PERSONAL APPEARANCE

June 14, 1945

Personal Appearance (1934) is a stage comedy by playwright and screenwriter Lawrence Riley (1896–1974), which was a Broadway smash and the basis for the classic Mae West film Go West, Young Man (1936).  Personal Appearance opened in 1934 at New York’s Henry Miller Theatre starring the famed stage and screen actress Gladys George (now remembered especially for her role as Miles Archer’s spouse in the film The Maltese Falcon). Her comic performance contributed to making Personal Appearance a Broadway hit that lasted for 501 performances. It launched Riley’s career as a playwright and remains his most famous play.  The original Broadway cast featured Philip Ober, who later appeared on “I Love Lucy” and was married to Vivian Vance. 

Why would Lucy travel across the country to do a play in summer stock?  Theatre had always proved elusive to Lucille Ball.  She was fired from the road company of Rio Rita by Florenz Ziegfeld. Her 1937 Broadway-bound comedy Hey Diddle Diddle was canceled on the road when the leading man got ill. She did a few plays at the RKO Little Theatre under the direction of Lela Rogers, but the audience was limited. Until 1960, her only moderate success on stage was in a tour of Edgar Rice’s Dream Girl in 1947.  When she finally got to Broadway in 1960 with the musical Wildcat, the rigorous eight-performance week was nearly her undoing, damaging her physical health for years to come and forcing the premature closing of a sold-out show. 

She had just finished Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, and had a short break before beginning filming of Two Smart People and The Dark Corner in September 1945. However, for reasons unknown, Lucille Ball never went to Stamford to do stock.

Instead, Stamford produced a very different play with a very different star: Clare Booth (Luce) in George Bernard Shaw’s Candida. Naturally, Hedda Hopper reported on it, too, (without mentioning Lucy). 

At the time, Luce was also serving in the US House of Representatives for Connecticut’s Fourth District, which included Stamford.  A theatre critic begged her to stay out of acting and stick to politics!  As an author, Luce (married to publisher Henry Luce) was best known for her play (and film) The Women in 1936.  The controversy of having a sitting Member of the House in summer stock boosted ticket sales and forced an extension through August. 

When Personal Appearance was filmed in 1938, it featured a familiar face to Lucy lovers, Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumbull), as well as a name that was frequently mentioned, Xavier Cugat playing a bandleader. Background player Dick Elliott was also in the film as a reporter. On “I Love Lucy,” he played the paunchy tourist from Kansas on top of the Empire State Building. 

Lawrence Riley penned a follow-up to Personal Appearances titled Return Engagement in 1940. It lasted only a week on Broadway. 

In 1963′s “Lucy Becomes a Reporter” (TLS S1;E17)  Lucy is anxious to write the Danfield Tribune’s society column. 

Lucy says that she was called ‘Clare Boothe Lucy’ in high school. Coincidentally, the episode also mentions Hedda Hopper! 

Luce was also the author of the 1938 play Kiss The Boys Goodbye, which starred Vivian Vance in its Chicago production. On Broadway it featured Vance’s third husband, Phil Ober. The 1941 film version also featured featured Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumbull).  Also in the film were “Lucy” players Sam McDaniel, Jerome Cowan, James Conaty, and Paul McVey. The storyline of the play / film was inspired by the search for Scarlett O’Hara. Lucille Ball was one of the many actors who was considered for the role.  

As for Personal Appearance, it, too, found its way to Hollywood, but was re-titeld and re-cast.  Mae West took the role originated on stage by Gladys George (and that Lucy would have played in Stamford), and sported a new title Go West Young Man. Directed by Henry Hathaway for Paramount, it also featured Elizabeth Patterson (aka Mrs. Trumbull), who specialized in maiden aunts, and also starred Lyle Talbot, who would years later do a couple of episodes of “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.”  

Although Lucille Ball never played the lead in Personal Appearance, she did get to play Mae West in a 1977 episode of “Donny & Marie” (with Paul Williams as W.C. Fields).