HOLLYWOOD WITHOUT MAKE-UP

1963

Produced
by Ken Murray

Music
by George Stoll

Written
by Royal Foster

Ken
Murray
(Himself, Host) is billed as “the man who makes movies of the
people who make movies.” He was born
Kenneth Abner Doncourt in 1903
to vaudevillian parents. Murray
got his start in show business on the stage in 1920s as a stand-up
comedian.
He performed his comedy act on the vaudeville
circuit.
He found success as a stage performer after appearing in Earl
Carroll’s
Vanities
on
Broadway
in
1935. In
the 1940s, Murray became famous for his Blackouts,
a racy, stage variety show at the El
Capitan Theatre in
Hollywood. The Blackouts played to standing-room-only
audiences
for 3,844 performances, ending in 1949. Later that year, the show
moved to Broadway
and
closed after six weeks. He made his film debut in the 1929 romantic
drama Half
Marriage,
followed by a role in Leathernecking
in
1930. He was also the host of “The
Ken Murray Show,”
a weekly music and comedy show on CBS
Television that
ran from 1950 to 1953.
The
show was the first to win a Freedom Foundation Award. Over the course
of his career, Murray filmed Hollywood celebrities using his 16mm
home movie camera. He began filming the footage to send back home to
his grandparents in lieu of writing letters. His grandmother saved
the footage, which Murray later used in compilation films like
Hollywood
Without Make-Up.
He died in 1988 at age 85.

Features
footage of: Eddie Albert, June Allyson, George K. Arthur, Mary Astor,
Lew Ayres, Max Baer, Lucille
Ball,
Richard Barthelmess, Rex Bell, Edgar Bergen, Sally Blane, Humphrey
Bogart, John Boles, Pat Boone, Eddie Borden, Hobart Bosworth, Clara
Bow, William Boyd, Fanny Brice, Paul Brooks, Joe E. Brown, Johnny
Mack Brown, Virginia Bruce, Polly
Burson,
Rory
Calhoun,
Leo Carrillo, Charles Chaplin, Lew Cody, William Collier Jr., Russ
Columbo, Gary Cooper, Jackie Cooper, Jeanne Crain, Robert Cummings,
Linda Darnell, Marion Davies, Joan Davis, Olivia de Havilland,
Dolores del Rio, Cecil B. DeMille, Jack Dempsey, Walt Disney, Kirk
Douglas, Marie Dressler, Irene Dunne, Josephine Dunn, Stuart Erwin,
Ruth Etting, Douglas Fairbanks, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Charles
Farrell, Todd Fisher, Errol Flynn, Joan Fontaine, Glenn Ford, Clark
Gable, Greta Garbo, Reginald Gardiner, Cary Grant, Alan Hale, Oliver
Hardy, William Randolph Hearst, Jean Hersholt, William Holden, Bob
Hope,
Hedda Hopper, Walter Huston, Sam Jaffe, Van Johnson, Buck Jones, Hope
Lange, Charles Laughton, Stan Laurel, Gertrude Lawrence, Mervyn
LeRoy, Charles Lindbergh, Carole Lombard, William Lundigan, Fred
MacMurray, Jayne Mansfield, George
Marshall,
Herbert Marshall, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Joel McCrea,
Victor McLaglen, Adolphe Menjou, Mayo Methot, Marilyn Monroe, Frank
Morgan, Wayne Morris, Jean Parker, Louella Parsons, Mary Pickford,
Dick Powell, Tyrone Power, George Raft, Gregory Ratoff, Donna Reed,
Debbie Reynolds, Buddy Rogers, Charles Ruggles, Albert Schweitzer,
George Seaton, Norma Shearer, George Stevens, Lewis Stone, Margaret
Sullavan, Robert Taylor, William T. Tilden, George Tobias, Spencer
Tracy, Lupe Velez, Jimmy Walker, John Wayne, Johnny Weissmuller, Mae
West, Claire Windsor, Robert Woolsey, Jane Wyman, and others. 

The
show is also available on DVD from Sprocket Flicks  It has been aired on TV on Turner Classic Movies.

In
1963, when this documentary was released, Lucille Ball was starting
her second season of “The Lucy Show” on CBS TV.  

In
June 1950, one year before “I Love Lucy” premiered, Lucille Ball
and Desi Arnaz were guests on “The Ken Murray Show” on CBS TV.
Tap dancer Bunny Briggs and ‘Little Rascal’ Darla Hood were also
guests. 

In 1966, Lucy and Murray were both guests on “Bob Hope’s
Leading Ladies.” Murray played a television executive named Harvey
Sarnoff.  Lucy played herself.  Sort of. 

Lucy
returned to Sun Valley to film an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy
Hour,” using the same locations scene in this documentary.  

---

Twenty
minutes into the documentary, the location turns to Sun Valley,
Idaho, where Hollywood stars went for winter sports. June Allyson,
Errol Flynn, Martha O’Driscoll, Johnny Weissmuller, Wayne Morris,
and Reggie Gardiner have a snowball fight while making a snowman. 

Lounging at the Lodge are Rory Calhoun (center) and Lucille Ball.
Sun Valley was one of the Arnaz’s favorite vacation spots, accessible by train from Hollywood. Desilu would film “Lucy Goes
To Sun Valley” (1958) there. Lucy’s good friend Ann Sothern also
loved Sun Valley, and is buried nearby.  

Murray
says that this is not the only home movies of Lucille Ball that he
has. First is a quick clip of Lucy at Chatsworth Ranch with one of her cherished dogs. Lucy
and Desi had three dogs at the time.  

This leads to footage of
Lucille Ball filming Fancy
Pants
in 1950 with director George Marshall and co-star Bob Hope. Murray
also mentions that Lucy has done quite a few pictures with Hope,
including Critic’s
Choice,
which was released in 1963, the same year as this documentary. In
1969, when Lucy wanted to film episodes of “Here’s Lucy” on
location, including on the Colorado River, she hired Marshall,
remembering his expertise with location filming in rough terrain.

Ball
also poses with Marshall and her Fancy
Pants
stunt double, Polly
Burson,
although Murray does not specifically mention her name. 

Ball is shown
doing a stunt where she falls onto a break-away table, not once…

 not
twice… 

but three times!

Murray:
“Someone
once said that Lucille Ball stands alone as the greatest comedienne
of our time.  That goes for sitting down, too!”

---

Lucy Without Make-Up: Literally!  

A movie star, Lucille Ball was rarely scene without full make-up, but when a scene demanded she take a blast of water to the face, she removed her false eyelashes, as she did here in “Never Do Business With Friends” (ILL S2;E31) in 1953.