NEVER HAPPENED!

Lucille Ball projects announced on January 17, 1962 & 1974 that never came to pass!

Sheila Graham reported that Desi Arnaz had an idea for a film starring Ann Sothern and Lucille Ball. The two were friends and co-stars from their movie-making days and Desilu produced Sothern’s second TV series, “The Ann Sothern Show.”  Sothern was featured on the very first episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”

” “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana” (1957) as her first TV character, private secretary Susie MacNamara.

Although the film collaboration never came to pass, Ball did invite Sothern to become a cast member of “The Lucy Show” in 1965, after Vivian Vance decided to leave the show. 

Speaking of Vivian Vance, Graham reports that Vance has relocated to Stamford, Connecticut, to live with her husband John Dodd. Despite the distance to Hollywood, Vance was lured back to Desilu a few months after this article was printed in order to once again play second fiddle to Lucille Ball on her new TV series, “The Lucy Show.”  She stayed with the show for three seasons and then made guest appearances. 

On January 17, 1974, UPI’s Vernon Scott announced that Lucille Ball’s no-holds-barred publicity tour for her Warner Brothers film Mame had been cancelled. The reason was the nation’s energy crisis. The resources needed for such a tour would have been an extravagance when the nation was conserving energy.  The primary excess came from the specially outfitted 727B jet that was to be redesigned especially for Lucy. Despite this announcement, Lucille Ball and Warner Brothers did come to an agreement to do a smaller scale national publicity tour with Ball flying commercial and doing only larger cities. Alt

Also on January 17, 1974, columnist Shirley Eder reported a banner year for the Arnaz / Morton family.  Although some of what Eder reports did indeed happen, the big news that Desi Sr. would be returning to work for Lew Wasserman of Universal never came to pass. Desi did no acting or creative work behind the camera after 1968, although the idea of him playing a Cuban bartender who inherits a major corporation sounds intriguing.  He did indeed pen his autobiography. “A Book” by Desi Arnaz was released in 1976.  Lucille Ball’s autobiography “Love Lucy” was released in 1996, after her death in 1989.