LUCY THE FIRECRACKER!

July 1, 1962

To most people July 4 means a big celebration with family picnics and plenty of fireworks. Channel 8 celebrates two days early by welcoming a redheaded firecracker named Lucille Ball to its summer schedule. 

Lucy, along with the guest stars pictured with her on the cover, (1) will be featured in a weekly series of hour long “Lucy-Desi Specials”, starting Monday at 9 p.m. 

It’s hard to believe that such a bundle of energy as Miss Ball was unable to walk for three years. Shortly after she had started modeling in New York, she contracted pneumonia with severe complications and, was bedridden for eight months. It took three years of convalescing before she regained complete control of her legs. (2)

Ironically, years later in 1941, Miss Ball got her first big Hollywood, break playing a showgirl who becomes paralyzed in "The Big Street.” Miss Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, on August 6, the daughter of a mining engineer father (3) and a concert pianist mother. She left home when she was fifteen and enrolled in The John Murray Anderson Dramatic School in New York. She was told she had no future in show business. 

IN ZIEGFELD SHOW 

Taking the challenge, Miss Ball went out on her own and landed a chorus job in the road company production of Ziegfeld’s "Rio Rita”. She was fired after five weeks. After working in a New York drugstore, she decided to try her luck in the modeling field. 

During this time she got pneumonia, and it was almost four years before she could start her modeling career again. Magazine and billboard advertisements attracted Eddie Cantor’s attention and he gave her her first Hollywood role in his “Roman Scandals”. (4) For a while she did bit

parts at Columbia and Paramount, and finally landed a contract at RKO and a substantial role in “Roberta”. 

Broadway, which had scorned Lucy, now took notice and gave her the lead in an unsuccessful musical, “Hey, Diddle, Diddle”.  When it folded, she returned to Hollywood to star in “Stage Door” and “Too Many Girls.” (5) It was during the filming of the latter she met and married a Latin band leader named Desi Arnaz. After a year of marriage to Arnaz, Lucy landed a part in "The Big Street.” She followed this with roles in "Easy to Wed”, “Du Barry Was A Lady”, “Best Foot Forward”, “Meet the People” and “Her Husband’s Affairs”. 

After Arnaz returned from the service at the end of World War II, he joined with Lucy to form Desilu Productions, Inc., which handled their joint business ventures. (6) With writers Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh Martin and Bob Carroll, Jr., they developed the format for the "I Love Lucy” show. 

The debut of the “I Love Lucy” television series was heralded by the birth of their daughter, Lucie Desiree. The couple’s second child, a son, Desi IV, was born while the series was at the top of TV polls. 

After completing the “I Love Lucy” series, Miss Ball and Arnaz made a limited number of hour-long specials – the ones Channel 8 viewers will see this summer. 

Although their marriage ended in 1960, the couple maintain a professional relationship. In October, 1960, Lucy opened in the hit Broadway show, “Wildcat”, and continued to receive rave notices until illness forced her out of the show. Now recovered, she plans to return full-time to television with the new “Lucille Ball Show”, slated for a fall premiere. (7)

Lucy lives with her second husband, comedian Gary Morton, and her two children in Beverly Hills, Calif.

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FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) Surrounding Lucille Ball in the bursts of fireworks, are the headshots of Red Skelton (“Lucy Goes to Alaska”), Betty Grable (“Lucy Wins a Racehorse”), Ida Lupino (“Lucy’s Summer Vacation”), Fred MacMurray (“Lucy Hunts Uranium”), and Milton Berle (“Milton Berle Hides Out at the Ricardos”). Curiously, Danny Thomas is not included, although his episode (”Lucy Makes Room for Danny”) was first to be aired and is included in this week’s listings. This also means the episodes are being aired out of their original broadcast order. 

Subsequent air dates:

1. July 8 ~ “Lucy Takes A Cruise To Havana” (Hedda Hopper, Caesar Romero, Rudy Vallee, Ann Sothern)
2. July 15 ~ “Lucy Wins a Racehorse” (Betty Grable, Harry James)
3. July 22 ~ 

   “Lucy Goes To Mexico”

   (Maurice Chevalier)

4. July 29 ~ “Milton Berle Hides Out at the Ricardos” (Milton Berle)
5. August 5 ~ “Lucy Goes to Alaska” (Red Skelton)
6. August 12 ~ “The Celebrity Next Door” (Tallulah Bankhead)
7. August 19 ~ 

   “Lucy Hunts Uranium” (Fred MacMurray, June Gable)

8. August 26 ~ “Lucy Meets the Mustache” (Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams)
9. September 2 ~ “Lucy Goes To Sun Valley” (Fernando Lamas)
10. September 9 ~ “Lucy’s Summer Vacation” (Ida Lupino, Howard Duff)
11. September 16 ~ “The Ricardos Go To Japan” (Bob Cummings)

The only episode not being aired is “Lucy Wants A Career” (Paul Douglas).  The episode does not feature an exotic locale, or music, and Douglas, while familiar, was not a star in the same category as those featured in the other episodes. 

(2) Other versions of this period in Ball’s life state that she was hit by a car, not sidelined by pneumonia.  This has led Lucille Ball biographers to speculate that she may have been been concealing a pregnancy or had an abortion – none of which has been substantiated. 

(3) Henry Durrell Ball (Lucille’s Father) was not a mining engineer. He was a telephone lineman. 

(4) This is a glamorized version of what actually happened.  Lucille was stopped on a New York City street by someone organizing Goldwyn Girls traveling to California to appear in a film starring Eddie Cantor. One of the girls cast dropped out, and Lucille Ball was asked to go in her stead as a last-minute substitute. It is highly unlikely Cantor saw Lucille until she appeared on the set for filming. 

(5)  “Hey Diddle Diddle” opened in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1937 and was scheduled for a couple of out-of-town engagements before opening on Broadway. But it never happened. Leading man Conway Tearle got seriously ill and the production was abandoned.  As the article says, Lucille returned to Hollywood. Lucille made fifteen films between 1937′s “Stage Door” and 1940′s “Too Many Girls,” where she met Desi. In that time, she was engaged to be married twice: to Broderick Crawford and Alexander Hall. 

(6) Desilu Inc. was not formed until 1950.  Desi Arnaz was discharged from the Army (with honors) on December 1, 1945.  In the intervening years, he toured with his rhumba band. 

(7) “The Lucille Ball Show” (or “The New Lucille Ball Show”) was the working titled of “The Lucy Show” almost right up until its premiere on October 1, 1962. 

INSIDE TV WEEK

Seven months after saying “I Do,” Lucille Ball was still having trouble getting used to being addressed as Mrs. Gary Morton. (Not half as much, I fear, as Gary had getting used to being addressed as Mr. Lucille Ball!) 

The headline of the Lancaster (PA) Sunday News, the newspaper that included this issue of TV Week.