LUCY & DESI / BILL & VIV

February 27, 1955

I was having dinner with William Frawley at Chasen’s restaurant in Hollywood not long ago when a bunch of enthusiastic tourists from Texas swarmed around us. They were holding out their menus for Frawley to autograph and all yelling at once about how they thought he was just divine as Desi Arnaz’ pal Fred Mertz, in the “I Love Lucy” television show. 

One of the gang lingered after the others had drifted back to the bar. He contemplated Frawley for a few awkward seconds and then blurted out: 

“Say fella, how’d you go about getting a job like you’ve got in this town? Me and the wife are thinking of settling down out here and it would sure be fun to get on TV so the folks back home could see us. It’d sure give them something to talk about." 

"You an actor?” asked Frawley. 

“No,” the Texan answered. 

“Do you gotta be an actor to get on a television show?" 

"It helps,” said Bill. “It sure helps." 

"Gee, I didn’t know you were an actor,” replied the puzzled gent from the great open spaces. “I thought you were just yourself. How long you been studying acting?" 

"Plenty of years, man, plenty of years,” said Bill. The Texan shook his head and walked away. 

“That’s what’s so fascinating about television,” Bill said. “The people think you’re just one of them coming into their living rooms to visit with them. They go to a movie theatre or to a stage show and they expect to see actors, but not on television." 

"Give our love to your wife,” called the Texans as they left. “We think she’s wonderful, too." 

"They believe Vivian Vance who plays Ethel Mertz is my wife and it wouldn’t do any good to disillusion them. They’d never believe me anyway,” Bill said as he Waved, good-by. 

Lucille Ball shouted with glee when I told her about the scene at Chasen’s. “That’s why we picked Bill Frawley and Vivian Vance,” she said. “They look and act like people you’d meet every day.”

Vivian says it is sometimes very embarrassing when she’s out with her husband, actor Phil Ober, and she meets up with farts who think she’s married to Frawley.

“The women give me suspicious looks as if they’ve caught me stepping out,” Vivian laughed. 

“I can’t always stop and tell them that Phil is my real husband.” 

Frawley isn’t married. He lives with his sister in an old-fashioned comfortable house in the middle of Hollywood. 

Vivian Vance had just about given up all thought of ever working again at her acting profession when Mel Ferrer ferreted her out of hiding on an Arizona ranch. He persuaded her to play the role of Olive Lashbrooke, the old meanie, in “Voice of the Turtle.” She’d done the part and Ferrer remembered her.

“I was terrified at the thought of walking out on a stage again,” says Vivian. “I thought I had given the whole thing up after a nervous breakdown.” 

And that’s how she happened to be chosen by Lucy and Desi to be their Ethel Mertz. They saw her at Ferrer’s little theatre in La Jolla and Lucy said, “There’s our Ethel.” 

Vivian was born in Kansas and in her early teens got the bug to go on the stage, although she was the only member of her family who thought well of the idea. She studied dramatics and when she landed in Albuquerque, N.M., she was ready to show off her talents. The townsfolk were so impressed with Vivian’s ability as an actress they financed her journey to New York. She finally won the chance to audition for a job in the chorus in “Music in the Air.” She had a strong voice and she used it in night club work after the show shut up for the night. 

“I just kept working at everything in every spot I could find,” Vivian recalled. “I got plenty of experience and you know it all comes in handy now. It seems there isn’t much I can’t do when it comes to working out routines on this TV show. There’s nothing like a lot of experience when the big break comes." 

Frawley was born in Burlington, Iowa, a small railroad town, and his mother was very, happy when he learned enough shorthand and bookkeeping to land a job as a railroad clerk in Omaha. But Bill didn’t see eye to eye with her. He wanted to go on the stage and he kept flirting with theatrical work until he managed to get his toes in far enough to earn a fair living. He played the Pacific Coast vaudeville circuit for four years and then landed in the movies. 

Bill quit films for the legitimate stage, finally getting his big role in "Twentieth Century." 

It looks as if this competent pair of character actors is going to be busy for years to come with the "I Love Lucy” show. 

“And we love it,” chorused Bill and Vivian as I left them getting ready for a strenuous rehearsal. 

“How about that pair of cuties!” yelled Lucy. “We sure couldn’t put on this show without them.”