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    Lucy in Print
    Lucy in Print
    Lucy in Print
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    Lucy in Print

    By Michael Karol

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    About this ebook

    Michael Karol, the author of Lucy A to Z, has done it again! Lucy in Print digs deep to give Lucy fans (and who isn't one?) a unique look at Lucille Ball, her TV shows, and her co-stars, as reported by the press over the past 60 years. With commentary and analysis by the author, and visit to Lucy's birthplace in Jamestown, NY, and two lost plays about I Love Lucy!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateSep 8, 2003
    ISBN9781469727110
    Lucy in Print
    Author

    Michael Karol

    Michael Karol is an award-winning New York-based entertainment journalist and author. His books include Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia; The ABC Movie of the Week Companion; Sitcom Queens: Divas of the Small Screen; and The TV Tidbits Classic Television Book of Lists. He has interviewed a long list of performers, producers, and writers over the years, including blues legend Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson; artist, writer and producer Peter Brown (he sang “Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me?” and wrote Madonna’s “Material Girl”); songbird Phyllis Hyman; actors Gale Storm, Susan Lucci, Denise Nickerson, John Noble, Jane Connell, Kaye Ballard, Eva La Rue, Doris Singleton, Kathryn Joosten, Cameron Mathison, and David Hedison; and behind-the-scenes movers and shakers like Wonderfalls creator Bryan Fuller; House, M.D.’s creator and executive producer, David Shore; I Love Lucy’s film editor, Dann Cahn; and director William Asher, who helmed I Love Lucy and Bewitched, among other classics. Michael is currently editor of Soap Opera Weekly and copy chief of Pixie, a fab tween magazine.

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      Book preview

      Lucy in Print - Michael Karol

      All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Michael Karol

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

      iUniverse, Inc.

      For information address:

      iUniverse

      2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

      Lincoln, NE 68512

      www.iuniverse.com

      This book may not be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the author.

      Front cover collage and back cover graphics by Michael Karol.

      Author photo by Craig Hamrick, Copyright © 2003

      ISBN: 0-595-29321-2

      ISBN: 1-469-72711-0 (ebook)

      Printed in the United States of America

      Contents

      FOREWORD

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

      INTRODUCTION

      A LUCILLE BALL TIMELINE

      AN I LOVE LUCY TIMELINE

      JUST THE FACTS, M’AM

      IN THE BEGINNING…THERE WAS TV GUIDE

      1933: THE YEAR OF VIVIAN VANCE(S)

      A NEW CUBAN STAR WAXES POLITICAL

      THE GIRL HAD OOMPH

      GYPSY IN HER SOUL

      CONFIDENTIAL-LY, DESI WAS A LATIN LOTHARIO

      TV TALES

      CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK, HIS

      CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK, HERS

      REMEMBERING DESI

      COSMO GIRL OR PITCHWOMAN?

      YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF CUBA…

      DESI’S GOT A GUN

      THE REEL LUCY VS. THE REAL LUCY

      NEVER ILL

      THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…

      WHEN YOU CARE ENOUGH…

      LITTLE RICKY FACES LIFE

      MOVIE STARS’ HOMES

      NO PAIN, NO GAIN

      SHE COULD, TOO!

      LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

      DO’S AND DON’TS

      A WEIGHTY CONTRACT?

      WIGGED OUT

      LUCIE AND THE MYSTERY MILLIONAIRE

      LUCY’S LIFE LESSONS

      VIV WAS (ALMOST) ‘BAD’

      RERUN HEAVEN

      IT BEGINS WITH ‘B’ AND RHYMES WITH WITCH

      COVER GIRL

      HAIR-RAISING TALES

      AND DON’T CALL ME ETHEL!

      PROFESSOR VANCE

      A TIP OF THE BROWN DERBY

      ETHEL, I’VE FOUND THE GREATEST DIET!

      FAMOUS LAST WORDS

      HEARTLESS

      LET HER REST IN PEACE!

      VIVIAN ‘BOMBS’ OUT

      FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

      A FAMILIAR BUT WELCOME GUEST

      A FINE LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE

      A BEACON OF LAUGHS

      CHIEF NEGOTIATOR

      TAKE HIM OUT TO THE BALLGAME

      HE NEEDN’T WORRY

      BABY, YOU’RE THE GREATEST (FOR RATINGS)

      DAMNED BY FAINT PRAISE

      DIDJA KNOW?

      EPILOGUE REMEMBERING LUCY

      AFTERWORD LUCILLE BALL’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION: MY JAMESTOWN DIARY

      APPENDIX THE PLAY’S THE THING

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      For the fans. And especially for Squeegee.

      Lucille [Ball] and Desi [Arnaz] have always enjoyed a ‘love-in-the-limelight’ romance. They long have considered themselves in the public domain and apparently make every effort to remain there.

      —Leonore Silvian, Look, June 3, 1952

      ♥

      I’ll never get over one newspaper story comparing me to Maureen O’Hara. It said that Maureen had naturally red hair, never drank or smoked, and was a real lady—whereas I had dyed red hair and was a hard-drinking, hard-smoking Hollywood toughie. What really hurt me was the reporter’s write-up of what he called my ‘whisky voice.’ When I met that reporter, my voice was a hoarse croak because I was half-dead from a cold. I hadn’t had a cigarette or drink in days. After I read what he’d written, I raged and cried all night.

      —Lucille Ball, 1954, The Real Story of Lucille Ball, by Eleanor Harris [O’Hara was Lucille’s co-star in Dance, Girl, Dance, 1940]

      ♥

      With publicity comes humiliation.

      —Tama Janowitz, 1992, International Herald Tribune

      FOREWORD

      I never imagined I’d be writing a foreword to a second book about Lucille Ball. Just shows how little any of us can predict the future. Interest in Lucy’s life, in I Love Lucy, her family, and the lives of her co-stars has never been higher. And everywhere I go with my first Lucy book, Lucy A to Z, the fans ask, When’s your next one coming out? What’s it about?

      I didn’t have an answer until recently, when I noticed the very positive response to a new feature on my Web site (www.sitcomboy.com) called Lucy in Print. The feature offered a look at press reports (from newspapers, magazines, and fanzines) on Lucy & Company. I decided to see if I had enough new material to create a new book.

      The answer is in your hands. Several of the items first saw the light of day on my Web site and appear here in slightly different form. Going through the lives and legends of the four I Love Lucy principals and the show itself once again illustrated how timeless the sitcom’s humor is, and how well it was put together.

      Why does it still matter to us? Because without Lucy, life would definitely be a whole lot less pleasant.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Research for this book was conducted at The New York Public Library, main branch; the NYC Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; The Museum of Television and Radio in New York; and the Internet Movie Database Web site (www.imdb.com). Online research was greatly facilitated using the Google search engine. If it’s out there, Google will find it.

      My Heartfelt Thanks to playwright John Wuchte; the Dramatic Publishing Co., and the Library of the University of Pennsylvania.

      Special Thanks to my editor, Craig Hamrick, and my copy editor, Saul Fischer.

      LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

      I was as specific as possible when referring to magazine and newspaper articles that are referenced in Lucy in Print. Wherever possible I have given credit to the original author and periodical. Unfortunately, due to the somewhat haphazard way that newspaper and magazine clips have been saved at various public institutions, it is often impossible to know the exact date, the author’s name, or the name of the magazine/newspaper in question. I have no desire to take credit for anyone’s writing, and it should always be clear within the text whether it is my voice you’re reading or that of another.

      INTRODUCTION

      One of my favorite parts about researching Lucy A to Z was going through huge folders filled with newspaper and magazine clips at various libraries. When someone is as famous and popular as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, or as revered as the show I Love Lucy, there is no end to the public’s fascination with what made them such a success.

      Contributing to that success were, of course, show creator and producer Jess Oppenheimer, writers Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Pugh-Davis (and later writers Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf), and directors Marc Davis and William Asher. Not to mention the entire, brilliant technical and creative teams involved with the show week to week.

      But to the public, there was mainly Lucille Ball, along with Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. They put the human face on I Love Lucy. And they sometimes paid the price as a newly media-hungry America devoured anything related to I Love Lucy.

      I’m going to share with you some choice tidbits I’ve found over the years. Some are funny, some serious, some short, some a bit longer—but they all reveal not only what might have been going on at the time (I’ll separate fact from reported fiction when I can), but as much about ourselves and what drove us as they do about the Ricardos and the Mertzes (and the actors who played them).

      I’ve begun with two short timelines, one for Lucille Ball and one for the show I Love Lucy, that you can always refer to if you want to see what else was going on in Lucy’s life at the time an item was published.

      Do some of these stories stretch the truth or ignore it altogether? No doubt, yes. But in many cases, as was true from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and even up to the present century, the writer or reporter was doing the star a favor and not reporting something that, if it had gotten out, might have damaged the star’s career. Sometimes the stars themselves cooperated and gave columnists news that was published as an exclusive. That way, the reporter could junk the real, devastating story.

      Today, journalists are supposedly held to a higher standard and get away with even more when they detour from the truth, e.g., the 2003 scandal over fake reporting at the nation’s formerly unimpeachable source of news, The New York Times. The fact is, magazines, Internet columns, and TV entertainment reporters still do their best to cater to stars’ wishes—and keep secrets; otherwise, they’ll be out of the loop when the star next has something to say.

      It’s been said about a Hollywood career, Any publicity is good publicity. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

      So…put on your reading glasses, sit back, and listen. If you try hard enough, you might be able to hear the rat-a-tat-tat of an Olivetti, or the metallic clacketyclack of an IBM Selectric, as Hedda, Louella, Walter, or Rona raced to meet a deadline and scoop the world about our favorite redhead.

      A LUCILLE BALL TIMELINE

      1911 Lucille Desirée Ball born in Jamestown, N.Y. on August 6

      1927 Lucy makes the first of many trips back and forth to New York, wanting desperately to become a performer, having been mesmerized as a child by the vaudeville, music, and stage productions that toured the Jamestown/Celeron area.

      1930 Lucy is a success in the (Jamestown) Players Club production of Within the Law, playing a tough-talking gangster’s girl.

      1931 Lucy returns to New York with good friend Marion Strong, and finds work as a model. Eventually, her modeling for the likes of Hattie Carnegie and her stint as a Chesterfield poster girl leads to an opportunity Lucy cannot refuse: a trip to California, in the summer of 1933, to become a Goldwyn Girl. (The Goldwyn Girls were a handpicked musical stock company of female dancers, singers, and occasionally bit-part actresses who appeared in many musicals from the 1920s through the 1940s. They were often credited as chorus girls, models, or showgirls. Lucy met friend Barbara Pepper when both were Goldwyn Girls.)

      1933 Lucy as a blonde-wigged Goldwyn Girl is really a glorified extra in her first film, Roman Scandals.

      1934 Lucy moves to Columbia Studios. "Three Little

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