APPLE BLOSSOM LUCY

April 30, 1964

The annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival and Parade in Winchester, Virginia began in 1929. The event features an Apple Blossom Queen (aka Queen Shenandoah), a parade with a Grand Marshal, and celebrity appearances.

In 1964, TV legend Lucille Ball, served as the Festival’s Grand Marshal. The Queen of Comedy was joined by another famous Lucy – Luci Baines Johnson, who was Queen Shenandoah.

Luci Baines Johnson (born July 2, 1947) is the younger daughter of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Lady Bird Johnson. Her father was president from November 22, 1963 (President Kennedy’s assassination) to January 20, 1969. Her first name was originally spelled “Lucy” just like Lucille Ball’s nickname, but in her teens she changed the spelling. As her parents both had the initials LBJ, they named their two daughters so that they would have these initials as well.

A brochure for the 1964 event shows both Luci and Lucille on the cover.

A more generic tourist guide was also available for visitors.

A program book was available for fifty cents.

Naturally, the ‘two Lucy’ event gathered a good deal of press, as with this brief column in Variety.

The Post Office even commemorated the Festival with special envelopes and postmarks. The top left envelope is from the 1964 event and shows the Johnson family home.

If Lucille Ball needed to be convinced to be Grand Marshal, she just had to ask some of her famous friends, who also went to Winchester at Festival Time.

• 1949 & 1975 – Bob Hope
• 1953 – Howard Keel
• 1953 – Arthur Godfrey
• 1954 – Ed Sullivan
• 1957 – Johnny Roventini (Philip Morris Bellboy) also present in 1964 with Lucille Ball
• 1958 – Audrey Meadows
• 1968 – Eddie Bracken (Too Many Girls)
• 1969 – Ed McMahon
• 1973 – Mike Douglas

Three days before Lucy’s appearances at the Apple Festival, “Lucy Enters A Baking Contest” (TLS S2;E28) was aired for the first time. The episode depicts Lucy making pies, although they were cream pies, not apple!

For the 75th Anniversary Festival in 2002, Lucy’s granddaughter, Katharine Desiree Luckinbill, served as Queen Shenandoah. Lucille Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz and Lucie’s husband Larry Luckinbill, accompanied their daughter Katharine to the event and also rode in the parade.

AN APPLE A DAY…

Although audiences never knew it, apple sauce was the main ingredient in the pies dumped on William Holden in “Hollywood at Last!” (ILL S4;E16) and apple pectin was the secret ingredient in Vitameatavegamin in “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” (ILL S1;E30).

“Lucy’s Notebook” – a publication from the mid-1950s – includes a recipe for Apple Pie de Luxe!  

She was also known for her Sweet Apple John – recipe above!

Speaking of Apple John, in “Lucy Goes to Art Class” (TLS S2;E15), Viv bakes an apple pie for John, a handsome new bachelor she met at art class.

In the same episode, Lucy ‘meets cute’ with John when the contents of her purse spill out on the floor and he helps pick them up – including an apple!

In “Lucy Buys a Boat” (TLS S1;E30), Lucy snacks on an apple while Viv is out cold from too many sea sickness pills!

In “Lucy Learns To Drive” (ILL S4;E12) Lucy tries to coax a catatonic Fred out of his daze by tempting him with a piece of her apple pie!

In “Lucy and Chuck Connors Have a Surprise Slumber Party” (HL S6;E13) Connors decides to spend the night in the Carter house. His director (Ryan MacDonald) informs him there’s plenty of apple pie in the fridge!

Lucy Ricardo owned an apple cookie jar! Lucy’s Hull Apple Cookie Jar, was often seen in the Ricardo kitchen. Hull Pottery was quite popular in the 1950’s.

In early episodes of “I Love Lucy” apples (and other fruits) were readily available in the Ricardo living room!

Int “The Kleptomaniac” (ILL S1;E27) while Lucy is stealing Fred’s cuckoo clock for her club bazaar, she grabs an apple from the sideboard as a snack!

A ravenous Lucy takes a bite out of juicy looking apple – only to discover that it is made of wax – in “Lucy’s Schedule” (ILL S1;E33).

In “Lucy Helps the Countess” (TLS S4;E8), Lucy Carmichael, the Countess, and Mr. Mooney, accidentally get locked in a vacant high rise apartment for the weekend!  The only food they have is one solitary apple!

In “Dirty Gertie” (HL S5;E10), Lucy Carter goes downtown to bring a basket of surplus apples to her hairdresser, and is mistaken for an impoverished “Apple Annie” by some local mobsters.

In “Lucy in London” (1966), after Anthony Newley’s medley, there is a quick shot of Lucy as an Eliza Doolittle-type figure in the balcony of a theatre munching an apple!  Technically, London theatres were known for their orange sellers, but why quibble?

In “Lucy Becomes a Reporter” (TLS S1;E17), Viv’s old flame Argyle (John Vivyan) says she was known in high school was as ‘Truckie’ because of her dance moves while doing “The Big Apple.” In “Love Among the Two By Fours” (LWL S1;E3). Lucy Barker and her old flame Ben (Peter Graves) say they first met doing the same dance!

Apples are 18 cents a pound in 1970′s “Lucy Loses Her Cool” (HL S3;E13).

In a silent movie sketch in “Lucy and Mickey Rooney” (TLS S4;E18) The Kid (Rooney) swipes an apple from a fruit stall, but The Tramp (Lucy) stops him.

He was only emulating the Keystone Cop!

At the start of “Lucy the Gun Moll” (TLS S4;E25), Lucy Carmichael wants Mr. Mooney to install an apple vending machine for the employees at the bank.

Although vending machines offering fresh fruit are rare in today’s world, the Fruit-O-Matic Company started to manufacture such machines around 1950.

In “World’s Greatest Grandma” (LWL; unaired) Lucy Barker considers singing “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)” for a talent show – except (as usual) she can’t sing!

In “Lucy and the Andrews Sisters” (HL S2;E6), Lucy Carter and daughter Kim join Patty Andrews in a medley that contains the song. It was originally sung by the Andrews Sisters in the 1942 film Private Buckaroo.