MEET THE PRESS

August 3, 1969

You are clued into the frank and tough talk to come by the way Lucille Ball swipes away with her handkerchief at the flies threatening the hors d’oeuvres The kerchief almost snaps like a wet towel. 

The scene is the pool patio of her home on Beverly Hills’ Roxbury Drive and a cocktail party is in progress for visiting television editors. 

Lucy has just emerged from the main house. She wears a powder blue double-breasted slack suit and saucer-sized sun glasses. In the blazing sun her orange hair has the color intensity of hot coals. 

She has counted heads. Husband-producer Gary Morton is there. So are Desi Arnaz IV her son, and Lucy her daughter. And her TV side-kick Gale Gordon with his wife. Plus a half-dozen of her staff and CBS emissaries. There have been introductions all round to the newspaper types. It is time, she announces, to talk and she waves everybody into the big and comfortable pool house. A table has been positioned so that she can sit there presiding as she used to do at the stockholders’ meetings of the old Desilu Studios. 

Almost immediately some wag fields her the question: “Lucy do you run the show?” She flashes him that big innocent TV look of hers. A staff member jumps up “Let’s all answer that one for her” There is a resounding “YES” from family-and-cast. Everybody laughs uproariously.

Very few questions are required to prime the pump. Lucy, it seems, has some matters of personal irritation on her mind and as far as she is concerned they come tumbling out without any prodding from her would-be interrogators. 

First of all, she asks rhetorically, what’s all this business about whether she would retire? “I never said I wanted to quit or retire. There was a time when I was willing to quit but nobody asked me. Now I’ve set a date when I’ll retire” 

A lot of ears perk up Somebody asks slyly — when? She’s waiting for that. Her answer is smilingly emphatic: “When I drop dead in my tracks.” 

She turns then without anybody’s questioning to the matter of her longevity in television. This is her 18th year on the tube and it used to be talked about that she traded her popularity to CBS in return for its buying other shows produced by her company. This evokes an almost visible jet of steam out of the top of her carrot locks. “I never at any time sold any of the 20 shows our company produced on the basis of my returning each season. I’ve said that literally hundreds of times and nobody believed it.” 

She went on to make it clear that she also dislikes the “big business” image which has adhered to her over the years. “I never like to talk about big money. I make my deal and that’s all. It’s been mostly a matter of legal procedures.” 

As the star wades into these fiscal subjects your eye roams over the assemblage. Young Desi in tennis togs impassively studies the smoke curling up from a cigarette. Young Lucy clutches her hands around her knees and stares intently at her mother. Husband Gary sitting on a ledge at the back of the room swings his legs and smiles. 

There has been no mention of Desi the elder the former husband Lucy’s co-performer and co-founder of Desilu Studios (now sold). Earlier this writer had chatted briefly with young Desi. He said he saw his father off and on and spends his summers as a rule at the father’s beach home at Delmar, south of Los Angeles. 

The youngster asked if I knew his grandfather Dr. Desiderio Arnaz who lives in Coral Gables.  (1)

But back to Lucy She’s telling us how many years it took to realize that as Lucille Ball she had attained V.I.P. status.

She reviews the years she spent trying to make it in show business, first on the stage, then as a model, and finally in the movies. Much of the time she says she stagnated. Until television came along. 

“I never had any sense of importance. I was very pliable always willing to do what I was told It wasn’t until one day I saw in print somewhere some actress described as a ‘Lucille Ball type’ that I knew suddenly I was somebody and a part of the business.” 

From there on the interview jumps from subject to subject. 

I ask her whatever happened to the project Dean Martin’s producer Greg Garrison had for starring Martin, her, and Jackie Gleason in a revival of the musical “Guys and Dolls.”  (2)

“I never said I would do it. Garrison kept publicizing it, but he never cleared it with me. I do still want to do ‘Diamond Jim’ with Jackie It’s just a matter of finding the time.” (3)

A lady editor wants to know how Lucy keeps her sinuous figure. 

“I don’t particularly like food. I’m not very fond of meat, for example, except in the morning.” 

Which brings a snort of disgust from her husband. “Can you imagine what it’s like to have to watch her eating corned beef or hamburger at 6 o’clock in the morning?” 

The questions now go to the children. What are Desi’s plans? Does he want to make acting his future? “I want to be an actor for awhile but I don’t think I ever want to be one certain thing.” 

Young Lucy, who, at 18, is two years older than her brother, is more sure of her future “I’ll go to college for awhile but I like acting. I’ll stay at it if I can.” 

Would she somebody asks join the campus protest and carry a sign? Only if it says ‘wet paint’ quips she. 

Lucy now introduces her cast veteran, Gale Gordon. He pays her extravagant compliments and talks a bit about his radio and early television days. 

The interview’s late arrival is venerable George Marshall, who is now the show’s director. Lucy introduces him as “our sexy senior citizen.” Marshall goes back to the dawn of movies and is filled with fascinating anecdotes about his years in the business. (4)

The conversation turns to TV’s talk shows. Somebody suggests to Lucy that she would be a highly likely guest for Merv Griffin’s new show starting on CBS Aug 18. (5)

Lucy’s answer comes lancing back “That’s what you think. I don’t like him.” Which rocks everybody back. Why not? “Because he doesn’t know how to interview. He’s rude to his guests and he monopolizes the conversation.” 

She doesn’t wait for the next question. “I’m wild about Dick Cavett (on ABC) I think he’s great And I told Bill Paley (board chairman of CBS) he should have him on our network. But Bill said ABC got him first and we’re out of luck.” (6)

Everybody is suddenly distracted by three teen-age girl fans leaning over a fence way up front. They’re begging to be allowed on the grounds. Morton jogs forward to shoo them away. 

“This happens all the time,” says Lucy. “My God they used to picnic right in front of the house until our police department stopped them. Jimmy Stewart, who lives up the street, finally told me how to keep them away. Turn on the lawn sprinklers.” 

Morton returns and takes everybody for a tour of their luxurious but very lived-in home. Lucy tells us a funny story about how Jack and Mary Benny had once been their next door neighbors sold their home then asked her to try to mediate a re-sale of the place back to them. Then we take our leave.

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FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) Dr. Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y Alberni II (1894-1973) was a Cuban politician and the father of Desi Arnaz. He graduated from the Southern College of Pharmacy in 1913 in Atlanta, Georgia. Desiderio Arnaz II was the youngest mayor of Santiago de Cuba (1923–32). When president Machado was overthrown in August 1933, Arnaz was arrested and jailed. Six months later, he was allowed to go into exile. He married Dolores “Lolita” de Acha y de Socias in 1916 and had one son, Desiderio “Desi” Arnaz III. He later had a daughter, Connie Arnaz (1932), with Anne M. Wilson, whom he married in 1941.

(2) Guys & Dolls was a 1950 stage musical by Frank Loesser, based on the stories by Damon Runyon starring Robert Alda, who appeared on several episodes of “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy”.  It was filmed by MGM in 1955. During that time, Lucy and Desi were also under contract to MGM, so they prevailed upon “I Love Lucy” to insert a clip from the film into “Lucy and the Dummy” (ILL S5;E3). After its initial airing on October 17, 1955, the clip was removed from the film print, and for legal reasons, has never been restored. It is unclear whether Garrison’s project with Martin, Ball, and Gleason would have been a film revival, or a stage production. Whatever it was to be, Lucy wanted to have no part of it, perhaps remembering the rigors of performing on stage in Wildcat (1960). During her film career, Ball was in two films based on Damon Runyon material, The Big Street (1942), a film she claimed as her favorite, and Sorrowful Jones (1949). She also did a radio version of Runyon’s “Tight Shoes” in 1942. Ball and Gleason would have been cast as Miss Adelaide and Nathan Detroit, while Dean Martin would have played Sky Masterson, the romantic lead. Those roles were played by Vivian Blaine, Frank Sinatra, and Marlon Brando in the film. Obviously, the project never came to be. 

(3) “Diamond Jim” was a project that Lucy dearly wanted to make with Gleason. He would play Diamond Jim Brady (1856-1917) to her Lillian Russell. Ball even went so far as to have a script written to further grab Gleason’s attention. Despite their best intentions, Gleason and Ball’s schedules never allowed for enough time to make the film. 

(4) George Marshall (1891-1975) had directed Lucille Ball in Valley of the Sun (1942) and Fancy Pants (1950).  He was considered an expert at location shooting, so when “Here’s Lucy” wanted to spend the first four episodes of Season 2 on location, Marshall was hired as director. He stayed on for seven more episodes of the sitcom before bowing out. 

(5) Despite Lucille Ball’s rather harsh public assessment of Merv Griffin (1925-2007) at this August 1969 press party, Ball appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show” four times between 1971 and 1980! During her first appearance, the aforementioned George Marshall was also a guest! 

(6) Lucille did seem to enjoy doing the talking to Dick Cavett, although she only got to do his chat show once, on March 7, 1974, in conjunction with her press tour for Mame.