildcat on Broadway in 1959, tore Gary apart in her recent autobiography.

Wow, that surprises me because I've read that Paula introduced Lucy to Gary.

r45 Paula said Gary was a failed third-rate comic in a cheap toupee, but he had a big cock and seized the opportunity to take Desi's place in Lucy's bed. He had nothing of Desi's business sense or talent, but he made himself completely subordinate to Lucy's demands in exchange for an A-list marriage and a first-class meal ticket.

But their roles changed as they aged and Gary became the dominant partner after Lucy retired from her TV shows and reduced her public appearances. Paula said Lucy was often lonely in old age as she was not close to her adult children, who lived in other states, and Gary usually was on the golf course.

^ Lucy wanted a companion who wouldn't cheat or embarrass her in public. Gary held up his end of the deal and got a comfy life in exchange

[quote]but he had a big cock

Case: closed!

I assume Vance and Dodds had a companionate marriage.

Lucy was a bitch who got along with no one, except husband #2.

I learned to love the bitch, r69

Sure, but only because you got paid to "love" her, Viv.

Usually I was the one who got paid in those situations, r71

Jfc, r73.

Desi was decidedly NOT gay.

@r73 How many times are we going to talk about Cesar Romero? Look up thread^^

Adding to r68: I think Viv was the type of woman who needed/wanted to be taken care of by a man. The impulse started when she was a teen and never really left her. Despite their problems, I think she viewed Phil Ober as the great love of her life (much like Lucy with Desi) and tried everything she could to make the marriage work. She would have quit I Love Lucy in a heartbeat if she knew it would have saved that relationship.

I doubt she married John Dodds for the sex. He was a safe companion in her later years.

Thanks to whoever posted that Lily of the Valley segment. It's one of my very favorite ILL moments. Vivian got to display her trained voice and then in the final bars gets so down and dirty. She was once indeed Merman's understudy, but it wasn't in Anything Goes, it was in one of her later Porter shows.

Lucy looks like Bozo the Clown in R57's clip. And R56 has a link of a 50-something Lucy who looked 70, even with the makeup trowled on.

Stewart married Jack Carter who was no walk in the park.

^^ Stewart does not say good things about the late Jack Carter either. She does praise her first husband, Burt Bacharach, who married her when both were young.

Is Stewart's autobiography worth reading?

I think Lucy was upset that Viv left her professionally AND married a gay man. I think both are true.

It was Anything Goes, r77...

Paula & Swen...

Paula talks about Wildcat...

[quote]I think Lucy was upset that Viv left her professionally AND married a gay man.

Why would she care if he were gay or not?

[quote]...he made himself completely subordinate to Lucy's demands in exchange for an A-list marriage and a first-class meal ticket.

Jane Connell told a story about being invited to dinner at Lucy's before MAME shooting began. When she got there, they walked by Gary who was eating lobster. Lucy told Jane that "they'd just be having leftovers".

[quote]Jane Connell told a story about being invited to dinner at Lucy's before MAME shooting began. When she got there, they walked by Gary who was eating lobster.

Too bad he didn't do a little less eating and a little more talking her out of it.

There's a difference between a female stand-up comic and a female comic actress.

Lucille Ball was a comic actress like Catherine O'Hara, Madeline Kahn, Jane Curtin, Jennifer Saunders, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Debra Messing, etc. They're all heterosexual.

Not really, r88. Lucille's comic forte was slapstick, double-takes and funny faces. She was an expert clown.

R46, Otto Preminger originally offered the role to Lauren Bacall, but when he wouldn't meet her price she turned him down and years later regretted doing so.

[quote]Lucille's comic forte was slapstick, double-takes and funny faces. She was an expert clown.

Yes, and it aged poorly.

Actually it really hasn't, r91, as far as I Love Lucy is concerned.

[quote] Not really, [R88]. Lucille's comic forte was slapstick, double-takes and funny faces. She was an expert clown.

She wasn't a stand-up comic.

Who the hell ever said she was, r93?

r47 kind of implied it

How so, r95?

^ From r47, "The fact she was a female comedian almost guarantees she was a lesbian."

I've always thought there was a distinction between a comedian and a comic actor, r96.

But this thread is getting derailed by semantics ... and she wasn't a lesbian.

^ That proves r47 was wrong on both counts. Lucy was the first to admit that she wasn't very funny

But she also wasn't a comic actress like Madeline or Catherine.

r99 she wasn't funny unscripted

^ No, Lucy was a comedic actress, she wasn't a comedian

Why do DLers get hung up on the most inconsequential of details?

^ Because we overthink everything. It's our nature

We know why Vivian married John, but why did John marry Viv?

Was he the proto-DLer?

You mean R46 wasn't kidding? Why would Preminger have offered Lucille Ball the Kim Novak role in The Man With The Golden Arm? Lucy was 20 years older than Kim Novak. Could it have been the wife role (played by Eleanor Parker)? Lucy was more age-appropriate for that part, since she and Sinata were close in age.

*Sinatra

Wasn't it Manchurian Candidate?

R98, After Lucy died, her daughter Lucie found very intimate letters that Lucy had received over the years from Mary Wickes.

They were in response to similar type letters Lucy had written to Mary, not just correspondence between friends.

Lucy and Mary Wickes play "Password" @ 15:20.

The password is: "scissors"

I told Viv that Lucy was a dyke who had the hots for her!!

Where did you read that, r109?

R113, In this Mary Wickes biography, in which Lucie Arnaz was interviewed.

R108, Wasn't it "The Graduate"?

Thanks r114!

So basically, Viv was John's beard, and Gary was Lucille's beard.

Doris was The Graduate, r115.

This thread is the first time I've ever heard that Lucille was potentially a lesbian

Consider me shaken to my core

r109 here is a note that Viv wrote to Lucille (Lucille's nickname for Viv was "Dodo," according to Lucie Arnaz).

It reads, "Dear Lucy, Happy OUR Day. I love you. Dodo."

R108 Sinatra suggested Lucy to play the mother of Laurence Harvey's character, Raymond, in The Manchurian Candidate. John Frankenheimer had just directed Angela Lansbury in All Fall Down (with Warren Beatty and Brandon DeWilde playing her sons). He showed the film to Sinatra and Sinatra agreed to casting Lansbury.

Sylvia Miles worked with Vivian Vance in Marriage-Go-Round in the 1960s. She was not a fan. She described the aging Vance as bitter and jealous of Miles' good looks.

R123, For the record, Sylvia Miles wasn't known to be easy to work with by many.

I can believe it r124

I watched About Mrs. Leslie last night, and it made me wonder: why didn't Phil Ober stay on Broadway? He had a rather successful stage career in the 1940s. But he was unknown in Hollywood and was reduced to playing bit parts (a la About Mrs. Leslie). He passed his time hanging about Desilu, where he was universally disliked.

Vivian Vance, Jane Wyman, and gay Charles Laughton in The Blue Veil.

[quote]and gay Charles Laughton

Is he available for a date r127?

R127, Both Jane Wyman and Joan Blondell were Oscar nominated, as was the film.

Has it even been released on DVD r129?

R126 He worked very steadily in TV and had a lot of credits (check out IMDB). Probably made a lot more oney than he would have on stage. He quit acting in the 60s and went into the diplomatic service, he worked at the US Consulate in Mexico City and died there.

*money

Within a few years Viv was making plenty of money, r131.

R130, Never released on VHS or DVD.

R133 The question was "...why didn't he stay on Broadway". Looking at IBDB, his last Broadway show seems to have been in the 40s. For the next 20 years he did TV and movies, so I was talking about that.

Viv was discovered by Desi and the ILL team doing The Voice Of The Turtle (play) in La Jolla. (Where Greg Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer had founded a playhouse). She was already in LA - she was in a few movies around 1949-50. So maybe they both relocated to the West Coast, if they were already married by then.

r135 Vivian and Phil married in 1941.

Both of his parents died during the 1940s. He was, I believe, an only child, and he came from a very old Massachusetts family. (He attended an elite prep school and later Princeton.) I suspect he inherited a substantial sum of money by the late 1940s. Vivian was recovering from her nervous breakdown and they both went into semi-retirement, living off, I assume, his inheritance.

When Vivian signed on to play Ethel, neither of them suspected I Love Lucy would be a success. They were living on their ranch in New Mexico when the show began and initially rented an apartment in LA. Later, they bought a house in Pacific Palisades.

I've asked about The Blue Veil before. Never seemed to be aired when I was growing up. Are there legal issues with it?

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called the film "a whoppingly banal tear-jerker [that] will lure multitudes of moviegoers who like nothing better than a good cry." He added, "Mr. Corwin's scenario, under Curtis Bernhardt's soupy direction, stretches Miss Wyman's situation...into a series of parchedly sunlit episodes, contrived to squeeze the heart and present this lady as a quivering-lipped saint. There is little in the way of wit, grit or, for that matter, real substance...Miss Wyman..has little to do herself except to age daintily. She exercises reasonable restraint but persevering sweetness with an iron halo in a grating two-hour gamut. And since Miss Wyman, like the rest of The Blue Veil, is so far removed from flesh and blood, we can only leave her and it to heaven."[

Ober also had extravagant taste, apparently

If Lucy hated Ober so much he wouldn't have been cast in The Facts Of Life (1960) with her and Bob Hope. I'm sure she could have prevented him being cast - it's more likely that she had him cast.

R140, Bitch had me fired.

I've often wondered about that r140

In my more cynical moments, I think Lucille disliked Ober because she worried something might happen that would force Vance to miss filming. At some point -- probably during the first season -- she (and the writers) realized that the success of the show depended significantly on Vance.

This story may be apocryphal, but I read somewhere that Vance didn't appear in the Vitameatavegamin episode because Ober had beaten her up. (Ethel was in the original script.) Hal King once claimed Vance often showed up with bruises.

In any event, r140, I don't think Ball liked Ober even if he did appear in The Facts of Life. Desi absolutely refused to cast him opposite Vance in Guestward Ho!, and he could have played a lot of other parts on I Love Lucy, but they used other actors instead.

Ober's name was misspelled in the film's credits.

Oops!

Is there anything about Ober's wife and kid? Or the husband Vivian was with when they got together? I find it odd that never gets talked about.

R144 So is Louise Beavers. It's spelled "Louise Beaver"

r145 George Koch, Vivian's second husband, was a jazz musician. According to one of Viv's sisters, they were never really in love and it was mainly a marriage of convenience. She had several affairs during the marriage prior to meeting Ober, and then fell madly in love with him. Koch gave her a divorce without a problem. I don't know whatever happened to him.

I don't think Ober's first wife ever remarried. His daughter married in (I think?) the late 1940s and had a few kids. Apparently, she was a source of great conflict between Ober and Vance.

Also, r145, Vivian's first husband died in a shootout with his business partner in (I think?) Detroit a couple of years after their divorce

I kind of wonder if her second husband was gay too

When caught in his affair with Vance, Ober claimed their relationship was strictly platonic r145

If Vivian had married Cyrus Vance, her name would be Vivian Vance Vance.

Or maybe it would be Vivian Roberta Jones Vance.

Vivian Roberta Jones Vance Danneck Koch Ober Dodds, bitches!

....

[quote]And of course Desi was six years younger than her.

Than her what, R37?

I may have been many things, r154, but I was never a pedant.

The pedants are why we can't have nice things.

R154 You must hate being single.

Lol r157 was mean, even by DL standards!

Thanks r153. I'd never seen that clip

You're welcome, R159.

My favorite Vivian quote comes from her later years doing summer stock. One night before the show, she looked out at the audience and quipped, "Not a Tampax in the house!"

R161, But plenty of Depends.

Here is the portrait of Vivian that hangs in the Albuquerque Little Theatre.

Since Vivian Vance is DL's patron saint, is Albuquerque DL's Rome?

Where was the dress at r163 when Viv won the Emmy?

Boze Hadleigh’s book Hollywood Gays has an interview with Cesar Romero, who tells the whole story about giving Desi a blowjob.

Could you all see Vivian Vance playing the mother in The Manchurian Candidate? Of course Angela Lansbury was perfect for the part but Vivian Vance could have been interesting as well. She could even have done the musical version on Broadway. If there was one.

Ahem...wasn't Lucy offered the role in The Manchurian Candidate? It's on the list of the many roles she turned down or was advised to turn down in the last third of her career, which includes: Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Angie Dickinson's role in Dress to Kill, and Julie Christie's role in Don't Look Now.

[quote]It's on the list of the many roles she turned down or was advised to turn down

Or was talked out of.

At least she turned down Mame. What a disaster that would have been.

Another endearing Vivian story, if I remember correctly. She apparently had a high school teacher/mentor, and she would spend time at her house to escape a chaotic and unhappy home life. After Vivian became wealthy later in life, she bought that teacher a house to repay her kindness.

There’s no truth to most of those “Lucy turned it down” stories. Manchurian Candidate, yes.

It was Doris Day, not Lucy, who turned down The Graduate.

And Lucy was never offered Don’t Look Now or Dressed to Kill. In fact, Lucy’s name was mud as far as films went by the time of Dressed to Kill.

R172 Dressed to Kill?? I hope not. She was 69.

Apparantly, Lucy was willing to go without a body double for Dressed to Kill unlike Angie Dickinson. Lucy stayed thin and could easily pass for two decades younger.

[quote] Dressed to Kill?? I hope not. She was 69.

Lucy’s film career was over when she was 63 - ie, when Mame was released. Mame made it clear that Lucy’s huge TV following couldn’t be counted on anymore to fill a movie theatre.

Lucy’s body may or may not have been in good shape in her 60s, but her face wasn’t. Her tits may have passed for two decades younger, but her face passed for two decades older.

Viv was married 4 times, so apparently she didn't know how to pick 'em or she was just a bitch to everyone.

Little is known about her first two marriages, r176, and Viv even instructed her sisters not to tell the press she'd been married two times before Phil Ober. We'll probably never know details. Her first marriage to Joseph Danneck only lasted a couple of years. He was shot and killed by a business associate in the mid-1930s (he shot and killed the associate as well). That detail didn't make it into to Viv's bio; her sisters said "No one knew what became of him." I suspect her second husband, jazz musician George Koch, was gay/bi.

Her third husband, Phil Ober, was abusive, and her fourth husband, John Dodds, was gay.

Was Mary Wickes out of closet during her lifetime?

Of course he was, r1. I had taste!

R178 No, she came out after she died.

So many people do, r180.

According to Mary Wickes' biographer and Lucille Ball's daughter, Mary was not lesbian, though she was likely repressed as she was a practicing Episcopalian.

It's my birthday, bitches! (Which I share with another DL fave/villain, Mrs. Alfred Steele.)

[quote] I saw a Johnny Carson interview with Lucy recently. In talking (briefly) about Gary she sounds very spontaneous and it's hard to miss that she thinks the world of him. Maybe she was the only one, but it's understandable, as he was probably easy to live with and let her be the boss. Her previous marriage to Desi was a nightmare regardless of the deep love and strong bond they felt for each other.

In the Amy Poehler documentary, Lucie Arnaz points out that both her parents were married to their second spouses for far longer than they had been married to one another, and that she feels like the second marriages were a lot healthier—but the public knows Lucy and Ricky and so in the popular imagination, the Lucy and Desi story is a great tragic love story.

I've always been very interested in Lucille Ball's life and I find Desi Arnaz to be more interesting the more I learn about him, but that comment put their relationship in greater perspective for me. It is kind of weird that the couple fell apart but remained friendly and created other families and yet they always will be thought of as a couple. Can you imagine if you were married to someone for 40 years and everyone you ever encountered always associated you with an ex from a bygone era of your life that you had moved on from? That would be so strange, and probably especially strange for their kids.

It would be like if on the Brady Bunch, no one ever acknowledged that Mike and Carol were ever married and instead always asked them and their children about their first spouses.

r184 = Mrs. de Winter

I think everyone has one great love and Desi was that great love for Lucy. However, some times great loves don't last and so you find the person who compliments you, the person you need and I think Gary was that person for Lucy. There was love there, but at the end of the day, he wasn't gambling the money away and fucking every young starlet and whore in LA. He didn't bring home STIs. He was stable and reliable and present.

Many times in life the guy who makes you melt when he walks into the room, the guy who can send you to the moon is not the best guy for you.

[quote]fucking every young starlet and whore in LA

I could have shown him a good time! And lord knows I tried.

I've always found the age difference between Lucille and Desi intriguing. (And Lucille and Gary, for that matter.)

Any theory on why she was attracted to younger guys?

Has anyone read Lucille's memoirs?

Here's a picture I've not seen before.

Yes, R189. "Love, Lucy" is sold as a kind of tacky-looking drugstore-sized paperback with a glamour-shot photo, but the book is surprisingly rich and I could hear her speaking voice while reading it—her vocabulary and her cadence are intact, and so it's clear that she dictated or wrote it herself. Her story is very interesting, from her poor upbringing and the tragedy with her brother to her ventures to NYC for acting school (with Bette Davis, best in class!) and modeling to suddenly losing her ability to walk to her travails in Hollywood with a lot of help from good friend Ginger Rogers. I loved the book.

Thanks r191! I remember it being featured at Barnes and Noble when it came out, but I was only in middle school at the time. I thumbed through it but never read it.

The TCM podcast about Lucy was pretty good.

What's the status on the Vivian Vance biopic?

Do you think Desi had a hairy or smooth ass? No doubt he was uncut.

r195 asking the important questions.

I think he was hairy.

Here's a pic I'd never seen ... with Lucille subtly asserting dominance over Viv .....

R197 Wow, she really is. The hand on the knee could be seen as comforting, but there's no question about the hand on the jutting hip. That's a power/'alpha' stance, taking up as much horizontal space as possible.

Viv also looks slightly annoyed, r198

Yes, R199

Vivian = 😒

Lucy was completely unlikeable off-screen.

If Lucille was completely unlikable then she was an extraordinary businessperson and politician.

I am reading 'Lucy and Desi' right now and recently reread Lucille's memoir.

By her own account, she was close friends with Ginger Rogers and some others and she fared well in Hollywood for a long time despite (by her own account) having limited beauty and natural talent because of her friendships.

According to the accounts of the other book, when Lucille moved to Hollywood, she was rumored to have been a prostitute and that followed her. But she befriended a lot of women and she dated a number of men, and all of them supported her throughout her entire career and she supported them when I Love Lucy took off.

The book says she dated Van Johnson when she first moved to Hollywood. They remained friends forever and by the time she was on TV, his star had faded and she mentioned him many times on the show as the ultimate dreamboat to help get his name out there. Bob Hope's radio shows were floundering a bit, and he was one of Lucille's mentors and she put him on her show to get him back into popular currency. She was totally loyal to the writers and to Vivian for the rest of her life. From what I am reading, it seems like the only person she may have betrayed was her My Favorite Husband radio show costar who should have played her hubby on the TV show and she refused to do it unless Desi was on the show—and she remained loyal to Desi forever despite his betrayals, too.

Everyone agrees that she was a perfectionist and a consummate professional and expected everyone on set to be there on time, know their lines, know their blocking and operate like clockwork, and she practiced what she preached. She also did a lot of the business of Desilu, which the book says she never really wanted to do, and that probably made her very grumpy.

One thing I didn't know before is that Desi had a photographic memory, according to the Lucy & Desi book. His real full-time job was the business of Desilu and his part-time job was the TV show. Lucille said he would read the script one or two times and memorize every word of every actor's lines and would correct them if they flubbed anything, which annoyed everyone, including Lucille. (William Frawley, on the other hand, only memorized his own lines and the book says he never read a whole script or watched the show and he didn't really know or care what it was about.)

Viv looks good in that picture. It makes me realize how much our standards have changed re: fatness, because she just looks a little plump to these 21st century eyes.

R203 Was she popularly known as a 'fat girl'? I never saw her as fat at all, just a little bit chubby like an average middle-aged lady.

Viv said in interviews that she wore her own clothes in early episodes, and she bought dowdy-looking clothing a size too small to make it appear that she was busting out of the seams. I think Lucille also said this during interviews.

And speaking of changing standards, I finally watched the Mary Tyler Moore show during the pandemic (It ended the year before I was born and I never managed to see it even though I watched Rhoda reruns growing up.), and in it, Rhoda is always calling herself fat and no one argues with her about it, and she was a far cry from being close to overweight.

r204 I don't think Vivian was ever considered fat, a la Barbara Pepper. She was thin/normal weight in her 20s and 30s and more or less the same weight as Lucille for the first few seasons. Her weight fluctuations start around Season 4. In the first few episodes of that season, which were filmed in June 1954, her weight gain is evident (when juxtaposed with Seasons 1 & 2 especially). See below. After that point, she never really got back down to her Seasons 1-3 weight again, and her weight fluctuated for the rest of the series.

She once reasoned that if she really were overweight, then audiences wouldn't laugh at Fred's fat jokes. But deep down, she must have been self-conscious about her weight gain. In the episode below, Fred says, "Stop leaning on me, you weigh a ton!" Plus her real-life husband doesn't strike me as someone who had much sympathy. I get the sense this was a rather unhappy period for her.

R205 I really like her personality in all the interviews I've seen with her. Of course, she was 'on' for the cameras but she spoke so candidly about seeing a psychiatrist and the importance of maintaining mental health. It's really admirable.

To the point of Lucille being 'totally unlikable,' I just don't believe it based on her relationships. She and Viv were very close. She was Viv's employer, yes, but they appeared to have had a close sisterly bond and both claimed that they did.

Lucille DID come across as remarkably forthright and no nonsense and not particularly diplomatic, a lot like Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, and I really don't think she would have claimed a friendship that was not authentic, and I also think it's evidence that she really did always admire and love Desi. She would have trashed him if she hadn't respected him. She did say "I married a loser"—characteristically undiplomatic—but she also said at the same time that he was a genius, hardworking, hilarious, etc. He was also a cheating, whore-renting alcoholic, which certainly is untenable for a husband and father. A lot of people would despise their ex for those things but Lucille seemed to acknowledge he was overall a wonderful person with some extreme vices that cost him everything he cared about.

r206 whenever I listen to Viv interviews from the 60s and 70s, I'm struck by how down-to-earth and assertive she seems. I think Lucie once said Viv was one of the few people who would stand up to Lucille. She does NOT seem like the type of woman who would have tolerated an abusive husband for many years. I guess she had low self-esteem, but still. And she wasn't even the one who ultimately left the marriage. (However, I have a theory that she left him briefly in June 1954 ...)

I also think that that marriage caused a lot of her mental health problems. She said that Ober made her feel so desperate she would literally beat her head against the wall. The psychological dimensions of domestic violence were poorly understand during the period, and I suppose Vivian was a product of her time. But even Lucille stated at once point that Ober was responsible for most of her mental issues.

Lucy had to prop up the career of Bob Hope??

More likely she was paying back Hope for casting her in a couple of his films. The idea that he was having problems in radio is ludicrous---he was in the heyday of his films ()they actually were funny) and had a long run on radio. This kind of valorizing of Ball is what makes these threads annoying. Desi made ILL and Desilu. Some of their early success had to do with getting control of shows in adjacent time slots and then leveraging this success to get good deals from CBS and then find renters once they bough parts of RKO. Desi tried to replicate his CBS success at ABC after the Untouchables was successful but by then his drinking was getting in the way. Ball was never very hands on as Desilu prexie---there was always an exec to run the studio.

Working on it r194. I'll be playing Vivian for my big screen comeback!

Can we seance in Gary to talk r210 out of it?

Vivian may have loved John, but she was not happy that he continued to cruise for dick during their marriage. I'm not sure what she expected.

r212 I expected he would at least consult me about the cock.

He should have consulted me, r213. I sucked more cock than Vivian ever even saw.

Here's an interesting find from the Library of Congress: Phil Ober in a short instructional film on sales tactics. (He's the boss at the beginning.) This would have been filmed around Vivian's worst struggles with her mental health. I guess it was an easy paycheck.

I wonder where these films were screened? Did companies buy them to show them to employees?

In the book, Desilu, there's a story about Lucy and Desi in Palm Springs where she kicks him from behind and gets him in the nuts.

[quote]Her scriptwriter, Maury Thompson, said: “She loves to hurt a man. She’s kicked Desi in the nuts several times. Just bowled him over. She laughed about it.”

I later condoled him, r216

Why didn't Dore Schary appear as himself in the Hollywood episodes? He had experience as an actor.

R218 I don't think there is a man alive today who knows. But he was originally going to do it, then couldn't.

Stage fright, r218. The episode was written for him, but he finally decided he just couldn’t do it. Phil Ober needed the work, and aside from being a bit taller than the real Dore Schary, he looked like him. It was one of the best things Ober ever did.

One thing you can say about Phil Ober, he looked like he had a huge dick. This is a picture of him laughing at Vivian’s pussy.

R220 Phil Ober looked nothing like Dore Schary.

By the way, in another episode - the one where Lucy pretends to be Ricky's agent and gets him fired from MGM - Lucy meets with Walter Riley - who was also an MGM executive - but he was played by Parley Baer.

Another photo of Schary.

Walter Reilly obit:

[quote]One thing you can say about Phil Ober, he looked like he had a huge dick.

Tell me more ...

r220 I don't think anyone at Desilu particularly wanted Ober to step in. My theory is that Schary pulled out at the last possible minute. Ober had been at the studio during rehearsals all week so could easily step in with minimal prep. Producers only gave him one other role the entire series, very early. Someone (maybe William Asher?) said they actively avoided using him.

[quote]One thing you can say about Phil Ober, he looked like he had a huge dick.

Of course. Viv was cavernous.

I think Viv and Phil were both a little freaky and enjoyed a very healthy sex life. The storminess of their relationship probably made the sex more intense. It probably prolonged a relationship otherwise over, much like in the case of Lucy and Desi.

Thanks r222. Did not know that

r216 someone in the ILL circle (I forgot who) reports that toward the end of the series, during a fight in her dressing room, Lucille was screaming "I HATE YOU!" while scratching Desi in the face.

Or maybe I read it on DL

Does anyone think Phil Ober was also gay?

Was Gary faithful to Lucy? He was significantly younger.

R232 Gary was caught several times in compromising positions with golf clubs.

Gary's third wife is still alive

Interestingly, I think both Lucille and Viv were essentially traditionalists in their relationships with men. They wanted a guy around to take charge and manage things and they were willing to defer to him. Viv essentially retired from The Lucy Show to be a housewife.

Here's a candid shot I'd never seen

From (I think?) a Desilu Christmas party

All Life With Lucy episodes have been uploaded to YouTube

Was Gary faithful?

A lot of Hollywood celebs had multiple marriages so it's interesting to me how Lucy and Desi each had only one other marriage after they divorced, and the second marriages lasted longer than their marriage to each other, which had lasted 20 years.

[quote]the second marriages lasted longer than their marriage to each other, which had lasted 20 years.

I didn't realize that, r240. Interesting.

Lucy and Desi at least remained amicable after the divorce.