(S4;E16 ~ February 7, 1955) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed December 2, 1954 at Ren-Mar Studios. It was the 114th episode filmed. Rating: 49.9/63
Synopsis ~ The gang finally arrive in Hollywood and Lucy immediately sets out to hunt for celebrities at the Hollywood Brown Derby, where she has a disastrous encounter with William Holden. When Ricky brings Holden back to their hotel, Lucy must disguise herself to avoid being recognized.
This episode is the culmination of the gang’s cross-country journey. It was released on VHS as “L.A. at Last!” and is sometimes still referred to by that title.
This episode was colorized and presented as a CBS special on May 17, 2015, along with a colorized version of “Lucy and Superman” (S6;E13). A lost scene, not seen since its original airing, was reinserted in which we hear that Bobby the bellhop had a bit part in the film Julius Caesar.
The episode begins with second unit footage of the Los Angeles City Hall (white tower on right).
Built in 1927, it remained the tallest structure in the city for more than 30 years and became an icon of Los Angeles. It was seen in many films and television shows.
“…able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”
It was prominently featured at the beginning of each episode of “Adventures of Superman.” Coincidentally, in 2015 CBS teamed “Lucy and Superman” (S6;E13) and this episode as their holiday colorized special.
The rectangular brown building on the left is the Los Angeles Hall of Justice.
The historic 1925 building was featured on television shows including “Dragnet,” “Perry Mason,” and “Get Smart.” It was the home of Los Angeles County courts and was for many years the primary Los Angeles County jail.
The building was closed shortly after sustaining damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. In 2015, the building re-opened after undergoing a complete restoration.
The camera pans over to the now legendary Hollywood Freeway, where the title of the episode is seen.
The Pontiac with the actors doubles drives into the frame.
The car pulls up to the fictitious Beverly Palms Hotel. The building is actually the Avalon Hotel Beverly Hills, which was then known as the Beverly Carlton. This is the only exterior shot of the hotel.
Oops! There are two signs that say the real name of the hotel in the footage!
The Ricardos are staying in room 315 and the Mertzes are in room 317. The first celebrity Lucy ‘thinks’ she sees is Van Johnson, but it turns out to be just the hotel detective. Lucy and Desi knew they could eventually prevail upon their old friend to make a guest appearance, which he eventually does in “The Dancing Star” (S4;E27).
Robert D. Jellison plays the recurring character of Bobby the bellboy throughout the Hollywood episodes. Viewers may remember him as the milkman in “The Gossip” (S1;E24). He makes one more appearance as another luggage jockey in “Lucy Hunts Uranium,” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour” set at the Sands Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas.
William Holden is the first of many celebrity guest stars on the Hollywood episodes. Lucille Ball and Holden had starred together in the film Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949), as seen in the above backstage candid flanked by screen writer Frank Tashlin (left) and director Lloyd Bacon (right).
William Holden was born William Franklin Beedle, Jr. in O’Fallon, Illinois, in 1918. He moved to Pasadena, California, when he was three. In 1937, while studying chemistry at Pasadena Junior College, he was signed to a film contract by Paramount. His first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939). In 1951, he was nominated for an Oscar for Sunset Boulevard and would win the award in 1954 for Stalag 17. He would win a second Oscar in 1977 for Network.
William Holden is the first and only actor on “I Love Lucy” to have won a competitive acting Oscar at the time of his appearance on the show.
In return for his appearance in this episode, Holden got to promote his most recent film, The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. The movie was first seen in Los Angeles just nine days after this episode was filmed.
The real-life Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant was founded by Wilson Mizner in 1926 on Wilshire Boulevard. Its distinctive exterior resembled a large brown derby to attract tourists and passing motorists. A second location on North Vine Street (not shaped like a derby) was opened in 1929. Due to its proximity to movie studios, it became the place to do deals and be seen. Clark Gable is said to have proposed to Carole Lombard there and rival gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper were regular patrons. Its walls were decorated with hundreds of celebrity caricatures all drawn by resident artist Jack Lane. They are faithfully reproduced on the “I Love Lucy” stage as are their distinctive derby-shaped wall sconces.
The restaurant was destroyed by fire in 1987 and closed, but that same year was licensed to the Walt Disney theme parks where you can still enjoy the original Cobb salad today.
Technically, the Brown Derby is featured in many “I Love Lucy” episodes set in Hollywood, since its distinctive sign can be glimpsed from the Ricardo’s balcony!
Oops! The view from the hotel window is a bit too high to be from a third story room. In reality, this is a photograph of downtown LA from the roof of Desilu Studios.
As soon as they are seated in their booth, Lucy and Ethel (but not viewers) get to see Cary Grant and Gregory Peck, who are paged for a telephone call, the first of over 100 stars they would ‘see’ in Hollywood. Grant and Peck, however, never made an actual appearance on the show. There are also pages for unseen stars Walter Pidgeon and Ava Gardner (which gets Fred on his feet).
On the wall above their booth there is a caricature of Jimmy Durante with his famous ‘schnozzola’ extending into a second frame. This was a copy of the actual portrait. A few weeks later, Lucy will disguise herself as Durante to fool near-sighted Carolyn Appleby in “Lucy and Harpo Marx” (S4;E28). Lucille Ball had played a nurse in Durante’s 1935 film Carnival and he would make a cameo appearance on "The Lucy Show” in 1965, exactly eleven years later!
Lucy also spots a caricature of Eddie Cantor, who had starred in a few of Lucille Ball’s early movies Roman Scandals (1933) as well as Kid Millions (1934) and – later – Ziegfeld Follies (1945). On Broadway, Cantor introduced the song “We’re Having a Baby (My Baby and Me)” which Ricky movingly sang to Lucy in “Lucy is Enceinte” (S2;E10).
Lucy and Ethel can’t decide if one of the caricatures is Shelley Winters or Judy Holliday. Although Lucille Ball never worked with Judy Holliday, Winters guest-starred on a 1968 episode of “Here’s Lucy.” Coincidentally, the same night this episode first aired, Shelley Winters was on NBC in a television adaptation of the Clare Booth Luce play The Women.
A woman in the next booth clarifies that the caricature is of Eve Arden. That woman is played by Eve Arden herself!
Eve Arden was then starring in the show "Our Miss Brooks.” Arden and Ball had both appeared in the films Stage Door (1937) and Having Wonderful Time (1938) where they became known as ‘the drop gag girls’ because they could enter a scene, pull off a funny line or bit, and then disappear into the ensemble again. Arden is the first on-camera celebrity Lucy and Ethel meet in Hollywood – even if for just a moment.
At the Hollywood Brown Derby, Fred orders the veal cutlet Marco Polo. In the original script he ordered the turkey Marco Polo, simply because it was the most expensive item on the menu, but the line was cut. Lucy gets spaghetti and meatballs with extra meat sauce, which was a specialty of the house according the the 1949 Brown Derby cookbook. Lucy also orders a tossed salad from the menu which the waiter explains is a mixed green salad with an oil dressing. The Derby Mixed Green Salad recipe can also be found in the Brown Derby Cookbook.
William Holden orders a Cobb salad and coffee. The Hollywood Brown Derby is the ‘birthplace’ of the Cobb salad, which was said to have been hastily arranged from leftovers by owner Robert Cobb for theater owner Sid Grauman. One story says that it was a chopped salad because Grauman had just had dental work done, and couldn’t chew well!
After Lucy knocks the dessert tray onto William Holden, a cameraman can be seen standing at the right edge of the frame. In the re-mastered DVD version, the cameraman was cropped out. Hazel Pierce and Bennett Green, Lucy and Desi’s camera and lighting stand-ins, are seated in the booth next to Holden.
The pie that William Holden got hit with was really filled with apple sauce.
This is the second of three appearances on the series for Harry Bartell, who plays the Derby’s Headwaiter, Gus. He was first seen as the Process Server in “The Courtroom” (S2;E7) and will be the Jewel Thief in “The Great Train Robbery” (S5;E5), book-ending the Hollywood episodes.
Ray Alan plays a Brown Derby waiter in his first of three series appearances. He would also go on to be an extra in four episodes of “The Lucy Show.”
Lucy and Desi had a real-life contract with MGM Studios for The Long, Long Trailer (1954) so it was chosen to be Ricky Ricardo’s studio for Don Juan as well. At the end of the episode, the announcer states that “William Holden appears courtesy of Paramount Pictures.” He is, however, seen taking a meeting at MGM with Mr. Sherman, approving of an un-named script. Perhaps in deference to Paramount, the dialogue of this episode does not mention MGM by name, just as “the studio.” Even so, Holden tells Ricky that they are “a wonderful studio to work for.”
MGM producer John Sherman is played by Dayton Lummis making his third and final series appearance on the series. He was first seen as another producer, Broadway producer William Parker (“Parker Preps Prod for Pittsburgh Preem”) in “Ricky Has His Eyes Examined” (S3;E11). He went on to play prissy publisher Mel Eaton in “Lucy Writes a Novel” (S3;E24).
In a bit of nepotism, his secretary is played by Dani Sue Nolan, the real-life wife of the episode’s director, William Asher.
The original script had an additional scene where we get to see Lucy frantically looking for a disguise to prevent William Holden from recognizing her. In it, she penciled on thick eyebrows and got the putty nose and other make-up out of Ricky’s make-up kit. Unfortunately, because the audience laughed so hysterically during the ensuing scene with her putty nose, the lead-up to it had to be cut for time. All that remains of the scene is the above production still. It would have been interesting to see where Lucy found the jeweled cat glasses!
During Lucy and Holden’s chat, there is a copy of Look magazine on the coffee table. Its cover is obscured by another, smaller magazine placed on top of it. If it had been the most recent edition at the time of filming, the cover would have been of Italian film star Gina Lollobrigida, sporting the trademark short haircut Lucy tries to emulate in “The Black Wig” (S3;E26). The Arnaz family would appear on the cover of the December 28, 1954 edition of Look, and typically thanked their magazine coverage with camera time. The cup and saucer are square shaped and the cup handle forms a distinctive ear-shaped curve made by Franciscan Ware from 1949 to 1954.
LUCY: “This California sun sure makes your skin soft!”
The putty nose routine is Lucille Ball’s favorite comedy bit. Make-up artist Hal King put a wick at the end of Lucille Ball’s infamous putty nose to prevent her real nose from getting burned. Lucy dipping her smoking nose into her coffee cup was an ad lib. The script actually said for Lucy to pull off her putty nose and put it in the coffee cup to extinguish the fire.
Lucille Ball’s costume designer Elois Jenssen created the black rhinestone-encrusted house coat Lucy wears for William Holden’s visit.
This is the fifth of ten appearances of the outfit, which Jenssen called ‘black point-d’esprit’.
LUCY: “I kissed Bill Holden!”
Interestingly, to cover for Lucy, Holden makes up a story in front of Ricky about what happened at the Brown Derby that omits the fact that he ended up covered in pie! It would be interesting to know just when Ricky discovered the real truth about what happened!
Three of Hollywood’s biggest stars, William Holden, Lucille Ball, and Eve Arden share a moment backstage between takes.
During a break in filming, Lucy smooches director Bill Asher while Holden looks on.
Fast Forward!
Even before the show aired, Desi Arnaz knew he had another winner on his hands and scheduled a special press screening of the show at the real-life Brown Derby. Restaurant owners Bob and Sally Cobb co-hosted the event.
The episode was an immediate sensation with congratulatory telegrams flooding in to Desilu Studios, including one from silent screen star Colleen Moore: “Your program last night was the funniest I have ever seen anyplace, anywhere, and your scene with the putty nose should go down in history.”
A bit later in the season, Holden’s wife, Brenda Marshall, appears in “The Fashion Show” (S4;E20) wearing ‘Heathcliff,’ a beige street suit of cashmere wool designed by Don Loper. She is only referred to as “Mrs. William Holden.” The couple were married from 1941 to 1971.
The script received a 1956 Emmy nomination. It lost to “The New Phil Silvers Show.” Lucille Ball, however, won for her performance as Lucy Ricardo.
In subsequent scripts, almost every celebrity on the show after Holden mentioned the infamous pie incident at the Brown Derby. Many said they were scared to meet Lucy because of it, others wanted to know if the story was true.
Ricky even references the Bill Holden incident in “Lucy Meets Charles Boyer” (S5;E19), set in Paris!
In 1969, the Hollywood Brown Derby made another appearance on “Here’s Lucy”. This time, Lucy Carter met Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. In both episodes, Lucy jumps when she hears the name Gregory Peck and causes the waiter to spill a tray of food and drinks on the celebrities.
Lucille Ball was a frequent patron of the Brown Derby. Here she sits under a caricature of her 1934 co-star Eddie Cantor, a caricature that Ethel recognizes by name in the episode.
After this episode, Lucille Ball and William Holden were seen together only twice more. The first time was in isolated cameos on “The Dean Martin Christmas Show” in 1968.
The second was a celebration of the work of director George Marshall on “The Merv Griffin Show” in July 1971.
In an episode of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (2018), Midge takes her friend Imogene to New York’s Stage Deli where she expects to see famous people, but is disappointed. The scene takes place in Fall 1959.
Selling ‘Hollywood’!
Mattel’s Barbie commemorated the episode with a collectible doll complete with charred nose and coffee cup! The episode also inspired collectible plates, Christmas ornaments, and numerous other merchandise.
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