LUCY LOVES DESI

 

When CBS first approached Lucille Ball to do a TV series they did not want it to co-star Desi Arnaz, as Lucy had wanted, because he was a Cuban.  The network didn’t think audiences would buy the marriage of an all-American girl and a Latino.

 

Lucy saw the television show as a great opportunity to work with Desi and perhaps save their shaky marriage.  To prove the network wrong Lucy and Desi developed a vaudeville act that they took on the road with Desi's orchestra. The act was a hit and convinced CBS executives that a Ball-Arnaz tv pairing would work.

 

Or so I learned from AN EVENING WITH LUCILLE BALL: “THANK YOU VERY MUCH”, which I saw at the Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island several years ago.  The one-woman show, starring Suzanne LaRusch, was written by Ms LaRusch and Lucie Arnaz and directed by Lucie Arnaz.  

 

In 1950 CBS had asked Ball to take her successful radio comedy MY FAVORITE HUSBAND to television with co-star Richard Denning.  The radio program was written by Bob Caroll Jr and Madeline Pugh, who would go on to write for I LOVE LUCY, and co-starred Bea Benaderet and Gale Gordon as their neighbors.  This is the show that eventually became I LOVE LUCY.

 

Bea Benaderet and Gale Gordon were Lucy and Desi's first choice to play the Mertzes, but the actors were unavailable.  When they came across William Frawley, Desi Arnaz wanted him, but he was told that Frawley would be a poor choice because he was a womanizer, a gambler, and a drunk. Arnaz said, "He's perfect!"  It is rumored that Frawley and Vivian Vance did not get along off-screen.

 

Gale Gordon went on to play the principal on OUR MISS BROOKS (see below for Lucy connection).  He guest-starred on I LOVE LUCY and later co-starred with Lucy in THE LUCY SHOW and HERE’S LUCY.  Bea Benederet was unavailable for I LOVE LUCY because she was already cast at George Burns and Gracie Allen’s neighbor Blanche Morton on their tv show.  Bea was the original voice of Betty Rubble of THE FLINTSTONES, and also appeared in THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and starred in PETTICOAT JUNCTION.

 

Before deciding to do MY FAVORITE HUSBAND on radio Lucy was offered the title role in the radio series OUR MISS BROOKS.  This show eventually went to Eve Arden, and was also taken to television.

 

Lucy first met Desi when she appeared as his love interest in the 1940 RKO movie adaptation of the successful Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical TOO MANY GIRLS.  Desi reprised his Broadway role in the movie.  The movie was the film debut of co-star Eddie Bracken, also reprising his Broadway role, and Van Johnson as a member of the chorus, and introduced the standard “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was”.

 

Desi Arnaz invented the television rerun during the pregnancy episodes of I LOVE LUCY when he re-aired episodes from the first season to give Lucy some rest.  He also pioneered the use of three cameras simultaneously for filming a sitcom, resulting in high-quality prints preserved for future TV audiences.

 

And one more bit of I LOVE LUCY trivia.  The famous "valentine" opening credits we know from syndication were not the original opening credits.  They were added when CBS began rerunning the series in 1958. Originally the credits featured animated stick figures of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz along with the sponsor's product, for example Phillip Morris cigarettes.

TAFN

WHY TRUMP OWNS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

 

I think I understand Trump’s power over the Republican Party.

Trump accomplished one thing as President.  He “legitimized” racism and white supremacy as an “acceptable” political position.  This had two results -

1. In the past extreme racists and white supremacists either did not vote, because neither Republicans nor Democrats spoke to them or their hatred, or they voted for true fringe party candidates.  They have now been empowered and organized into an actual voting bloc loyal to Trump – his core “base” of ignorant racists - and today’s Republican Party truly courts and panders to them, while abandoning intelligent “traditional” Republicans.

2. Previously “closeted” racists and white supremacists, who in the past hid their beliefs because they had correctly been considered wrong and unacceptable by society and politics, can now “come out” and joined the new Trump-loyal ignorant racist voting bloc.

Add to this the repressive “Religious Right” contingent of the Republican Party, who are also basically racist and have embraced Trump, and the percentage of “loyal” Republicans who have and always will vote Republican regardless of the candidate or issues, and you have a large number of American voters – certainly enough to control the selection of Republican Party candidates and policy.

And, of course, I still seriously and sincerely believe Trump has blackmail information on the sexual “eccentricities” of Republican elected officials and leaders that he got from Jeffrey Epstein.

This is why we MUST vote against EVERY Republican candidate in EVERY election at EVERY level in November – and continue to do so until the Republican Party officially denounces and disavows Trump, his lies, his ignorant racist followers, and the repressive agenda of the “Religious Right”.

If Republicans gain control of Congress and state legislatures next month it will be the beginning of the end of America as we know it.

TAFN

YOU CAN SELL SHIT AND GET THANKS. THAT’S WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE YANKS

 

What is the point of so-called “Reality TV”?  It teaches us absolutely nothing about reality, real life or humanity.

Greedy self-absorbed individuals with questionable intelligence and minimal, if any, self-respect, self-control and common sense are put in staged situations and told to “act outrageously”.  All we learn are that people are stupid and will do anything for attention and money.

We can learn more about reality and humanity from one episode of a scripted drama or comedy than in an entire season of any Reality TV garbage.

While the motto of the father of Reality TV programs is “Outwit, Outplay and Outlast”, the real motto of this genre is “Embarrass, Humiliate and Abuse”. Reality TV has absolutely no worth or value – no educational value, no entertainment value, no “socially redeeming” value.

Back in 2008 USA TODAY did a cover story on reality tv with interviews of panels of “stars” from various shows of the genre.  When a panel from cable channel VH1 was asked about the most memorable moments from their shows, Flavor Flav said, “One of the most memorable moments in the history of reality TV was when that girl shit on my floor.”  Someone else responded, “No, I’d say it’s Mini-Me pissing on the carpet” from THE SURREAL LIFE.  Need I say more?

A result of this vile genre is the creation of a new breed of “celebrities” – self-important narcissistic buffoons with no talent who are merely “famous for being famous”.

One of the best descriptions ever of Reality TV and the making of its pathetic “stars” into “celebrities” appeared in an episode of the BBC tv show JUDGE JOHN DEED, starring Martin Shaw as the judge, over a decade ago.  In “Popular Appeal” an angry contestant in a British show called “The Dungeon” kills another competitor on camera, and the show's producers face charges of manslaughter in Deed's court. The prosecution contends that they acted recklessly and engineered conflict in order to get higher ratings.  A psychiatrist working for the station that airs the show testifies that the producers purposely look for psychologically flawed “contestants” who can be easily manipulated and angered, which clearly represents what Reality TV producers do in “real life”. 

Judge Deed, speaking to the producer of the TV show after the jury has returned its verdict, correctly observes –

“Celebrity: the pursuit of the talentless by the mindless. It's a common disease of the twenty-first century. It pollutes our society, and diminishes all who seek it and all who worship it, and you must bear part of the responsibility for foisting this empty nonsense onto a gullible public.”

Just to be clear, when I refer to “reality tv” I am not talking about legitimate talent contests or home improvement shows likes those on HGTV or DIY.  You know what shows I am talking about.

Television can change the world.  Pioneers like Norman Lear and the creative staff behind M*A*S*H changed the world for the better in the early 1970s.  And same-sex marriage would not have become legally accepted without Ellen DeGeneres and shows like WILL AND GRACE and MODERN FAMILY.  Today reality tv garbage is resulting in the decline and deterioration of our society.

In her excellent and spot on blog post “The Danger of Reality TV” Canadian Rhonda Scharf correctly observes -

“The reality of reality shows is that they effectively affect our society. Television tells us what is normal and accepted and eventually it worms its way into our subconscious. 

These messages are wrong. They instill a workplace mentality of winning at all costs. They have no compassion, no understanding, and no reality about the world we actually live in.”

A news item from 2012 reported –

“The Girls Scouts are warning of the dangers of reality tv after a study by the Girl Scouts Research Institute concluded that reality shows are having a negative effect on young women.

The study found that reality television ‘more frequently portrays girls and women in competition with one another rather than in support or collaboration. This perpetuates a 'mean-girl' stereotype and normalizes this behavior among girls.’

The study concluded: ‘Teen girls who regularly view reality tv accept and expect a higher level of drama, aggression, and bullying in their own lives, and measure their worth primarily by their physical appearance.’"

Reality TV is a result of, and a major contributor to the ongoing continuance of, the “dumbing down of America”. 

Want to know how truly dangerous Reality TV is?  It is partially responsible for the death of the Republican Party and for putting the absolute worst person possible - a mentally unstable narcissistic sociopath and cartoon clown who is completely unfit to serve in any elected position of power – in the White House.  Of course, I am talking about Donald J Trump.  By giving undeserved credibility to Trump via THE APPRENTICE Reality TV can claim credit for the substantial damage done to America and American democracy by the Trump presidency.

TAFN

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MARGARET

 

Thanks to PBS Americans are familiar with the various actresses who played Agatha Christie’s iconic character Miss Marple in the British television adaptations of the novels – Joan Hickson, Julia McKenzie and Geraldine McEwan. 

But I. and my generation. was first introduced to Miss Marple in the four films in the early 1960s starring Dame Margaret Rutherford (MURDER SHE SAID, MURDER AT THE GALLOP, MURDER MOST FOUR, and MURDER AHOY), and in an uncredited cameo in 1965’s THE ALPHABET MURDERS starring Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot. 

Rutherford is also remembered as Grand Duchess Gloriana XIII of Grand Fenwick in THE MOUSE ON THE MOON and for her 1963 best supporting actress Oscar turn as The Duchess of Brighton in THE VIPs. 

Rutherford went into acting rather late in life, making her stage debut at the Old Vic in 1925 at age 33.  She achieved West End prominence as Miss Prism in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at the Globe Theatre in 1939.  In 1941 she was the bumbling medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT at the Piccadilly Theatre, a role which Coward wrote for her.  She was also in the film adaptations of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST and BLITHE SPIRIT. 

She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961 and was raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1967.

What makes Margaret Rutherford a topic for discussion is not her professional career but her personal life and family history.

Her father, William Rutherford Benn, suffered from mental illness.  During his honeymoon he had a nervous breakdown and was confined to an asylum.  In March of 1883, after being released on holiday, he bludgeoned his father, Congregational minister Julius Benn, to death with a chamber pot.  He later tried to kill himself by slashing his throat with a pocketknife.  Benn was confined to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.  Several years later he was released, reportedly cured of his mental affliction.  He changed his name to Rutherford and returned to his wife Ann.

Margaret Rutherford was born in 1892 in Balham, the only child of William Rutherford Benn’s second wife Florence.   As an infant Margaret and her parents moved to India.  She returned to England when she was three to live with an aunt in Wimbledon after her pregnant mother committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree.  Her father also returned to England and was confined once more to Broadmoor in 1904.

She married character actor Stringer Davis in 1945 and the couple appeared in many productions together, including all the Marple movies and THE MOUSE ON THE MOON.  They were happily together until Rutherford's death.  Davis nursed Rutherford through periods of depression, often involving stays in mental hospitals and electric shock treatment.  In the 1950s, Rutherford and Davis unofficially adopted the writer Gordon Langley Hall, then in his twenties.  Hall later had a sex-change operation and became Dawn Langley Simmons, under which name she wrote a biography of Rutherford in 1983 

Rutherford suffered from Alzheimer's disease at the end of her life and was unable to work.  She died on May 22, 1972, at age 80. 

Before I go, here is some Miss Marple trivia: 

* While it was thought Agatha Christie did not approve of Rutherford’s portrayal of Marple, Christie dedicated her novel THE MIRROR CRACK'D "To Margaret Rutherford in admiration".

* Joan Hickson, who starred as Marple in the 1984 to 1992 BBC adaptations of the original Miss Marple novels, played a housekeeper in the first film in which Margaret Rutherford played Marple.

 * Before she updated the Marple retired school teacher detective character to the perhaps more famous Jessica Fletcher, Angela Lansbury was Jane Marple in the 1980 film THE MIRROR CRACK’D, whose cast included Rock Hudson, Liz Taylor, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis and Pierce Brosnan.  And Helen Hayes assumed the role in two tv movies.

* A few years ago, it was reported that The Walt Disney Company had acquired the movie rights to the Miss Marple character, and is planning a contemporary adaptation to be set in the US with Jennifer Garner as Marple.  However, I have heard nothing on this since.

TTFN

I'M JUST A BROADWAY SEQUEL

 

The movies are famous for sequels.  Some are actually as good as or better than the original, but many are at best unnecessary and at worst an insult to the original.  While there are often revivals, Broadway Musicals are not known for spawning sequels.

There has been no “West Side Story – The Next Generation”, “Return of the Music Man”, “Cabaret II – Back to Berlin”, or “Guys and Dolls and a Baby”.

There were two actual Broadway Musical “sequels” in the early days of the genre. 

The1906 George M. Cohan musical “Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway” had a 1907 sequel titled “The Talk of New York”. 

The first Pulitzer Prize winning musical, 1931’s “Of Thee I Sing” with book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind and music and lyrics by the Gershwins, begat the less successful 1933 sequel “Let ‘Em Eat Cake”.

During my lifetime, which began in the 1950s, there have been, to my knowledge, three musical sequels with the same characters and similar situations as the “inspiration” that take place after the story of the original production.

The first is “Bring Back Birdie”, obviously a sequel to the classic “Bye Bye Birdie”, which had 31 previews and only 4 performances (the original had 607) back in early 1981 at the Martin Beck Theatre.  It reunited the creative team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams and librettist Michael Stewart.  Chita Rivera reprised her role as Rosie, but Albert and Mae Peterson, Dick Van Dyke and Kay Medford in the original, were played by Donald O’Connor and Maria Karnilova.  There was no sign of the McAfee family from the original, the patriarch of which was played by Paul Lynde.

In the sequel, 20 years after the end of the original, Albert, now an English teacher, is offered $20,000 if he can find Conrad Birdie, who has disappeared into obscurity, and persuade him to perform on a television show.  Albert takes a leave of absence and locates Conrad, now overweight and the mayor of Bent River Junction, AZ.

I was in the audience for one of the 35 performances.  There was an unsuccessful try at updating the innovative “Telephone Hour” production number idea using videos.  And Donald O’Connor considered attempting to reprise his “Singing in the Rain” off the wall back flip during one of his solo numbers, but thought better of it considering his age.  Despite its short run, Chita Rivera was nominated for a Tony and a Drama Desk Award as Best Actress in a Musical for BBB2.  The original “Bye Bye Birdie” was nominated for, and won, many Tonys, including Best Musical, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Direction, and Best Choreography.

Ken Mandelbaum writes in his book, “Not Since Carrie, 40 Years of Broadway Flops” – “’Bring Back Birdie’ may rank as the worst Broadway musical ever to be created by top-level professionals.  The book was tasteless and ridiculous.”

I met BBB librettist Michael Steward, who also wrote the books for “Hello Dolly” and “42nd Street”, when he was a guest lecturer on one of my post-tax season transatlantic crossings on the QE2 back in the 1980s.  I saw the original “Bye Bye Birdie”" during its Broadway run, but with “Match Game” host Gene Rayburn and not Dick Van Dyke.  I also saw the inferior Broadway revival of a few years back.

“Annie”, which first promised Broadway audiences in early 1977 that “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”, had not one but two attempts at a sequel.

The first was “Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge”, which opened at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC in December 1989 to “universally disastrous reviews”.    Wikepedia reports that “extensive reworking of the script and score proved futile, and the project was aborted before reaching Broadway.”

The second attempt was made in 1993, with a completely different plot and score.  “Annie Warbucks” opened off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theatre, where it ran for 200 performances.  It never made the transition to Broadway.  I did not see either sequel.

The third Broadway Musical sequel, which did briefly make it to Broadway, was “The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public”, which had 28 previews and 16 performances in the spring of 1994.  The original’s creative team returned for the sequel, including Tommy Tune as co-director and co-choreographer.  It told the tale of the best little whorehouse in Las Vegas.

Miss Mona, madam of the original Chicken Ranch, is coaxed out of retirement to take over the Las Vegas brothel “Stallion Fields”, which has been seized by the government and is being run by the IRS in hopes of recovering $26 Million in back taxes.  Mona is once again at odds with a zealous right-wing politician trying to close the “house” down.

The New York Times review indicated that, while it had all the glitz one expects from Las Vegas, and even had Siegfried and Roy (portrayed by one actor – half Siegfried and half Roy), “What is ain’t got is fun”.

Dee Hoty, who played Miss Mona, was nominated for a 1994 Tony as Best Actress in a Musical.  I also did not see this fiasco.

While “Lorelei”, which I did see, opens and ends years after the original “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” story takes place, it is not so much a sequel as a revival of GPB, created to capitalize on the popularity of Carol Channing after “Hello Dolly”.  So it doesn’t count.  In the show Lorelei remembers her earlier Atlantic crossing while embarking on another after many years of marriage.

“Lorelei” opened January 27, 1974, at the Palace Theatre and ran 320 performances.  It had updated lyrics by Comden and Green and a new book by Kenny Solms and Gail Parent with a few scenes and songs thrown in to book-end the original show and score.  In addition to Carol Channing, the show also featured Peter Palmer (Broadway’s “Little Abner”), Dody Goodman, and Lee Roy Reams, who would many years later appear again with Carol in one of the revivals of Dolly.

So, there you have it – Broadway’s experimentation with sequels.  Did I miss any?

TAFN