HELLO BROADWAY – GOODBYE, TV! / DESILU REVUE

December 20, 1959

[On December 20, 1959, many US newspapers carried stories about Lucille Ball’s plans to do Broadway, as well as her upcoming “Desilu Revue” and the end of the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”. Italics indicate quotes from Lucille Ball. The indented text and footnotes offers historical context on the articles, which are otherwise reproduced verbatim.]

Lucille Ball is giving up TV for Broadway. But this doesn’t mean she’s either splitting up with her husband or has decided to ‘take things easy.’ She and Desi Arnaz have big things planned for the future. Christmas Day she’ll show off 16 young actors whom she has ‘mothered’ through the tough part of their show business career. In mid-January she’ll do her last ‘Lucy’ show. Then she’ll turn her mind to Broadway. ~ By BetteLou Peterson 

About the middle of January an era will come to an end. Lucy Ricardo, the TV character, will roll her eyes, wave her arms and confuse her patient, long suffering band-leading husband for the last time. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, with guest Ernie Kovacs, will film “The Redhead Meets the Mustache.” (1) January 15 (2) for April viewing. It will be the last original Lucy script. “For the first time in nine years,” said Lucille Ball from Hollywood, ‘I’ll be free of any TV commitments. Sad? Nope, not at all. ‘Lucy’ has had a good, long life. I’m ready to take the next step.“ 

The next step is a Broadway play. Long a rumor, Miss Ball says it is now definite that she will be in New York in September. The vehicle is still in doubt. A ‘dramedy’ (a new word for comedy-drama), "The Big Blonde,” (3) bad been announced but now, according to Miss Ball, Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen (4) have come up with an idea for a musical. She likes it, but doesn’t want to make a decision until she sees the book. 

“It’s not easy to pick a play,” said Miss Ball. “I’ve got to be very careful This Is something I’ve had in mind for years remember Broadway was my first goal, not the movies. The producers met my terms, and I’ve got to admit they weren’t very tough terms because I really wanted to do it. There comes a time you know when you have to quit, even a success. I hope my timing is right. I’m grateful to ‘Lucy.’ She made me a star. I don’t count the years in the movies. Oh sure, my name was above the title but I never felt like a star.“ 

With Lucy heading east with no plans for Desi in the venture, it looked to Hollywood gossips as though the Ball-Arnaz marriage might be on the rocks. To add fuel, stories spread that Desilu, their TV film producing firm, was on the selling block. "We’ve been through those divorce rumors before,” said Lucy sounding tired. “We’re used to it. I’m grateful that so far the children haven’t heard them. They’re still so young, they wouldn’t understand. It’s going to be rough when they’re older and more conscious of these things. (5) As for the offers to buy Desilu, we’ve had those ever since we started. You always get offers to buy a going concern. Most of the offers for things that aren’t for sale come from people who only want to make their own stock go up in value.” (6)

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

• (1) The show was eventually titled “Lucy and The Mustache” and was aired on April 1, 1960.  Fittingly, it was April Fool’s Day. 
• (2) This date seems to settle some disagreement about when this episode was actually filmed. Naturally, filming dates may have changed after publication.  
• (3) “Big Blonde” was the title of a 1929 Dorothy Parker semi-autobiographical short story.  It was dramatized for television in 1980 starring Sally Kellerman. 
• (4) Lucille Ball eventually starred in Wildcat, which was written by Cy Coleman (music) and Carolyn Leigh (lyrics) and opened on December 16, 1960.  Van Heusen and Cahn eventually wrote the title song for a 1962 Garsin Kanin play Come On Strong, which starred Lucille Ball’s friend Van Johnson and ran only 36 performances. 
• (5) Rumors of the end of the Arnaz-Ball marriage hovered over nearly everything written about them during this period. Despite Lucy’s assertion to the contrary whenever the subject was brought up, she filed for divorce just four months later. This was their second divorce decree, but this time it was finalized. 
• (6) Desilu Studios was eventually sold to Paramount / Gulf + Western in 1968. Ball continued production of “Here’s Lucy” under LBP (Lucille Ball Productions) renting space at Paramount, but retaining creative control of her series. 

IT TAKES 16 TO MAKES LUCILLE BALL’S DREAM TRUE

On Christmas Day, Lucille Ball is going to share a dream come true with you. On the “Desilu Playhouse Christmas Show” (CBS-TV, Friday, 9 p.m.) Lucille will show off 16 of the young people who make up the Desilu Workshop. These performers are the cream of thousands Lucy and her co-workers auditioned; part of the 22 people who have worked two years at the Desilu Workshop. Six of the original workshoppers have already left for other show business jobs as a result of their Desilu showcasing. 

In January of 1958 when Desilu bought the old RKO lot where she worked as a young movie starlet, Lucy found, still standing, the Studio Club, a theater where Lela Rogers (Ginger’s mother) had helped young actors and actresses learn their craft by giving plays and revues. Lucy reclaimed the building, repaired it, and, with husband Desi Arnaz’ blessing, launched the Desilu Workshop not school but a showcase where young professionals could learn by doing. The culmination of the project was the presentation on stage of the “Desilu Revue” last October. Planned for two week run, it played for month to critical and audience acclaim. The Revuers included Marilynn Lovell, a Detroit girl, with year of nightclub and TV work behind her. Currently, she is touring to plug a new record. Her husband, comedian Howie Storm, was also chosen for the workshop.

This week’s special holiday Desilu Playhouse offering. Friday at 9pm on Channel 10, has been in preparation for well over a year. “The Desilu Revue,” in which Lucille Ball will introduce 16 young, little-known singers, dancers and comedians, is the first dividend for TV viewers from a pet project Lucy conceived more than two years ago. 

All the participants are enrollees at the Desilu Workshop where, for more than a year now, they have been drawing weekly salaries of approximately $80-$85 just for learning their show-business crafts. 

“It’s not a school,” Miss Ball told us. “I just thought I’d like to give talented youngsters production people and writers as well as performers a place to work and to gain experience before live audiences and TV cameras. I remembered from my own starting days all the confusion and conflict.” 

“We furnished them with a place to study, a choreographer, a vocal coach and a pianist. And we put them under contract, because the kids needed to eat, too." 

Two things made the Workshop possible: the acquisition by Desilu, the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz production outfit, of the spacious RKO lot, where Lucy promptly commandeered an old store room for conversion into a 200-seat theater, and the switch from weekly CBS half-hour "I Love Lucy” escapades to monthly hour-long “Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show” episodes. 

“That gave me more time.” Lucy sighed, “but I’ve found myself much busier than ever before. Sometimes I felt sorry I ever got into it. Also, I’ve always preferred to leave responsibilities to others. Well, it’s been a lesson. Now I’m always conscious of others’ responsibilities." 

About two dozen ‘students’ were winnowed from some 2,000 applicants. "The first day,” Miss Ball recalled, “I auditioned 70 before I collapsed. They carried me out. After that I looked at no more than 10 or 12 a day.” 

She evolved plans for a revue, to be staged on the Desilu lot. “We considered all kinds of titles,” she laughed. “ ‘Something’s Happening,’ ‘Something Ought to Happen,’ ‘Take It Away,’ ‘Zoom,’ ‘Stardust.’” 

Another appropriate tag would have been "Lucy’s Folly.” Even with capacity audiences, she estimated, the show would have to lose at least $1000 a week. It finally opened October 6 as “The Desilu Revue” with Carole Cook, Georgine Darcy, Marilynn Lovell, Dick Kallman, Bob Osborne, Roger Perry, Howie Storm and others and was hailed as a ‘Desi-lulu.’ 

Encouraged by the response, Lucy and Desi filmed highlights of the show for use on TV. “My initial desire,” Lucy insisted, “was the best interests of ‘my kids.’ But eventually the Workshop may pay off for everybody. Not only in programs like this one, but by providing a talent pool for other Desilu productions.” 

At least one of those productions, “The Desilu Playhouse,” has run into a major setback, perhaps the first in the meteoric nine-year-old TV career of Mr. and Mrs. Arnaz. Effective next month, the weekly show, most lavish of Desilu’s numerous video offerings, will be cut back to alternate weeks, and it may vanish in June. (Even before the present season began, Lucy had forebodings about the CBS-dictated switch of the show from Mondays to Fridays. “It’s sure not to improve the ratings,” she predicted. “Putting us opposite ’77 Sunset Strip,’ something strong against something strong, was sort of a compliment I guess.”) (1)

There have been rumblings of Desilu discord, financial and marital, talk that Lucy and Desi may surrender their controlling interests in the company they founded, rumors that their 19-year marriage is on the verge of dissolution. Lucy-herself pooh-poohs the latter reports. (2)

However, a ‘trial separation’, at least as performers, is almost a certainty. Lucy and Desi have been making solo “Desilu Playhouse” appearances. Desi went abroad alone to shoot one upcoming drama, and Lucy is eyeing a “Perils of Pauline” type comedy. (3) Next season she hopes to take a year-long sabbatical from TV, to star in a Broadway play. “God willing,” she added hastily. “I’ve never made plans so far ahead. But it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and Desi’s all for shoving me from the nest." 

She has no particular yen to play a non-comic role, even though she concedes it would be ‘good showmanship’ and feels ‘straight’ acting is ‘easier.’ "I don’t care what I do,” she said, “just so the script is good.” She has her favorites among comedians: “Dean Martin breaks me up. I like Jan Murray, Jerry Lewis I liked him with Dean. I love to watch Ed Wynn, but more in dramatic things. Ann Sothern I really love! I enjoyed Dick Shawn at Las Vegas, but maybe from a craps table lots of things look good.” 

“I don’t dig the sick comedians, and I stay away from them. Mort Sahl? He’s not sick; he’s erudite. But I get terrified watching someone like Don Rickles, the way he perspires, as if he’s going to have a heart attack. One evening Desi and I were his target, but it went right over my head. It reminded me of certain members of the English press, their faces contorted while they’re asking ugly questions they’re forced to ask, doing something they don’t particularly enjoy.” (4)

She doesn’t keep tab on other TV comedians (“I’m not just a comedy fan”), but, for that matter, because of her crowded schedule she rarely gets to watch television at all. “I have to make an appointment to see a TV show,” she said. Daytime ‘Lucy’ reruns, she reported, are popular with two members of the Arnaz household Lucie Desiree, age eight, and Desiderio Arnaz IV, age six. 

“They used to say of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, ‘They’re on!’ but now they call out to me, ‘Hurry, you’re on!’.” 

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

• (1) “77 Sunset Strip” was an hour-long action crime drama that aired on ABC-TV from 1958 to 1964. It was nominated for Emmys in 1959 and 1960. 
• (2) 

  Rumors of the end of the Arnaz-Ball marriage hovered over nearly everything written about them during this period. Despite Lucy’s assertion to the contrary whenever the subject was brought up, she filed for divorce just four months later. This was their second divorce decree, but this time it was finalized.

• (3) The title of the project Desi Arnaz went abroad to film is not known, but it it was likely in his capacity as producer, not performer. The Perils of Pauline was a 1947 comedy film about silent film star Pearl White.  It was directed by George Marshall, who had also directed Lucille Ball in several films. It was based on a 1914 silent serial and early talkie in 1933. It was remade as a TV pilot in 1967 starring Pamela Dodge. When it went unsold, it was re-edited into a feature film. A Lucille Ball “Pauline” project (or anything similar) never materialized.  Instead, after Broadway, she returned to playing ‘Lucy’ for CBS. 
• (4) Despite her dislike of the insult comedy of Don Rickles, he guest-starred on a 1967 episode of “The Lucy Show” as a washed-up prize fighter named Eddie.  Perhaps due to Lucy’s opinion of his comedy, the episode seems to straight-jacket Rickles’ humor and is not as funny as it might have been had he played a character based on himself. 

A pretty Allentonian plays a leading role in "The Desilu Revue,” musical variety show produced at Lucille Ball’s Desilu Workshop Theatre in Hollywood, which will be the special Christmas presentation on television’s “Desilu Playhouse,” Friday night. 

She is Shirley Mellner, whose father, Harry Mellner, resides at 437 Linden St., Allentown. 

Viewers won’t see or hear Miss Mellner on the forthcoming video production, but in her job as production assistant to Miss Ball, she takes an important part in the big holiday show. According to a spokesman for Desilu Productions Inc. in Hollywood, Miss Mellner is a “one-woman clearing house for the workshop." 

Active in CLT 

The native Allentonian, who was active in Allentown’s Civic Little Theatre and Bethlehem’s Drawing Room Theatre, handles all assignments involving the workshop’s 20 young actresses and actors. 

The workshop, itself, is the dream child of Lucille Ball. The famous comedienne organized the workshop theatre to utilize the promising young talent of the many television productions which come out of the Desilu Studios.

Today the workshop is the largest talent program of its kind in Hollywood, with its various members achieving success in filmed television, motion pictures and other entertainment media. It is unique in that all workshop actors and actresses are permitted to accept outside assignments. Here, again, is where Miss Mellner enters the scene. Her desk is the clearing house for these outside assignments to other TV shows and various legitimate theatrical activities. 

Coordinates Program 

Miss Mellner also coordinates all the activities of the workshop, itself, such as placing people on call, dealing with their agents, keeping their biographies up-to-date, handling the business operation and keeping tab on costs involved in the workshop. 

Miss Mellner has been associated with various phases of the theatrical world since her graduation from Allentown High School and Moravian College. One of the localite’s first top jobs was as assistant to the producer on the "Toast of the Town” TV series, which is now “The Ed Sullivan Show." 

She also was assistant producer of the "Actor’s Studio” television series during the time when such famous names as James Dean, Richard Boone, Eva Marie Saint, Grace Kelly, Ben Gazarra and Paul Newman were there. 

Worked with Manulis 

Miss Mellner assisted Martin Manulis on the first CBS color dramatic series, “Best of Broadway.” She also wrote and appeared on a nightly show with Jack Lescoulie on CBS in New York, and then worked on the “Foreign Intrigue” film series in Stockholm, Sweden. 

She was associate producer on NBC’s “Ernie Kovacs” shows, working on the famous ‘no dialogue’ production, which later won the Sylvania award and the Brussels Festival award for comedy. She served as assistant producer on the “You Are There” and the “Danger” television series at CBS, as well as the network’s “Ken Murray Show." 

In her position with the Desilu Workshop Theatre, Miss Mellner has been working very closely with Miss Ball in planning for Friday night’s show. The star is personally producing the presentation, as well as appearing in the top comedy role, along with her husband, Desi Arnaz, and Vivian Vance and William Frawley of "I Love Lucy” fame. The young actors and actresses of the workshop are featured in the revue. 

In addition, there will be guest appearances by such personalities as Ann Sothern, Spring Byington, Rory Calhoun and his wife, Lita Baron, John Brom-field, Hugh O’Brian, William Demarest, columnist Hedda Hopper and canine star, Lassie.

Shirley Mellner eventually became a producer helming 1963′s ‘Love is A Ball,’ which, despite its title, had nothing to do with Lucille Ball! 

The comparison to Chaplin was not lost on Miss Ball, who did her Charlie Chaplin impersonation on a 1962 New Year’s Eve episode of “The Lucy Show” and then again on the same series in 1966 with Mickey Rooney. 

This is the last of five dispatches on television’s top female personalities. By Rick Du Brow, Hollywood (UPI)

The story is making the rounds here about the catty actress who remarked at a dinner party: “Isn’t it too bad that Lucille Ball isn’t on television much any more?" 

"Yeah,” came the squelch, “I guess she’s satisfied with just owning it." 

And that just about sums up Lucy’s status in TV these days. "I Love Lucy,” probably the most successful show in TV history, could have gone on as long as Lucy and her husband, Desi Arnaz, wanted it to. But they prefer to make only occasional appearances on their “Westinghouse-Desilu Playhouse”, for instance and devote themselves mainly to running Desilu Inc. 

Desilu is larger than any movie studio ever was. It has 35 sound stages and is the world’s largest producer of filmed TV. “I’m not going to work forever,” said Lucy. “I want to stay home and take care of my two children (Lucie, seven, and little Desi, six). 

All For The Kids 

"Our whole producing program is on a 20-year plan. It’s all for our kids. The company is in their name.” 

For the pop-eyed comedienne, who was born in Butte, Mont., and brought up in Jamestown, N.Y., (1) Desilu is the epitome of a fantastic career that looked at first as if it would go nowhere. 

Her first four Broadway jobs, as a chorus girl, ended in four prompt dismissals. Then, just as she was gaining recognition as a Hattie Carnegie model in 1927, she nearly lost her life in an automobile accident and was told she would never walk again. “My car skidded on a turn in Central Park one afternoon and I came to in Bellevue Hospital,” she recalled. “They told me I had been thrown clear, landed in a snow bank and lay there until a policeman found me.”

"They kept me in bed for eight months. Then I had a wheelchair for three years. When they let me up I carried weights on my legs. Then I walked on crutches with weighted shoes. Finally, I was able to get around on a cane.” 

"I never believed the doctors for one moment, because I knew deep down in me that I would walk if I kept on trying.” 

Still In There 

Five years after the crack-up, she went back to work for Miss Carnegie. Hollywood scouts spotted her in magazine and billboard cigarette advertisements and brought her here for a show-girl role in Eddie Cantor’s “Roman Scandals." 

After the usual bit parts, she impressed filmland in "Roberta” and went on to mane a series of smash movies, including “Stage Door,” “Too Many Girls,” “The Big Street,” “DuBarry Was A Lady,” “Best Foot Forward’ and "Meet the People." 

It was while making "Too Many Girls” that she met Desi, her co-star. In 1940, they were married, and she became Mrs. Desiderio Alberto Arnaz de Acha III. 

These days, Lucy divides her time between the children and directing Desilu’s wardrobe, commissary and workshop for young acting hopefuls. She is vice president of Desilu, and she leaves most of the business details to Desi, the president. 

“Most of my life has been an obstacle race,” said Lucy, “but I’m still in there running." 

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

• (1) As late as 1959, the press are still saying that Lucille Ball was born in Butte, Montana. She was born in Jamestown, New York, although she briefly lived in Montana while her father worked as a telephone lineman. 

Sixteen miracles will come to pass in this town of wonders on Christmas Day when the electronic fairyland of television will show the old tale with a new pleat: Lucille Ball’s “Desilu Revue”. 

No network television show has offered a planned production of this type before. Hollywood is tiered with dancers, singers and actors who are long on talent but short on credits. 

The 16 who will flash across TV’s threshold on Christmas Day must have been tagged "miracle” somewhere along the line. Just one Christmas ago they languished in the cellar of show business anonymity. This Christmas, they will be headliners on a network show. 

They are a fair cross-section of American youth’s bid for theatrical prominence. 

• Majel Barrett of Cleveland studied law for a year but finally succumbed to the lure of the stage. 
• Carole Cook of Abilene, Tex;, was signed out of the Versailles Club, New York, by Lucy. 
• Dick Kallman of Dixville Notch, N.H., was once Sophie Tucker’s protégé.
• Marilynn Lovell of Detroit toured the obstacle course of night clubs and local TV before joining the Revue. 
• Bob Osborne of Colfax, Wash., played in 24 resident theaters before arriving in Hollywood. 
• Roger Perry of Davenport, Iowa, was discovered by Lucy in a Hollywood drama class. 
• Howie Storm of New York City is a graduate of the Borscht Circuit of the Catskill Mts.  

The stories won’t quit. It is Christmas, Cinderella and Horatio Alger rolled into one for 16 miracles Dec. 25.