... who died 43 years ago today.
I had never read these interviews before, which were published in 2019's Conversations with Legendary Television Stars: Interviews from the First Fifty Years (James Bawden & Ron Miller). She says some interesting things, including confirming the infamous "Lucille required me to be 20 lbs overweight" rumor.
Here are some highlights:
BAWDEN: When did Lucy warm to you?
VANCE: Took a while. She insisted on a clause saying I had to be twenty pounds heavier than she was and wear dowdy frocks. But, after some episodes, I showed that I knew how to make her look good and my acting experience onstage was valuable because we worked in front of a live audience
BAWDEN: Did you ever warm to Bill Frawley?
VANCE (chuckling): Never! His contract said he could not drink the day of the performance. There had to be no smell of liquor on his breath. He was an irascible curmudgeon. He’d often treat me like dirt. Guess he was a Method actor. And Bill was twenty-two years my senior and he looked it. A crusty old bachelor who lived with his sister. Completely uncollegial. Would never run lines with me. And yet the public loved us together. Go figure that out.
MILLER: Lucille Ball has a reputation for being a very hard taskmaster when she’s working. Did that ever put a strain on your friendship?
VANCE: She’s a talented, driving lady. I think one of the reasons Lucille and I remain close friends is that one balances the other. Lucille had more ambition than I had and made me work harder than I ever wanted to work. She pulled me along and taught me a lot of things I was too lazy to do.
BAWDEN: One critic said you had achieved TV immortality as Ethel Mertz. How do you feel about that?
VANCE: It’s cute, but being Ethel was also a straitjacket. People meeting me today are surprised I do wear contemporary clothes and I’m not at all like her. I was acting. And there are many sides to me.
BAWDEN: People assume, with the endless reruns, that you are very wealthy.
VANCE: We got paid for the first six repeats—same as the people on Leave It to Beaver. Next question, please.
BAWDEN: You came back for The Lucy Show in 1962.
VANCE: I did eighty-one episodes and then I left. I’d remarried, my husband lived in Connecticut, and I was flying home weekends. I became a nervous wreck. Besides, the pay wasn’t all that great. Lucy said she’d get Ann Sothern [to replace Vance] but Ann refused, even at double the salary I was getting, telling Lucy she was a tightwad. I’d come every season; same thing with Here’s Lucy, which I was just on.
BAWDEN: You were there the very last night of the Lucy-Desi partnership?
VANCE: I was up in the gondola of the soundstage watching Lucy do her last scene ever as Lucy Ricardo, the very last scene of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. And it got to me and I was teary. I’d spent almost a decade with this gang and this was it and I blubbered like a baby. Desi was standing next to me and he was teary-eyed, too, because it wasn’t just the end of a show that had become an institution, it was the end of the marriage as well. Running Desilu had taken so much out of him he started philandering, and that was it as far as Lucy was concerned.
