NEW LIFE IN LUCY

July 20, 1952

By WILL JONES, Minneapolis Tribune Staff Writer 

WITH HER SECOND BABY on the way and her second career in its peak, Lucille Ball is busy trying to make the facts of real life jibe with the facts of TV life. 

The complications are going to affect all fans of the nation’s No. 1 TV star –  particularly those in Minneapolis. 

Her pregnancy may delay the return of her TV program, “I Love Lucy,” to the air this fall, for one thing. 

And it has already meant, for sure, that she won’t be in Minneapolis for the Aquatennial. (1)

“I Love Lucy,” now off the air for the summer, is supposed to resume Sept. 8. Miss Ball and her husband and co-star, Desi Arnaz, are trying to stall the starting date until sometime in October. (2)

Exactly what good that will do when her baby isn’t due until January is one of those facts of TV life that will take some explaining. Miss Ball explained a few things to me in Hollywood last week, and I’ll try to pass them long. 

Movie studios have been known to speed up shooting schedules of single pictures to accommodate motherhood. But Miss Ball can’t shoot 39 films (3) in a hurry, before her condition begins to show. It already shows. 

BY THE TIME I had my talk with Miss Ball, the full Impact of the news had already hit her and her organization; They already had decided – with kibitzing from the Columbia Broadcasting System, the sponsor, and other interested parties – one big point: 

Miss Ball’s unborn child, come winter, is going to have to be part of the act. 

They were in the midst of working out some of the details. Scripts for all of next season’s “I Love Lucy” programs already had been outlined when Miss Ball discovered her condition. The outlines have been set aside, and the writers have been told to think up some funny new slapstick routines for an enceinte heroine. 

Fortunately, “I Love Lucy” is a Mr.-and-Mrs. program. Its family comedy, while often outlandish, has been accepted by its fans as still being pretty true-to-life. 

There should be enough funny situations involving expectant couples to keep the subject from getting tiresome. 

IMPENDING PARENTHOOD isn’t a new subject for comedy, but there has been little of it on TV, there hasn’t been much on radio and it’s been rare in the movies. 

And there’s never been an expectant mother quite like Miss Ball. 

Even if it were possible to hide her condition – other actresses have accomplished it with the aid of special costuming, trick lighting and such devices as keeping partially hidden behind furniture and bushes – Miss Ball would be against it.

“If I turned up one week suddenly standing still behind some camouflage, it wouldn’t be me,” she said. “It’d be a fraud. I’ve got to move around." 

Miss Ball had just come from a visit to her doctor when I saw her at her orange ranch in the San Fernando valley, about an hour’s drive from Hollywood. (4) She had been discussing her condition with CBS executives, as well as with her doctor, on the same visit to town. 

"The doctor told me the baby’s going to come a little earlier than we expected,” she said. “He says about Jan. 15. (5) He also told me I could work as long as I feel all right. 

"At first we thought I might have to quit work in October. Now I don’t know.”

WORKING BEFORE the cameras while with child isn’t entirely a new experience for Miss Ball. She was pregnant when she made the “I Love Lucy” audition film that won her and Arnaz their present contract with the network and sponsor. 

But her year-old daughter, Lucie Desiree, was born before she had to go on the air with the new series. 

Five of this fall’s programs are already filmed. (“I Love Lucy” normally is shot five weeks before it goes on the air, so Miss Ball and Arnaz were five programs ahead before they started their summer vacation.) (6) They plan to resume shooting in a week or so. That will put them 10 programs ahead by Sept. 8, the date they’re scheduled to return.

If they get to postpone the program a month they’ll have a 14-week backlog of films by the time it starts. Some of the best of last year’s programs will be rerun during the weeks Miss Ball won’t be able to work. (7) Just how much of a part the baby will play in “I Love Lucy” after it arrives is matter that hasn’t been decided.

“I ASKED THAT QUESTION down at CBS this afternoon, and all I got was blank stares,” said Miss Ball. 

“I’m sure we won’t have a situation involving the baby every week, though." 

"You could have a funny baby sitter for a character,” put in a her publicity man, Ken Morgan who also is her brother-in-law. “You could build a very funny program around a funny baby sitter." 

"I’m sure we could,” said Miss Ball. She glared at him with mock ferocity: “And what do I do while the baby sitter is being funny?" 

Arnaz, a real-life rumba bandleader, plays a rumba bandleader named Ricky Ricardo on "I Love Lucy.” The plots usually Involve the wacky things that happen when his wife, Lucy, tries too hard to help him get ahead. 

Although the names have been changed, and the Amazes’ private life isn’t anything like the Ricardos’. TV life, followers still associate the performers closely with the roles. 

As long as they’re forced to bring one child Into their TV world, I wondered If they might not try to get their TV life in line with their private life. 

“That’s another question I asked at CBS this afternoon,” said Miss Ball. “They didn’t have an answer for that, either, "Everybody’s been on vacation. We haven’t even had a chance to sit down and talk these things over yet." 

THEY’VE TALKED over a few things, of course. Miss Ball showed me an "I Love Lucy” baby – a doll set with clothes, feeding equipment, soap, gadgets, etc. – that has been put together by a toy manufacturer in anticipation of the event. The set includes a letter about the baby from Lucy and Ricky. (8)

“It blows bubbles, wets its pants, everything,” said Miss Ball proudly. She also played a record, “There’s a Brand New Baby at Our House.” (“…she’s changed our happy house to a home…”), sung by Desi. He wrote the music when Lucie was born. A friend, Eddie Maxwell, wrote the words. (9)

Desi hasn’t made any records for a long time, so nothing much happened with the tune. The recording companies are after him again since the success of “I Love Lucy,” however, and “Brand New Baby” may be his first new record. (10)

The sudden success of “I Love Lucy” – in one season, it topped Arthur Godfrey, Milton Berle and Red Skelton (11) in all popularity ratings – has left the Amazes amazed. 

I was sitting in Morgan’s office when he got the news that “Lucy” had hit a rating of 70 – an unheard-of-high figure in one of the TV popularity-rating surveys.

Arnaz came into the office at that moment Morgan told him the news. 

ARNAZ LOOKED WORRIED. “You’re kidding,” he said. 

“That crazy Cuban is scared,” confided Morgan after Arnaz had left the office. “He doesn’t know what to make of all this. He thinks of all those people tuning in, and he worries." 

In 20 years as a movie star, Miss Ball never had the acclaim she’s had in one year on television. 

"People stop me on the street and talk to me now,” she said. "That never happened when I was in movies. I was in Ohrbach’s this afternoon, and I had to ride up and down four times In the elevator just listening to people tell me about the show. 

“The only time people In the street bothered to talk to me before was when I made ‘The Big Street.’ (12) But It was nothing like what’s happened In the past year. And Desi and I are the two most grateful people in the world. 

"You have no Idea what It’s meant to us. We’re real hams, you know." 

BESIDES GLORY, "I Love Lucy” also has meant shorter hours and a happy home life for Mr. and Mrs. Arnaz. Before TV, Lucille had to get up at 5:30 or 6 every morning to go to the studio. She didn’t get home until 7 or 7:30 p.m. and she was exhausted. If Desi wasn’t on the road with his band, she had to go to a nightclub to be with him In the evening. 

Their marriage almost broke up because of the schedule. Lucille once filed for divorce, but never followed through. (13) In the movies, Miss Ball had to work five or six long days a week. Now she puts in four eight-hour days. 

Arnaz, who Is president of their company, Desilu Productions, has to attend to production and business matters in addition to his acting. That usually means a 10- or 12-hour day for him. But he, too, insists on a three-day week-end. 

“We don’t think about the show we don’t even mention it from Friday night to Tuesday morning,” said Miss Ball. “They wanted me to look at the scripts a week ahead, so they’d have more time to work on the clothes. I design all my own. But I wouldn’t even do that, for fear I’d start worrying about next week’s show over the week-end." 

AS VICE PRESIDENT of Desilu productions, Miss Ball gets a chair on the set with "Veep” printed on back. Occasionally she signs some papers. “But may I say that I don’t know what I’m looking at?” she said. 

Desilu now is producing the TV version of “Our Miss Brooks,” starring Eve Arden, which will go on the air this fall. (14) As executive producer, Arnaz has had to be on hand during much of the “Miss Brooks” filming this summer. 

“But all I hafta do,” said Miss Ball, “is go over and pat Brooksie on the shoulder now and then and ask her where she got those clothes. She comes in with some wonderful things." 

"Our Miss Brooks” is being filmed exactly the same way as “I Love Lucy.” It’s a combination of movies, TV and summer stock, a system worked out by Desilu. 

The Amazes are especially proud of it because, before they started, everybody told them it wouldn’t work. Nobody figured a couple of actors could run a complex producing organization. 

They film their shows in an independent movie studio that was all but abandoned before they moved in. (15) Now the place is bustling with other TV people, including Burns and Allen, who are copying the Desilu system.

BLEACHER SEATS for 300 people were built into one side of the sound stage. Part of one wall was cut out to make a street entrance for the audience. A small sign, “Desilu Playhouse,“ hung on a wrought-iron support outside, adds to the summer-stock atmosphere. 

The schedule goes roughly like this: Tuesday is devoted to learning the script, which al ways runs more than 40 pages. Miss. Ball sketches her clothes and gives the designs to the dressmaker. 

There are rehearsals Wednesday. The program is rehearsed straight through, like a play. Thursday there’s a full dress rehearsal, with cameras and lights. There’s a bull session afterwards, with the writers present, to weed out the weak spots. 

When the program started audiences were invited to the dress rehearsals, but Lucille and Desi found they got all worked up and gave better performances Thursday night than they did on Friday, when the program is actually filmed. 

NOW THEY RELY on the laughs of the crew on Thursday nights to tell them what to keep in and what to change. 

Three movie cameras, moving in and out among the actors like TV cameras, record the Friday night performance. The program is played straight through, the only stops being for costume changes. The audience is allowed to whoop it up as much as it wants. Audience laughter is recorded and used in the final soundtrack. 

The photographer, Karl Freund, a roly-poly man with a thick German accent, was all but retired when Miss Ball asked trim to film their show. She liked the way he had photographed her at MGM. ("We fought like cats and dogs, but when it came off on the screen, I never looked lovelier.”) 

He spent a week in New York studying TV methods, decided everybody there was all wet, and dreamed up his own system. (Freund was the first Hollywood cameraman ever to move a camera during a scene, mounting it on a rubber-tired arrangement known as a dolly. Without his invention “I Love Lucy” now would take two or three times as long to shoot. Many inventions now incorporated in Hollywood studio cameras are his, too.) 

ARNAZ’ STUDIO CHAIR has “Prez” painted on back. (When Freund wants him, however, he Just yells for “Young man with old face!” Arnaz’ black hair is shot with gray that doesn’t show on TV.) 

William Frawley and Vivian Vance, the character actors who play the couple next door, have special chairs, too. Frawley’s is labeled “William Frawley, Boy Actor.” Miss Vance’s label is “Vivian Vance, Girl Actress.” Their work is admired so much around Desilu that they got a raise before they ever asked for it. 

“I don’t know how long they’re signed up for,” said Miss Ball, “but by God if it isn’t for a long time, I’ll have to speak to Desi.” There’s a sign in the Desilu rehearsal hall: “anyone that enjoys work can have a hell of a good time in this institution.” Everybody, apparently, does. 

There’s a board with names of the cast members painted on it. There are gold stars stuck behind the names. Anybody who gets off a good crack, goofs, or otherwise relieves the tension that, comes with the hard work gets a gold star. 

ON SHOW NIGHTS, Arnaz, cook and gourmet, serves everybody in the crew a big dinner in the rehearsal hall. The Amazes have a bungalow on the lot in which they live during the day. The living room is decorated with water colors of and oil paintings by Miss Ball, who goes in for landscapes when she paints. (16)

There’s also a large dressing room and a bright yellow kitchen. They stayed there over night during Los Angeles’ floods a few months ago, (17) but otherwise they go home to the ranch every night. 

“I hate to get up in the morning in the same place I’m going to work all day,” said Miss Ball. 

An extra project is under way at the Desilu studios this summer. The TV show has caused so much talk that people in non-TV areas have demanded to see what all the conversation is about. 

Three of the best “Lucy” programs from last season have been selected for showing in theaters in areas not yet reached by TV. They’re being tied together with a story about a couple who have trouble getting tickets to the program. (18) (That’s a real problem. Handling tickets got to be such a headache that Desilu turned over ticket distribution to CBS. Now the people at Desilu often can’t get their friends in.) 

The “I Love Lucy” feature movie is being put together by Ed Sedgwick, a director who used to make some of Miss Ball’s movie comedies. I’ve never considered Lucille a comedienne.“ Sedgwick told me. "She’s a comic. There’s a difference." 

SUCCESS OF "I Love Lucy” has opened the way for all kinds of other sidelines. Desi wears smoking jacket. Tailors want him to spearhead a campaign to revive the smoking jacket. Other clothing men spotted the narrow lapels on all his suits, and want him to endorse Desi Arnaz narrow lapels. (19)

Manufacturers want Miss Ball’s clothing designs. There’s a line of Lucille Ball blouses being readied. Now, of course they’re talking maternity dresses, too. (20)

Another outfit is ready to put out Desi Arnaz bongo drums. (21) “Ethel” (Vivian Vance) wore an old-fashioned kitchen garment known as a swirl on one program. Now there’s, a merchandising tie-up for “I Love Lucy” swirls. (22)

Even before word got around about Miss Ball’s upcoming maternity, doll manufacturers were proposing deals. So there’s going to be a red-headed Lucille Ball doll. (23)

Since one-third of the pro grams fans are figured to be small fry, the doll is expected to be a popular item. Morgan, a native of Devil’s Lake, N.D. looks after most of such details. And then there’s talk of an “I Love Lucy” radio program. Miss Ball was on the air with “My Favorite Husband” a few seasons ago, but radio acting is a new experience for Desi. 

THERE’S A POSSIBILITY the sound tracks of old TV programs may be used for a new radio program, with some narration to fill in what the audience can’t see. (24)

So, with all the success, has come more and more yearning to get away from on week-ends. 

The Amazes figure they see enough of each other during the week. So, although they’re homebodies, they do quite a bit of getting away from each other on week-ends. 

Miss Ball usually sticks to the ranch, a quiet, five-acre place lush with vegetation. The orange groves are there because they look nice. “You know, I’ve never eaten one of our oranges,” said Miss Ball. “I tasted one once, and it was so sour I couldn’t finish it. We get our oranges at the market." 

They have a deal with the Sunkist people, who tend the crop, harvest it and keep the place in shape in exchange for the oranges. 

Arnaz, who has a mania for fishing, spends all or part of every week-end on his 35-foot fishing boat. He doesn’t shave when he’s fishing. He was away on the boat when I visited the ranch. 

MISS BALL was out back, in a cluttered yard she calls "the farmer’s market,” sitting in a wooden lawn chair. She looked tired. Her face, in the evening light and against her shocking-pink hair, looked paler than it probably was. Her mother, Mrs. Desiree Ball, was looking after Lucie, who was toddling around the edge of the swimming pool. Three frisky spaniels bounded up to meet me. 

Miss Ball called them away sharply. “They stink,” she said. While we talked, she watched nervously to see that they didn’t knock the baby into the pool. 

Presently Mrs. Ball said good-by, and headed for the house with Lucie. “Tell Ethel I want a demitasse!” Miss Ball called after her. “And tell her I want it to get rid of the garlic she put in the meat!” (25)

After she settled down with the coffee, she said: “There’s one thing I really like about television. I don’t have to worry about glamor any more. Well, my hair is still combed. But I don’t have to worry if it isn’t." 

From her chair, she started conducting a visual tour of the place, pointing out behind her an overgrown shelter with lawn furniture Inside. ("It’s some kind of a Cuban hut that Desi built. I think they call it a bohio.”) She pointed, too, to a huge outdoor fireplace. (“Desi built that, too. But we found out it’s too far from the house. We don’t use It any more.”) 

Across the swimming pool she pointed out a strange lath structure, also built by Desi. “We never found out what he had in mind,” she said. “We’ve never used it for anything." 

We walked across the lawn to inspect one of Arnaz’ more practical bits of carpentry: a place they call a bathhouse, which is really a huge cottage used for parties. It has a long rumpus room, finished in dark pine, with a film projection room at one end, and a behind-the-bar kitchen that’s exclusively Desi’s. It’s fitted with a large, black, old-fashioned gas oven, another barbecue and outsize copper utensils. 

Miss Ball peered suspiciously into a huge copper kettle on the stove. "Desi uses this for soup, she said. "He spent three years getting the recipe from Antoine’s."  (26)

When Arnaz cooks, he always makes a large mess. He never cleans it up. 

"I enjoy spoiling my husband,” said Miss Ball, “and he enjoys spoiling me. I don’t expect him to clean up.” She thought a moment. “I don’t know what he doesn’t expect of me." 

She pointed out a mounted marlin of which he’s proud, some built-in seats he designed and constructed, and then led the way to the house. It was dark outside now. 

"Be careful,” she said. “There are wires on these trees, and people are always falling down.“ 

INSIDE THE HOUSE, in a long tile-floored room facing the yard, we came across a third barbecue. 

“Desi isn’t happy unless he has a barbecue at his fingertips,” she said. Another thing the Amazes are well supplied with is TV sets. They have four, including the one in the bathhouse. 

“We always watch our show,” she said, “usually with friends. Monday is our canasta night. Sometime we’re over at the Charlie Ruggleses, sometimes at the Dean Martins. (27) Wherever we are, we stop for a half hour to watch." 

We took a fast walk through the house. "It won’t take you long to see this place,” said Miss Ball, leading the way through the long early-American living room, the bedroom, Desi’s study, Desi’s dressing room, and then down a long corridor, past an enclosed patio, to the nursery wing. 

“Desi built this, too,” she said. “We keep a carpenter here full time to help him. Since we started the show, Desi hasn’t had any time for building, but we still keep the carpenter busy." 

THE NURSERY – a three-room affair designed to accommodate two children – cost more than the house itself. The center room Is a gleaming-white, clinical-looking place Miss Ball calls "the laboratory." 

It’s loaded with sterilizing equipment, kitchen equipment and laundry equipment. The Amazes keep a nurse, as well as a maid-cook and the carpenter. Desi’s mother and Mrs. Ball both live nearby, and look in frequently, so Lucie gets plenty of attention when her parents are at the studio. 

Miss Ball has taken her to the studio for visits, but never takes her in for a day when she’s working. Arnaz’s band appears on one out of about every four "Lucy” programs. It’s pretty much the same one he started with in Florida. He formed it after he broke away from Xavier Cugat in the ‘30s. 

The band doesn’t travel or make public appearances any more, but the musicians are as glad that Arnaz has settled down as he is. They have a family life now, too. 

They work around Hollywood, playing at the movie and recording studios and at various clubs. And they’re always on call when they’re needed for “Lucy." 

Miss Ball and Arnaz planned to come to the Aquatennlal on the way to New York for a series of magazine interviews. One of the things that had convinced them was a two-page wire from Arthur Godfrey singing the praises of Minnesota and of Cedric Adams, who would have been their host. 

WHEN THEY found out about the baby, they still planned to come. Then Miss Ball’s doctor ordered her not to. He ruled out the New York interviews, too. They went to Sun Valley instead, for a rest, but cut their visit short when they found themselves the center of attention from other guests. (28)

The act they planned to do here was one they had to dream up in order to prove to CBS that they could do "I Love Lucy.” Before the program started, one of the big objections they got went like this: “Nobody will believe that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are husband and wife." 

Arnaz had a simple answer: "We are.” But nobody paid much attention to him. 

The two made a theater tour with a Mr.-and-Mrs. routine, just to see if audiences would accept them that way. It clicked. That’s what made CBS decide to go along with their first notions about TV.

#   #   #

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) The Minneapolis Aquatennial is an annual outdoor event held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the third full week of July. Originating in 1940, the Minneapolis Aquatennial celebrates the city’s famous lakes, rivers, and streams.

(2) Instead of September 8th, the second season of “I Love Lucy” began on September 15, 1952, not in October as was first considered.  It kicked off with the now iconic “Job Switching” (aka Candy Factory episode), which had been filmed in late May 1952, before this article was published. 

(3) Although season one of “I Love Lucy” had produced 35 episodes (the most of any “Lucy” sitcom), season two only clocked in with 31 new episodes. If their original goal was 39, they were 8 short.  

(4) Before her Beverly Hills mansion, Lucy’s dream house was in the San Fernando Valley. Desilu Ranch, as it was called, was a ranch-style home on five acres at the intersection of Devonshire Street and Corbin Avenue in Chatsworth. The home was demolished in the mid-1970s to make way for subdivision development.

(5) Lucille Ball gave birth on January 19, 1953. Because it was a Caesarean birth, Ball had some leeway with the date. Naturally, she opted for a Monday so that her real son and her TV son could be born on the same day, making television history in the process.  

(6) The five shows that were already ‘in the can’ for Fall 1952 were: 

“The Anniversary Present” (filmed May 9, 1952), “The Handcuffs” (filmed May 16, 1952), “The Operetta” (filmed May 23, 1952), “Job Switching” (filmed May 30, 1952), and “The Saxophone” (filmed June 6, 1952).  Although “Job Switching” was filmed fourth of these five, everyone knew it was a knock-out hit, and it was aired as the season 2 premiere.  This explains why the photos that accompany this article are glimpses from two as-of-then unaired episodes: “The Anniversary Present” and “The Operetta.”  

(7) Desilu also came up with Flashback Intros (filmed without Lucille Ball) to introduce repeated episodes. Fred, Ethel, and Ricky would open the show with a “remember the time…” premise and then a repeat episode would be aired. These were not included in the syndication prints, but some have turned up as DVD extras. 

(8) The ‘I Love Lucy’ baby doll was a big seller for Christmas 1952.  The doll’s gender was deliberately kept vague until after the birth of Little Ricky in January 1953, after which a new infant doll branded “Little Ricky” was released. There was also a Little Ricky puppet baby doll.

(9) “There’s A Brand New Baby (at Our House)” was first sung on “I Love Lucy” in “Sales Resistance” (ILL S2;E17), the first flashback episode after Lucy went into the hospital to have the baby.  The lyricist Eddie Maxwell was the real-life husband of Eve Whitney from 

“The Charm School” (ILL S3;E15).

(10) 

After the above episode aired on July 26, 1953, announcer Johnny Jacobs promoted that the song (he calls “The Baby Song”) was available on Columbia Records (a division of CBS, naturally) with the “I Love Lucy” theme song on the flip side.

(11) Arthur Godfrey’s show “Talent Scouts” was “Lucy’s” lead-in on Monday nights. Godfrey himself promoted the show, asking viewers to ‘stay tuned.’ Red Skelton had a variety show on CBS, competing with NBC’s “Ed Sullivan” on Sunday nights. Milton Berle hosted “Texaco Star Theatre” on NBC, another variety program. If Monday nights belonged to Lucy, Tuesday nights were owned by Uncle Miltie. All three performers guest-starred on “Lucy” sitcoms.  The above 1953 TV Guide cover makes it clear who is top of the TV totem pole. Red Skelton is not depicted. 

(12) The Big Street was released in August 1942. If people were stopping Lucy on the street, it may have been to compliment her performance in what was her favorite film. They may have also been curious about performing in a wheelchair. 

(13) Lucille filed for divorce from Desi twice. The first time was in September 1944, citing infidelity and incompatibility.  Ball returned to him before the interlocutory decree became final, nullifying the divorce.  The second divorce, in April 1960, stuck. 

(14) “Our Miss Brooks” had been a big hit on radio starring Eve Arden and Gale Gordon, who would repeat their roles on television. Although not formally produced by Desilu, it was produced at the same studio and used many of the same actors (Gordon, Richard Crenna, Mary Jane Croft, Frank Nelson) that would appear on “I Love Lucy,” including, in one episode, Desi Arnaz. The show started one year after “Lucy” and ran one year shorter. 

(15) General Service Studios was located at 1040 North Los Palmas Avenue, in Hollywood. It started life as a movie studio in 1919, and was variously known as  American Zoetrope, Hollywood Center Studios, and now, Sunset Las Palmas Studios.  Desilu outgrew the location in 1953, and moved to larger digs known then as Ren-Mar, now Red Studios. 

(16) Not much is known about Lucille Ball’s painting pastime.  We know that she signed her paintings ‘Balzac’.  

(17) From January 13 to 18, 1952 heavy rains hit the Southern California area. On January 18 alone, 3.17” of rain fell in Los Angeles in a 24-hour period. The storm was responsible for eight deaths due to flooding in Los Angeles.

(18) The “I Love Lucy” Movie consisted of three episodes edited together: “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13), “Breaking the Lease” (ILL S1;E18) and “The Ballet” (ILL S1;E19). New scenes were filmed to help connect the three episodes into one cohesive whole. Also, new wraparound segments were filmed. The opening segment shows the studio audience filing in for the filming. Desi Arnaz welcomes the audience and introduces the cast as he typically did before every filming. In the closing segment, Arnaz thanks the audience and Lucille Ball and the cast take their final bows. The film was given one preview before it was shelved. It may have been pressure from MGM, who had their own “Lucy” movie in the works, The Long, Long Trailer, or it may have been felt that the film diluted the television programs value. Either way, it was Lucy and Desi’s final call to shelve the project. It has since been released on DVD. 

(19 & 20) Merchandising was a big part of selling “I Love Lucy” to the public.  When actual items were not mass marketed, patterns for the items were available. Advance had the license for “I Love Lucy” patterns. 

(21) The Desi Arnaz Conga Drum (not Bongo drum) was made in 1952 by A & A American Metal Toy Company of Brooklyn, New York. It was nineteen inches high. It is one of the rarest of the original “I Love Lucy” collectibles valued at $2,000 to $5,000! 

(22) Swirl was a brand of house dress that often buttoned up the back, had pockets, and a tie belt. Vivian Vance wore several designs by Swirl on the show, including one of her famous arrow Swirls advertised in magazines and newspapers. 

(23) Long before Mattel made their Lucy Barbie, there was a Lucy Ricardo rag doll. The doll had orange hair, blue eyes, bow lips, and an apron with heart-shaped pockets, just like Lucy.  It  was given away by their sponsor Philip Morris in 1953.

(24) On February 27, 1952, a sample the “I Love Lucy” radio show was produced, but it never aired. This was created by editing the soundtrack of the television episode “Breaking the Lease”, with added Arnaz narration (in character as Ricky Ricardo).

(25) It sounds as though, quite coincidentally, Lucille Ball’s Chatsworth cook / maid was named Ethel!  Either that, or Ball is joking. 

(26) Antoine’s Restaurant was also mentioned in Eleanor Harris’s 1954 book The Real Story of Lucille Ball. 

(27) Charles Ruggles (1886-1970) was a character actor who appeared in over a hundred films. Like Lucille Ball, he made the transition to television with a series called “The Ruggles” (1949-52). He was married to Marion LaBarba. Dean Martin (1916-95) was a singer and comic actor.  He appeared as himself on “The Lucy Show,” in one of Ball’s favorite episodes. From 1949 to 1973 he was married to Jeanne Biegger, who appeared as herself on the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Fashion Show.” 

(28) Sun Valley, Idaho, was a favorite getaway location of the Arnaz family. It is a is a resort city where tourists enjoy ice skating, golfing, hiking, trail riding, cycling, tennis and (of course) skiing. The world’s first chair lift was erected in Sun Valley in 1936. Lucy and Desi set a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in Sun Valley, and even went on location to film.