THE KING AND I LOVE LUCY

Did you hear about the time Lucille Ball met the King of Siam?

Vivian Vance was at Lucy’s Beverly Hills home on a Saturday in the early 1960s with Lucy putting blonde dye on Vivian’s hair and henna on her own. The pair would be lounging around in comfortable clothing talking for hours.

On this particular Saturday, Ball had just had surgery on her toenails, and she had her feet propped on the coffee table with cotton and sticks sticking out. Then they heard sirens. Lucy thought something had happened at her neighbor, Jack Benny’s home, and asked Vivian to go to the door to see what was going on.

To Lucy’s surprise, Vivian said, “Lucille, Lucille, it’s here! They are all coming up the walk.”

So Lucy told her “Come and sit down, they’ll never recognize us.”

A huge entourage walked into Lucy’s home with a man who bowed low as they went by and speaking a different language. 

As the retinue left, the man said “Thank you very much.”

Vivian asked, “Who was that?”

The man responded, “That was the King of Thailand. He thanks you very much.”

Vivian replied, “Well, you’re very welcome. We will drop in on you someday when we are in your country.”

The King of Thailand at the time was King Bhumibol Adulyadej (or Rama IX). He was crowned in 1950. The King depicted in the Broadway musical and film was named Mongkut. 

“Who are these children, left over from ‘The King and I’?” – Tallulah Bankhead in “The Celebrity Next Door” (LDCH 1957)

The King and I is a Broadway musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II that premiered in 1951. The pair were frequently mentioned on “I Love Lucy.”  The musical is based on Margaret Landon’s novel, Anna and the King of Siam (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical was filmed in 1956.