PHIL ARNOLD

September 15, 1909

Philip Arnold was a prolific character actor born on September 15, 1909 in Hackensack, New Jersey. He appeared in approximately 200 films and television shows between 1938 and 1968 – in bit parts most of the time. 

Perhaps most famously, Arnold was a regular in the “Three Stooges” movies doing six films with them between 1947 and 1963. Lucille Ball also worked with the Stooges in a 1934 film, but later said “the only thing I learned from them is when to duck!”  

His third TV appearance was on “I Love Lucy,” but his first was a November 1951 episode of the crime series “Boston Blackie” followed by an appearance as the milkman on a 1952 episode of “Life With Elizabeth” in 1952. 

LUCY: “It looks like my hunk has shrunk!” 

Phil Arnold was first seen on “Lucy” as fur salon owner Mr. Henderson at the end of “Lucy Changes Her Mind” (ILL S2;E21). At first sight, Lucy thinks that he is her long-lost beau, Tom Henderson, but he turns out to be Tom’s brother, Harry. When Lucy discovers her error, she gives out her famous spider face: “Ewww!” 

MAN: “Oh, girls! I’m down in 914. If Eddie won’t let you in, I will!” 

In “Lucy is a Matchmaker” (ILL S2;E27), Arnold plays a man in a hotel corridor who encounters Lucy and Ethel banging on Eddie Grant’s door. The passing man pauses just long enough to invite them to HIS room, intimating that he thinks Lucy and Ethel might be ‘working girls’ or (at the very least) dangling the idea of a menage au trois!  This was quite a risque gag in a show that already featured marital infidelity as its core plot. 

Both “Lucy” episodes were directed by William Asher, who no doubt also had something to do with Arnold being cast in another series he directed, “Make Room for Daddy” (aka “The Danny Thomas Show”). He made four appearances on the series (all as different characters) from 1953 to 1964 – from the first season to the last. Asher cast Arnold again on a 1965 episode of “Bewitched”. In 1967, Arnold appeared as Smokey Bear on an episode of “The New Danny Thomas Show” which also featured his “Three Stooges” colleague Joe Besser. 

In November 1959, Arnold was once again employed by Desilu for an episode of “The Ann Sothern Show” with Executive Producer Desi Arnaz. A month earlier, Lucille Ball played Lucy Ricardo on the series’ season two premiere.  

In 1962, he did an episode of “Pete and Gladys”, a sequel to Desilu’s popular sitcom “December Bride”.  It was written by “I Love Lucy” alumni Schiller and Weiskopf and directed  by “Lucy’s” James V. Kern. Frequent “Lucy” background player Alberto Morin was also in the cast. 

Also that year, Arnold did the first of his two appearances on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, also filmed on the Desilu lot. The second episode aired in 1963, the same year that…

…Arnold was seen as a Deputy Sheriff in “The Real McCoys” with Richard Crenna, Charles Lane, and J. Pat O’Malley. The series was filmed at Desilu Studios and moved from ABC to CBS for its final season. 

In 1965, he did a guest appearance on the short-lived series “My Living Doll” starring Julie Newmar and filmed at Desilu Studios. 

The last time Phil Arnold and Lucille Ball appeared on the same program (but not in the same scene) was the 1966 Bob Hope special “15 of My Leading Ladies" or “Richard Burton Eat Your Heart Out”.  Arnold plays a newsstand owner in a scene with Swedish film star Signe Hasso. 

Ball turns up later as herself in a subsequent sketch about being cast in Hope’s re-make of Gone With The Wind. 

Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) made a cameo appearances on “The Lucy Show” (TLS S5;E9) in which Lucy Carmichael is drafted!

A year later, Arnold once again played a news agent, back on the Desilu lot for the first of his three appearances on “Gomer Pyle USMC.”   

Nabors also played Gomer Pyle on the only episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” featuring Phil Arnold in 1963. The show was filmed on the Desilu backlot. 

Phil Arnold died in May 1968 of a heart attack, age 58. His final two films, The Shakiest Gun in the West starring Don Knotts and Skidoo starring Jackie Gleason, were both released posthumously.