STAGE MUSICAL!

July 11, 1955

Billion-dollar combination is the deal Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are cooking with Rodgers and Hammerstein (1) for a Broadway musical to follow their TV tour of Europe (2). They’re figuring on an original story to fit their personalities, and it will bring these two back to the stage for the first time in 15 years. Desi was in “Too Many Girls” in 1940 and Lucille road-toured in “Dream Girl” after she quit Metro. 

Lucille has long maintained that her part in “I Love Lucy” will end when they wrap up next season’s work. She’ll do spot appearances and hour-length shows and an occasional motion picture. (3) They finished redecorating their Beverly Hills home and are now closing it to take off for Del Mar the end of this week for a five-week stay. It’s a major production since their establishment includes two kids, two mothers, two dogs, a governess, a cook and a horse.

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FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were two of the most powerful people in show business during the 1950s.  What Lucy and Desi were to television, they were to Broadway – and by extension – Hollywood, too.  They were often mentioned on “I Love Lucy”, sometimes simply by their first names Dick and Oscar. It makes sense that these two powerhouse ‘couples’ would look to team up.  

(2) Needless to say, no such ‘husband and wife’ musical ever was produced.  Desi never returned to Broadway, but Lucille still ached for the Great White Way denied her when her Broadway-bound play Hey Diddle Diddle closed out of town in 1937.  Yes, she had played several cities in a revival of Dream Girl, but it was not the same as starring on Broadway – especially if she was creating a role.  She finally got the opportunity in 1961, after her divorce and the end of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hours.”  Sadly, Wildcat was not a good fit for Lucy, and she ended up playing Lucy Ricardo as if cast in a musical. The exhausting eight-shows-a-week schedule played havoc with her physical health, and despite healthy box office, the show closed early.  

(3) The half-hour “I Love Lucy” episodes did indeed stop after the 1956-57 season, although Lucy and Desi did not. They continued playing the Ricardos until April 1960.  Lucy did a couple of films with Bob Hope before and after her stint in Wildcat. The idea of a Broadway musical could not have been very far from their minds when they agreed to be investors in a new Frank Loesser musical called The Most Happy Fella in 1956. As investors, they naturally did all they could to promote the musical, even featuring it on an episode of “I Love Lucy” titled “Lucy’s Night in Town” (ILL S6;E22) in March 1957, one of the last episodes of the half-hour series.