IT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT: LUCY & THE BOMPS!

by Earl Wilson, August 19, 1950

Lucille Ball wanted to keep Desi home and off the road so she petitioned for him to play her husband on radio’s “My Favorite Husband”.  The network balked and Richard Denning got the role instead. When it came time to transfer the show to television, Lucy made the same demand. Now a radio star in her own right, she was able to convince the network – nervous about America believing an ‘All-American girl’ like Lucy would be married to a Latin bandleader – to give them a chance to prove it!  The Arnazs’ built a comedy and musical act and took it on the road. When the show got to the Roxy in New York City, syndicated columnist Earl Wilson tagged along and wrote the following feature, which appeared on August 19, 1950.  Coincidentally, the Roxy was also the theatre where Desi Arnaz was performing when he wed Lucille Ball in 1940. 

[NOTE: Although the text of Wilson’s article is repeated below verbatim, the photos and footnotes were added for editorial consideration.]

Lucille Ball has been one of our most appreciated movie actresses for quite a while, but it was seeing her do a bump on the stage that made me really come to realize how talented she is.

It was after she’d done her clever act with husband Desi Arnaz at the Roxy that I talked to the flamin’ redhead about it.

“Wasn’t that a bump?” I asked her, as we got into a cab and pulled away from the stagedoor. I wanted to be sure, because some snooty actresses wouldn’t want it thought that they ever did a bump.“That was a married woman’s refined version of a bump.”

Lucille was sitting back in the cab, exhausted from several shows that day, and clamoring to be taken somewhere to see a show. She said she had been entertaining all day and now she wanted to be entertained for a change.

“Did you say refined?” Desi looked across the cab at her. I was between them. “Any harder you do it and you will knock my hot off,” he said in his charming accent. (1)

At Desi’s urging, she told me a story showing that doing the bump is for her not new. It seems that once she made a picture for Eric Palmer called Dance, Girl, Dance. (2)

“He was telling me, ‘Those bomps. Don’t do those bomps bad or the sansors will keep the picture.’

“So I was doing a very tame dance, not bumping at all. I had on a 27-pound dress, silver lame, with bugle beads, and it rolled from side to side when I shook.

“Durin’ a scene, Palmer jumped up and said, ‘Oh, oh, that was a bomp. I told you no bomps.’

“I went up to him and I said, ‘Mr. Palmer, that was not a bomp. THIS is a bomp.’  “And I bumped and I wrapped those 27 pounds of beads right around his neck!”

It’s a pleasure to talk to two such honest, earthy people after listening to some others who are always posing. A lot of people are astonished that they are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary because, as Desi points out, “Everyone said it wouldn’t last a month.” “And WE didn’t think it would last a week,” Lucille said. (3)

Being romantically inclined, I asked for the details which most everybody must have forgotten by now but the participants themselves.

“Where did you get married?” I asked Desi.

“The Byram River Beagle Club, at Greenwich, Conn.,” Lucille said. (4)

“Thank you, I can never say that,” said her Cuban husband.

“Yes, you can. Try it,” Lucille said.

“The By-ram River Bee-gul Club,” Desi said dutifully and slowly.

“Faster!” commanded Lucille. (5)

“The Byver Regal Civer Club,” responded Desi.

“Oh, my,” said Lucille, “We were married by Judge John J. O’Brien. He’s the one who married Tommy Manville so many times.” (6)

Although Desi missed a show at the Roxy, where he was then appearing, to get married, he remembers, just as vividly, how on his wedding night he woke up the bride about 5 A.M. and demanded that she get him a glass of water. The funny thing is that she did.

“About 9 o’clock she woke me up,” Desi recalls, “and she said ‘Listen, you—, the next time you want a glass of water you get it yourself!’” (7)

Desi explains that he’s never made such a request since.

Desi and Lucille have formed their own company which they call Desilu Productions, this being a combination, of course of their two first names. “First time I ever got top billing,” Desi says.

They plan to do concerts, radio, television and movies together. Lucille comes from Butte, Mont., and, as everybody knows, has red hair. (8)

Lucille made up a description of herself around which a movie will be made. The title which describes her so accurately is “Blazing Beulah From Butte,” and we figure it ought to get the money. (9)

Never underestimate that Desi.

When they were getting married it appeared that she might not be able to because of a commitment to Harold Lloyd.

Desi called Lloyd from New York and defiantly announced to him that Lucille couldn’t be available that week, as he was marrying her. “Y-yes, D-desi, c-can she be back next k-weeek?” stammered Lloyd, who never does. (10)

Desi is pretty masterful; when he speaks, to Lucille he is her master’s voice.

FOOTNOTES

(1) The ‘bomps’ discussed are undoubtedly from the “Cuban Pete / Sally Sweet” number, where Lucy gyrates her hips while singing “Chick-Chicky-Boom Chick-Chicky-Boom.” The routine was repeated (with ‘bomps’ included) on “I Love Lucy” in “The Diet” (ILL S1;E3) in October 1951. 

(2) The article consistently mis-spells Erich Pommer as ‘Eric Palmer.’  Pommer was the producer of Lucille Ball’s 1940 film Dance, Girl, Dance at RKO. 

(3) Lucy and Desi’s marriage lasted twenty years, from 1940 to 1960, although Lucille divorced Desi in the mid-1940s, Lucy never signed the paperwork. After their second divorce was final, Lucy revealed that Desi was unfaithful and a drinker, and that they were no longer compatible. Lucy charged “mental cruelty” and told the court of Desi’s temper tantrums. Some years later, she described the reason for the split as “the same old booze and broads.”

Both Ball and Arnaz remarried, although they stayed friends and later admitted that they had always loved one another. 

(4) Lucy and Desi married in Connecticut due to its shorter waiting period on licenses and blood tests. The Byram River Beagle Club in Greenwich was originally a Hunt and Kennel Club that became a speakeasy during Prohibition and after that a supper club. It was a favorite hangout of baseball great Babe Ruth. A single-family home now stands on the property.  In April 1952, “I Love Lucy” aired an episode called “The Marriage License” (ILL S1;E26) that was largely set in Greenwich and mentioned The Byram River Beagle Club, although no scenes were set there because Lucy purposely left Ricky’s wallet at home and they ran out of gas! 

(5) In “The Marriage License” Ricky also had trouble pronouncing the name. On “I Love Lucy” making fun of Ricky’s English was a usual source of comedy – mostly by Lucy – just as it appears to be here – in 1950.  

(6) Thomas Franklyn Manville, Jr., known as Tommy Manville (1894-1967), was a Manhattan socialite and heir to the Johns-Manville asbestos fortune. He was a celebrity in the mid-20th Century due to both his inherited wealth and his record-breaking 13 marriages to 11 women, which won him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. At the time of this interview, however, Manville was only on his 6th wife!  The termination of his marriages usually resulted in gossip, widespread publicity, and huge cash settlements.

At the time of his death it was estimated that Manville spent more than $1.25 million on divorce settlements.

(7) This exchange (with slight variation) was later worked into “I Love Lucy”! 

(8) At the start of her career – and apparently well into 1950 – Lucille Ball purported to have been born in Butte, Montana, despite her actual birthplace being Jamestown, in upstate New York.  Ball (who then went by the name Diane Belmont) thought it sounded more interesting and exotic.  

(9) Despite the alliterative title, “Blazing Beulah from Butte” was never made, perhaps because shortly afterwards Ball admitted her true birthplace. “Blazing Beulah from Jamestown” doesn’t have quite the same ring. It’s also likely that this was a clever bon mot on Desi’s part to create a more colorful interview. 

(10) Comic actor and director Harold Lloyd had put Lucille under contract for his film A Girl, A Guy, and A Gob, to be filmed in 1940. There was some speculation that marrying Arnaz would interfere with the shooting schedule. 

TRIVIA

While Lucy and Desi were at the Roxy, the theatre was also showing Night and the City, which had premiered there on June 5, 1950. At this time it was common for a larger entertainment venues like the Roxy to present both a stage show and a first run film. Night and the City starred Richard Widmark, who Lucy and Desi later convinced to guest-star on “I Love Lucy” in “The Tour” (ILL S4;E30) in May 1955. 

In “Return Home From Europe” (ILL S5;E26), Ricky gets a long-distance telephone call from the manager of the Roxy, Mr. Rothafel, offering him a job, if he can get back to New York immediately. In reality, Rothafel was the name of the founder of the Roxy, Mr. Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel. Rothafel died in early 1936, however, so this was probably Desi’s way of honoring him. 

Earl Wilson was mentioned on “I Love Lucy” in “The Fox Hunt” (ILL  S5;E16). While trying to wangle an invitation to Sir Clive’s country manor,

Lucy makes up a story about the Mertzes meeting an Earl in the hotel lobby. When Sir Clive rattles off the names of some Earls to jog her memory, she fibs that he was just promoted from Assistant Earl, the Earl of Wilson, who canceled because he’s got the gout! Lucy’s imaginary Earl is actually a reference to Earl Wilson (1907-87), a journalist and television panelist of the time. His nationally syndicated column frequently mentioned Lucy and Desi. 

In 1974, Lucy strikes a pose for Wilson during her promotional tour for Mame.