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