The Lucille Ball Film That Never Was

This hot item from Tinseltown gossip monger Sheilah Graham was fodder for the Hollywood gristmill some time during the 1950s, but it never happened.  

Sheilah Graham was satirized as Nancy Graham (Elvia Allman), the reporter who interviews Lucy Ricardo after her return from Hollywood, in “The Homecoming” (ILL S5;E6) in 1955. 

Elaine Townsend (nee Margaret Helgeson) was born 1919 in Wyoming. Sometime during World War II while living in Hawaii, she changed her name.

In 1947 she took a journey to Cuba that would change her life. 

At age 28, she bought into the dice concession at the noted Gran Casino Nacional in Havana – despite knowing nothing about gambling.Coincidentally, an insert shot of the Hotel Nacional was used in the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Ricardos Visit Cuba” (ILL S6;E9) in 1956. The cast and crew, however, never stepped foot in Cuba, but filmed the episode entirely in Hollywood. Fidel Castro closed the Casino in October 1960, almost two years after his overthrow of Batista. The Nacional and the Casino are still in operation today.

As Townsend’s success increased and the tourism boon flourished in Cuba, Hollywood was intrigued enough to want to make a film about her life. Producer Wolfgang Reinhardt wanted Rita Hayworth play Elaine. Hayworth had visited Cuba in 1948 and wanted to do the film, but when she got pregnant, the movie was put on hold. 

Reinhardt was then going to make the film with Lucille Ball, an ideal choice because Ball’s husband Desi Arnaz was born in Cuba. Reinhardt intended to cast Arnaz as well. But this, too, never happened. 

The movie was supposed to be a comedy and was initially entitled Hotbed in Cuba then The Elaine Townsend Story and then That Townsend Girl.  The feeling was that the mob, who controlled the casino gambling underworld, put at end to the project, lest they be exposed. 

Elaine Townsend died in Miami Beach, FL and was interred Mount View Cemetery in Billings, Montana on August 11, 1965.

Around 2014, a new film script surfaced titled Razzle Dazzle by Pamela Hall.  The film has yet to be made.