LUCY LOVES EASTER HATS

March 26, 1961

On March 26, 1961, Lucille Ball appeared on the cover of Family Weekly, a Sunday supplement to newspapers. The inside article by Margaret Bell was titled “Lucy Loves Easter Hats” and featured Lucy and her daughter, Lucie Arnaz, trying on various Easter hats.

The article not only references Lucille’s current film The Facts of Life, but her stint on Broadway in Wildcat. At the time of publication, she had left the show for a rest in Florida, after suffering from exhaustion.  Plans were for her to return,  but the show proved to tiring for the television star and closed early.

The holiday Easter was not often mentioned on television. Unlike Christmas, its religious overtones were more solemn and personal. On “I Love Lucy” it was mentioned in the context of the Easter Parade, a promenade of men and women in their Easter finery, generally pre-ceding or following church services on Easter Sunday.

Prior to that, on Lucille Ball’s radio show “My Favorite Husband” an episode titled “Liz and Iris’s Easter” (March 25, 1951) concerned the need for new dresses.