THEY STILL LOVE LUCY

May 23, 1977

[The article below is reprinted verbatim. Photos and Footnotes have been added for editorial enhancement.]

There has already been some moaning at the bar that when Dinah Shore’s blithe talk show moves to Channel 5 in July, it will be on 3:30 in the afternoon instead of 6:30 p.m. I have letters from viewers who lament “Now we’ll never see it.” I’m with them. It was nicely placed in the wake oi Cronkite, some easy chatter and gossip after the somber events of the day, like turning from the front page to the feature section of a newspaper. Moreover, Dinah does her interviewing very well, much less obtrusively than the assorted Mikes and Mervs of TV. She actually makes you believe she’s more interested in the answer than the question.

Sometimes the answers are hard to come by. The other evening Lucille Ball was much more interested in clowning than answering serious questions about her comedy. Flanked by Jim Coburn and James Garner, Lucy was much more intent on giving a performance and it was great fun. Anyway, Lucy saves her serious answers about comedy these days for the seminar she’s conducting at a professional school in Hollywood. 

I asked the great redhead the other day what she told her students “Whatever they ask me,” she said. “I just answer questions. If they’re not interested enough to ask questions, the hell with ‘em.” That’s basic to Lucille Ball. In her philosophy, you push forward, you ask, you try things. She used to tell her daughter Lucie: “Don’t turn things down. No matter how lowly it seems at the time, you’ll find you learn from everything you do it’s worth it." 

Years ago, Eddie Cantor told me that during the filming of Roman Scandals with the Goldwyn Girls, director Busby Berkeley worked out a sight gag wherein someone threw a glob of mud at Eddie who bent over at that moment and the mud sailed over him and caught some beautiful girl square in her pretty face. He asked for volunteers among the girls. All of them shrank back except one a redhead who stepped forward. "I knew,” said Eddie, “that she was the one who would make it. Lucy Ball." 

Too Much Lucy? 

In case you are one of those who will miss Dinah! because you don’t watch daytime TV, you may be unaware that Lucille Ball’s fourth and last Lucy series. Here’s Lucy, is now rerunning on CBS every morning at 9 on Channel 2. This is the six-year series in which her children grew up Lucie and Desi Arnaz Jr. with Gale Gordon as Uncle Harry. 

There are six years of those shows and even spun off daily they should be around quite awhile. Not surprisingly, they’re on opposite I Love Lucy which Channel 11 shows in the mornings at 9. Lucy shrugs at the schedule. At one time, there were Lucy shows on various channels seven times during a day "That bothered me,” she said. “Every time you turned on the tap. you got me. There can be too much of anything." 

To an historian of this windblown diversion, it’s interesting two versions of the same basic Lucy character 20 years or so apart, still equally delighting audiences. Lucy, the character, must be the most durable creation of the television age, unsinkable, unstoppable, largely changeless. I have had the feeling at times that Lucille Ball feels Lucy rides her instead of vice versa. When she was doing Wildcat on Broadway, she said: "I thought they wanted something different, but they don’t So in the show, I’m doing Lucy." 

The other day the comedienne said: "I’m having a recurrence of that In the last couple of years, I’ve been doing specials that were different kinds of comedy dramas than the Lucy shows. I did a couple with Carney, I did that show with Gleason trying to play my age, trying to do something they would believe and buy. Well, they didn’t buy it not really. What the people seemed to want was Lucy again. Now I’m faced with doing two more specials for next season, and I thought: ‘Oh. God, not that again.’ Then I decided the hell with anything different I’ll do a Lucy show." 

Old Friends on Hand 

She’ll be back in her own arena the three-camera TV technique created for her by Desi Arnaz; Madelyn Davis and Bob Carroll Jr., who wrote most of the Lucy shows over a quarter century, are doing the script; Gale Gordon will be on hand and perhaps Mary Wickes and Mary Jane Croft but not the kids: Desi is making a Robert Altman movie in Chicago; Lucie is on the summer musical circuit. The topper the show will be directed by Marc Daniels, who directed the first season ever of I Love Lucy. They’ll film it in August for a probable November showing. (1)

There are other roles Lucille Ball itches to play a legless legend of a woman who has been a patron saint of the ghetto kids of Baltimore, for one. (2) She turns down constant requests to direct. (3) She likes teaching, working with kids. There’s very little comedy on television she can watch. "I keep seeing rip-offs of my writers. They’re doing our old scripts. Laverne & Shirley they’re doing the shows Vivian Vance and I did years ago.” (4)

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Cecil Smith (author) began his Times career as a reporter and feature writer in 1947 and became an entertainment writer in 1953. He was the entertainment editor and a drama critic in the 1960s, and in 1969 he became the paper’s television critic and a columnist for The Times’ syndicate.  Smith served as a captain in the Army Air Forces during World War II and as a pilot flew a B-24 Liberator in the South Pacific. After the war, he wrote radio plays and television scripts before getting involved in journalism.  He was related to Lucille Ball by marriage. Cecil’s wife Cleo was Lucille’s first cousin.  He had a cameo (with other journalists) in “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (HL S3;E1) in 1970.  He died in 2009. 

FOOTNOTES from the Future

(1) “Lucy Calls the President” aired November 21, 1977 featuring Gale Gordon, Mary WIckes, Mary Jane Croft, and although she is not mentioned in the article due to her health issues, Vivian Vance.  Desi Jr. was filming A Wedding, and Lucie was appearing as the lead in Annie Get Your Gun. 

(2) This refers to ‘Aunt’ Mary Dobkin, a little league baseball coach and children’s welfare advocate.  The role eventually went to Jean Stapleton and the film was aired on “The Hallmark Hall of Fame” in 1979.  

(3) In 1980, Lucille Ball signed with NBC, and finally gave in.  She directed a pilot for a half-hour sitcom called “Bungle Abbey,” starring Gale Gordon.  The pilot was not picked up and that was her only solo directing credit, although she had co-directed a few episodes of her series.  Many directors would say that despite who got the credit, Lucy was also directing!  In fact, that was nothing new.  

Exactly 40 years earlier, to the day, the above item appeared in Erskine Johnson’s “Behind The Make-Up” syndicated column!  

(4) It was not secret that “Laverne and Shirley” was heavily influenced by the antics of Lucy and Ethel. The show’s creator Garry Marshall was one of Lucille Ball’s writers at one time, and readily admitted how much he admired her.