LUCY LOCO? DIZZY DESI?

July 1, 1946

On the first of July 1946, Dorothy Kilgallen reported that Lucille Ball was considering an offer by Broadway producer Jed Harris to come to New York in the fall and star in the play Loco written by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Lucille Ball appealed to MGM where she was under contract, to allow her to go East to do the play.  The lured of Broadway was strong for Ball, who had been fired by Flo Ziegfeld from Rio Rita early in her career.  Her Broadway-bound play Hey Diddle Diddle was cancelled out-of-town when her leading man got seriously ill.  She would have some minor success with a tour of Dream Girl in 1947.  Broadway would have to wait until 1960 when she appeared in the new musical Wildcat.  

August 2, 1946 ~ Lucy was out.  MGM could not spare her for the length of a Broadway contract – which could last up to six months, if the show were a hit.  It is probably no coincidence that by fall Lucille Ball was filming Lured, not for MGM, but United Artists, and followed it up with a role at Columbia Pictures in Her Husband’s Affairs.   

August 22, 1946 ~ Candy Jones was reading for the role denied Lucille Ball.  Jones had just completed back-to-back runs in the musicals Mexican Hayride and Polonaise. 

August 27, 1946 ~ Hedda Hopper reported that Jean Parker was offered Loco.  Candy didn’t have enough clout for Harris.  Like Lucy, Parker had been under contract to MGM and was an up-and-coming film star.  Also like Lucy (at least in the 1940s), she was from Butte, Montana!  They were both in the 1936 film The Farmer in the Dell. 

September 11, 1946 ~ The play goes into rehearsal for an October 16, 1946 opening night.  Jed Harris acted as producer and director.  Parker’s co-star Jay Fassett was making his penultimate Broadway appearance, after nearly thirty productions.  In the cast is a young actress named Elaine Stritch, who would go on to great success on Broadway.  

The play was a critical and public failure, running 37 performances. Lucy had made the right decision.   

November 25, 1946 ~ After Burlesque, Parker stayed East to understudy and replace Jan Sterling (who had replaced Judy Holliday) in Born Yesterday. 

Meanwhile, at around the same time, Ball’s husband Desi Arnaz was also being tempted East for work on the Great White Way.  He starred on Broadway in Too Many Girls. Making the film version is what brought him to Hollywood… and Lucy.  He never went back.  

Apparently Durocher was not amenable to the writers using his name, so they switched the action (baseball!) to Mexico in order to star Cuban Desi Arnaz.  While this certainly could be true, it is even more likely to be a clever way to transition to an item about Lucille Ball.  It may also be Kilgallen’s way of telling readers that Durocher had effectively killed the project and pointing up the absurdity of doing it without him.  

April 7, 1946 ~ “The Filly From Flatbush” by John Cecil Holm and Charles K. Peck was being shopped around to Broadway producers.  

April 14, 1946 ~ There was no further mention of re-setting the action to Mexico and starring Desi.  Perhaps Arnaz had indicated that he wasn’t interested, so they idea was never pursued. Or, more likely, it was never true. 

October 2, 1946 ~ Coincidentally, this item was around the time of the World Series games – a natural tie-in.  

June 12, 1948 ~ Two years later, the authors were still trying to get the show produced.  The new angle was to offer the lead to Leo Durocher’s actress wife, Laraine Day.  

August 21, 1950 ~ Hollywood finally gets involved!  With no prospects of Broadway for “Filly”, Tineseltown seemed the next logical place to shop the property.  This item from Erskine Johnson’s column confirms that it was the Dodgers who stalled production by asking for six digit payoff for use of their name. Five years later, the Yankees were not so costly, and the authors of a different baseball musical created an unqualified hit that would also be a home run in Hollywood – Damn Yankees!