"Finding Lucy" (Lucille Ball Documentary, 2000)

[Music] the magic of lucy left an imprint on the american public that will never be forgotten [Music] there's a greatness glow that seems to go along with certain people lucia [Music] you know there really isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't dip into my the cobwebs of my mind one way or the other she was just a comedy genius a one of a kind i think oh no [Music] they call me sally sweet i'm the queen of delancey street when i started excuse me mr p yes ma'am have the cubans a different beat if they have will you teach me to chick chick he's very nice so full of spies i place my hand on your hips and if you will just give me your hand then we shall try yes you and i [Music] hey [Music] we're very amazed at what has happened to this show i guess it's going to go on forever we're not but it is if somewhere there is a book of days in which is written our future possibilities then you can be sure at the very top of lucille ball's page are the words lucy ricardo all the other possibilities were no more than prelude to the creation of that one character we will never forget finding lucy seems almost inevitable and at the same time the most unlikely of journeys she arrived in hollywood with the depression and a million other hopefuls just like her with a couple of significant differences she had enough ambition to outshine a dozen future starlets and she worked harder than any of them for lucille there was no other choice [Music] like gladiators of glamour they battled for recognition and the ones who survived earned the right to be part of the fantasy factory at 50 bucks a week at the top of the food chain are the most dazzling creatures in the world movie stars those luminous entities who helped create the dreams that made the depression a little less depressing lucille offered herself up to the machinery of stardom and they poured her into every mold she was a willing piece of clay i wish i could dance to it why not [Music] they tried her as their romantic heroine [Music] they cast her as a musical comedy star [Music] if they couldn't find her type it certainly wasn't from lack of trying lucille cycled through dozens of types several hair colors and four major studios searching for an identity there are people who just appear on a screen and they just they just own the screen and you say who is that you want to know who this is i think with lucille ball it's no one saw lucy in her first few roles and said who is that maybe after about the 20th movie you'd think she looks familiar lucy she was great looking but she had a hard look about her and she said i always no matter how i get dressed up i always look like a cigarette girl at the trocadero hello handsome it goes on under your head it was just telling me to find that gorgeous blonde i always was a mind reader she used to always say it was like nails on a blackboard whenever she'd enter some place and marine o'hara was there because she said marine o'hara is perfect she is beautiful and she is perfect and i'm not perfect so who was lucille ball well someone was asleep at the switch anyone with eyes in their head can see what lucille is really good at in the opening scene she's doing this sort of stick with the typewriter ribbon it's getting all over the place and she had a wonderful ability to make us see what she was thinking typing away we know that the ribbon has come away from the keys and she's you know sort of like going along and typing away anyway as if she might be fooling somebody she comes alive in those moments of silliness she's engaged she's real the future lucy ricardo is slowly emerging like a photograph in a developing bath but no one was paying any attention because regardless of her success in comic rolls the gospel according to goldwyn was clear funny women don't sell tickets beautiful women do but lucille sold just enough tickets to become a major star in the minor leagues and earned the nickname queen of the bee pictures i was in a show called too many girls they still was dizzy and rko bought the story for lucille george abbott who was our wonderful director mr abbott uh chose five of his favorites and put us all the super chief to go to california to make the film no i've never been out of new york and on the way out on the train they were all taking bets as to who lucille was going to fall for and everybody said come see gonna fall for van i said no we're too much alike she's gonna go for the opposite naturally the rest is history she went for desi [Music] you could see the fireworks and the in the sparks she fell in love with him and his accent and his dark dark beauty they were madly in love there was no doubt about that they couldn't keep their hands off each other that it was just at such different temperaments at 29 lucille was five and a half years older and far more successful than desi yet after a stormy six-month courtship in 1940 they decided to marry against all odds and a good deal of advice [Music] when i first met lucy and bessie they seemed like a couple of kids out in chatsworth they were having such laughs and fun and they were together a lot it was way out of the valley beautiful little one-story house with that old swimming hole type of swimming pool and lucy was a great hostess they did have some wonderful parties and all kinds of people and not just big well-known people but a lot of unknowns [Music] my first impression of desi was a good impression i felt that he was a man of substance of character he became part of our family real quick revolution forced young desiderio arnez to flee cuba in america he quickly styled himself as a cuban maurice chevalier he had flair some talent and a boatload of charm from the moment they met this woman he falls in love with is the star of the movie and she was the star from then on i used to see clippings that in a scrapbook that they had at home and it would talk about his band appearances maybe at some club in ohio and it would say how great he was but the sensational thing of the evening was that ringside was his wife movie star lucille ball [Music] i think on a deeper level he appreciated that this was a woman who could take care of herself his mother was a very dependent woman and lucy who had never really gotten enough attention found herself with this man who was jealous and passionate and this made for lots and lots of excitement and lots of trouble too [Music] he led his own band crisscrossing the country in an endless stream of one-nighters waking day after day to find he had been almost everywhere but home she wanted to get him off the road because on the road he was always slipping away from his marriage vows and was kind of out of her life her life was in hollywood yet by 1948 lucille's career had peaked without ever reaching the top of the mountain she had appeared in 65 movies as lucy was entering her late 30s i think she had to realize that she wasn't going to get the big lead glamour girl roles anymore there were very few places to go at that age [Music] but there was one place in radio it didn't matter how old you were or how you looked radio was about voices but for lucille radio was about destiny she joined the little family that created a weekly program called my favorite husband and at that moment she stepped into the voice and shoes of a character who was only a heartbeat away from the one who would change broadcasting forever we present my favorite husband a new series based on the delightful stories of isabel scott rorick's gay sophisticated mr and mrs kuga starring lucille ball with richard denning liz hey liz where are my clothes i can't find them anywhere they're all there george i hung them up well what did you do that for i had them all neatly laid out on the floor where i could find hello oh hello anne lunch how can you think of it aren't you going to the tryouts for the play the young matrons league it's in the paper this morning on the society page i just put it in front of jordan my favorite husband brought together the family that would go on to create i love lucy producer jess oppenheimer writers bob carroll and madeline davis and even some of the actors i first met lucy in radio and at that time they didn't have a laugh track you know they depended on a live audience to laugh lucy learned to play to the audience she was used to doing movies so it was kind of a new experience for her to you know to say the gag and then look out at the audience she came alive before a live audience and developed the expressions that she used on i love lucy while doing her radio show but radio was about to be eclipsed by the new kid on the block television from hollywood she jumped on it very early she was one of the first guests on the edwin show and she specifically sought it out because she was curious about this new medium [Music] [Applause] television in those days was kind of the graveyard of failed movie stars no one did television by choice this is wonderful i love you you know in your radio shows every friday night you know the ones call my favorite husband i love him i love mike no no no no i went to the thing babalou but uh wait wait she asked me a lot about what it was like i said well live television is death it was such a high wire act it's an aerialist with no net it's wonderful and people feel that [Music] this is so silly what you're doing there you'll ruin the whole show it only it only lasts a half hour everything that we did was live and i love that because if something goes wrong your ability to correct it is part of the show lucille you gonna have it there and you look at the way he's laughing he should buy a ticket they seemed happy and they were on the rare occasions that brought them together but they led separate lives lucille i'm sure all your fans are aware that in private life you're mrs desi arnaz and i'd like to know this with all the working you've both been doing who catches up with whom and how it's practically topic a in our lives we never write i start to every now and then i get halfway through a 14-page letter and i get so lonesome i just have to talk to him every now and then i hear about you two looking for a broadway play to do together oh we're always looking so far no luck it's easy to find things that separate us but we're trying to find ways of staying together one phone call changed everything cbs approached lucille with the idea of turning my favorite husband into a television show co-starring her radio husband richard denning and in response lucille took the greatest risk of her life she said yes but only if desi were cast in the role of her television husband i think the executives at cbs basically loathed desi arnaz he was always referred to as the bongo player and nobody even remembered his name at the beginning and we kind of said desi who doing baba what well brand new to us well i'm afraid the network said well they said well they'll never believe you're married to a cuban band leader and and lucy said well i am very very cute leader and she persevered if cbs thought that lucille ball was going to cave in without a fight they picked the wrong redhead she and desi decided to plead their case in public we wrote a vaudeville sketch for them to see how they would be accepted two different cities new york frisco chicago i think and they appeared in the vaudeville show opposite each other exactly as they later did on television she was marvelous of course in it we did the routine where lucy plays a clown who plays a cello and tries to get into his act which became the basis of the pilot that we did on television tell me something do you play that thing who's that i say do you play that thing what's in [Music] never mind making fun of my english it's english do you play do you play that instrument where there right there there you brought up here right there there said i don't want to do it without him so if there's no desi then there's no me and they needed her more than they didn't want dizzy i'll help you with it too it only took one week for the advertisers and the network to fall very much into line it was not the berlin wall at all they were they were the masters of their own destiny immediately [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] the night i loved lucy was on the air for the first time we invited the cast to our house so we could all watch it together we were all very quiet except for vivian's husband and he was the only one that had never seen the script never had heard much about it and he just laughed so hard all the way through just laugh laugh laugh and we thought maybe maybe we had a chance for a hit would you marry sandy boy it's not that i'm sorry wait a minute come on kiss me please right now [Applause] oh boy i was an executive at nbc and we had all the top shows on the air desi and lucy were the competition i watched the show that night to be sure that we would retain our leadership by 9 30 on a monday night uh i knew my job was in jeopardy i i must say uh mr ricardo i hope this being late isn't the habit with you i like punctuality in the people who work for me oh yes i know this was just an accident well i hope it was she's so funny you could hear that phrase uttered in america on tuesday morning on commuter trains up in ghetto areas park avenue it wouldn't make much difference everybody knew the next morning that part of the conversation would be devoted to the show last night they always referred to see the show last night you didn't say did you see desi and lucy you said did you see the show come here are you tired of paying high prices are you interested in a little high-class beef do you want a bargain tell you what i'm gonna do there's no doubt that lucille ball created a whole new audience for watching television i got sirloin tenderloin t-bone rump pot roast chuck roast oxtail stump and television in turn gave her that venue gave her that format television was her medium and really nothing else was it took television which required all her talents her wonderful expressions her physical gifts to really bring her to flower the movie she did did not do that that she didn't have that they didn't give it to her so she went out and got it [Music] i tell you what you have to do you have to take a whole tablespoonful after every meal when lucille finds lucy she discovers the character she has been waiting for all her life five meter regimen contains vitamins and meats and vegetables and minerals week after week lucille invents and refines maya much to her delight and ours she finds herself nick i don't think there's anything up there really i don't they look like i saw it no one had ever seen anything like lucille ball on television or anywhere else there was a lady that was a little crazy and it was okay [Laughter] physical comedy goes across every border people can laugh at that even if they don't understand what you're saying the aliens will get a kick out of lucy [Music] we were very close socially and that was when she called me says how'd you like to do one of lucy's well who would turn that down the van johnson episode lucy has told one of her new york friends that she knows all these stars and happens that van johnson is sleeping at the swimming pool at her hotel at the moment so lucy goes down and in a brilliant bit of physical comedy mimes an entire conversation with the sleeping van johnson and lucy does this silent you know gesturing eye rolling laughing routine who could escape those big baby blues and that voice and their timing and those takes well she wrote the book she was so true to that character that he just schemed right along with her you wanted her make it she took you on some kind of a wild journey over those 22 minutes i couldn't wait to see what else she was gonna cook up you know um carolyn van and i have gotten very chummy yes as a matter of fact he asked me to uh rehearse with him this afternoon what what yeah and um you know carolyn if you promised to be very quiet i could have ethel sneak you in the back of the ballroom and you could watch the rehearsal oh lucy lucy ricardo always had something up her sleeve where she wanted to be a winner and everybody in the world struggles and lucy was a struggler you please couldn't i just do a few steps with you i'm sorry that's out of the question oh please be totally grateful i'll i'll go see your next picture three times i'll name my next child after you if i have one if i don't know i'll change the name of the one i already have even though it was off the wall we were laughing and yet identifying [Music] you know i loved when she finally got to dance with van johnson and it was so beautiful and you really saw that she really was unbelievably talented incredibly gorgeous [Music] and she goes into the dressing room and she's like she does this and it's so real and it's so honest and it's so beautiful and i was you know a child watching it and wanting to be an actress and wanting to be lucy and wanting to be a star and you know everything i wanted to be married to a handsome husband like ricky but in that moment it you know made me realize you know what a star she was i loved her i love lucille when you think of the talent that's there and the talent that comes across when we start to roll the cameras boy she puts a strength in there that no one can touch lucy didn't like to see the script till the first reading she wanted to see it fresh we wrote everything out in the script bit by bit business of business but this is not to say that she didn't ad oh yeah incredibly i think lucy and the writers worked very well together she accepted what they brought down added to it it was marvelous to watch how her head worked because she just always came up with something funnier the foreman leaves lucy and lucy sits down in front of another woman in front of the big who's sitting in front of a big chocolate puddle this is the room where they dip the chocolates lucy watches what the other woman is doing for a moment then plunges in with all the vitality and glee of a child making mud pies she plops her hands up and down and squishes the chocolate through her fingers she picks up one of the cream centers this should be a little fragile shell that looks like the other cream center will crumble into nothing she picks up some chocolate rubs her hands and can't find the cream center it has disappeared this time lucy's not taking any chances she scoops three or four of the centers together rolls them up into a big ball that she finally deposits on the tray and attempts to make a big flourish with the dripping [Music] you give that script to somebody else it ain't gonna be that funny it's the way she did it it's the way she looked it's the way she reacted you can't write that you can delegate and say okay wouldn't this be funny if but the if is a big thing the if was if we had lucille ball making it i had to prance around in the vat like this with her and she was doing all that so i made a dance out of it like this yeah and finally i slipped and uh in slipping i hit her and she took offense and so she hauled off and let me have [Applause] now this was this was supposed to happen that she got right now she had been told that we were to stay down for a while give me a chance to get my legs way up so that they'd show in the camera then up would come in arm and then was supposed to have my head was supposed to put well my head never popped up she kept me down by the throat and i had grapes up my nose in my ears and she was choking me and i'm really beating her to get her off but she was killing me and somebody had to come in and say look let her up a bench we had to get on with the senior oh you went down we went again [Laughter] [Music] sometimes we would get an idea for a lucy routine and we say well how we get her there there one night in hollywood madeline coming from some place stopped in front of a window at michelle's italian restaurant and there was a man flinging the pizza up in the air did he get here we said hey let's get loose she went by and it was in the window and of course being her she knew how to do it in about five minutes so we said now we're gonna do this [Applause] wow what do you think you're doing [Music] lucy was a wonderful study she loved to rehearse and she would go over and over those physical routines so they looked like they just happened [Applause] [Applause] uh she was marvelous and a marvelous actress and you couldn't do what she did without being a marvelous actress she made ridiculous things seem almost possible you know some actors will say well i don't know if i want to get clay all over my face or i don't know if i want to black out my teeth she couldn't wait she didn't mind looking funny as long as she was funny there just wasn't anybody on television doing this really broad comedy and certainly nobody lovely looking [Applause] it was always the guys and along came this woman beautiful woman who was just as funny as they were it was the guys go all the way back to vaudeville it was always the guys women were allowed to kick up their legs in scandi panty chorus lines the few who escaped that fate did so as comic types the mostly male audience didn't find too threatening you could be ugly too fat too thin homely as a fence dumb was okay you could regress to childhood or fulfill a male fantasy as an aggressive seductress with a razor sharp whip goodness what beautiful diamond goodness i have nothing to do with it deary there weren't a lot of female role models for someone like lucille bald she had to look to the male comics [Music] she loved chaplin and saw in his character a sympathetic personality a bumbling underdog like lucy ricardo one the audience always roots for [Music] and in harpo marks she found the ideal inspiration for her own nearly perfect blend of schemer and clown and then there was buster buster keaton was an old friend of hers and he said always know your props which i'm sure he believed because he did a lot of dangerous things [Music] buster keaton taught her to take comedy seriously [Applause] she wasn't a stunt person she was just excellent with props keaton did teach her the importance of props and that her props were her tools she really had to treat them as treasures [Music] anything wrong mrs ricardo my nose [Applause] itches this california sun certainly makes your skin soft i love lucy had vividness of character it was four people you knew them very well and i was absolutely captivated by everything they did together it was a magic combination where you've got the perfect people for the perfect parts what's the matter don't ask me fred and lucy's acting crazy crazy for lucy or crazy for ordinary people william frawley was fred mertz fred mertz was william frawley the writers took from his life his iras ability they took bill frawley for basement what do you want you've got the boat you wear pants you know vivian didn't like being bill's wife she wanted to be more glamorous she wanted a younger more appealing husband but the audience liked what they saw within vivian was a perfect foil for lucy they played together beautifully they had a real friendship and it made it so much funnier oh this could only happen to you they would get mad at each other or something good [Music] thanks for the morning [Music] don't let foolish pride keep you apart [Music] and then they would feel terrible and cry and make up they laughing yeah ricky you know what funny thing happened to me on the way to the theater tonight what and trump came up to me in the street and he said he hadn't had a fight in weeks what'd you do that's he was a marvelous straight man and he was very funny [Music] we're very happy that she married a man with an accent gave us a lot of great stuff there is something here that is explaining what needs planning more than just her co-star desi arnez proved to be an innovative producer we go down the set madden would tell just say the story for four weeks from now he said pretty good kids maybe the middle needs fix we said look at these tricks he was always right desi had a wonderful quality in that when you said to him it can't be done he'd say why not and then somebody would say well it's never been done and he'd say well why not lucille would never have succeeded the way that she did without desi i have to admire him for having the knowledge of being able to put this thing together technically financially emotionally and make it work and he's the guy that made it work the bongo player turned out to be a television pioneer desi arnez led a formidable team and week by week they invented from whole cloth the wheel of situation comedy performed like a play in front of a live audience with three cameras rolling it was a format so successful it is still in use today and if that wasn't enough they also took us to a place where television had never gone before [Music] at that time situation comedy still had married people sleeping in twin beds with the lamp between them you always had to believe that there was immaculate conception for any of the children you could never use the word pregnant you'd say expecting and fabulous childhood that's the way television was [Music] that's the way tv was when in 1952 lucille found herself pregnant with her second child common practice in hollywood was to fire an actress if she got pregnant at first lucille and desi presumed they would have to walk away from the show the sponsors weren't too thrilled with this and they said well maybe you can do a few shows or you can have her stand behind the chairs and not show she's pregnant but uh lucy insisted on doing it she wanted to do pregnancy stories and she won that fine oh isn't this wonderful listen to this dear mr ricardo my husband and i are going to have a blessed event i just found out about it today and i haven't told him yet i heard you sing a number called we're having a baby my baby and me if you will sing it for us now it will be my way of breaking the news to him isn't that wonderful of course i'll do it for you sure am i oh wait a minute i got a wonderful idea why don't we bring the couple up here and i'll sing it right to them man come on let's bring him up on the floor [Applause] when the wind blows the cradle will rock no when the bow breaks the cradle lucille ball was the first pregnant woman to be broadcast into people's homes it was a brilliant thing people felt like they were participating in the creation of this family life and they were high honey on the treetops when the wind blows the cradle will fall when the bow breaks the cradle will fall [Music] honey no really why didn't you tell me why you didn't give me a chance you can it's me [Music] [Applause] we're having a baby my baby and me the audience was in tears it was terribly emotional it really was i get a little you know weepy just thinking about it because that show really pulled on the heartstrings and it struck a chord of humanness and true love we're having a baby my baby and me i love lucy and she loves me we're as happy as stu can be [Music] sometimes we quarrel but then how would love make it up again i really think that one of those contributing things to the show was that lucy and desi really loved each other and i think you can see that in this show wasn't the only one who loved lucy america was head over heels at 42 lucille ball was ready to have her baby and the whole country was watching [Music] how do you feel are you sure you're all right i think we ought to have a rehearsal a rehearsal for what every rehearsal for when you get the signal everything should go like clockwork i don't want to lose a minute getting you to the hospital that's a wonderful idea right now ricky ricky i was in a show called wonderful town and we had a television set in the back for when lucy had the baby and the entire evening everybody was running back is it there is we were all so involved in this i felt as though we were all part of it another maternity case coming in more people watched the birth episode than had watched any single television program lucille ball had her baby the same day the birth episode aired the next day dwight d eisenhower was inaugurated but on january 20th 1953 lucy's baby was the top story of the day the country likes ike but they love lucy when he was born and it was announced they got warehouses full of presents she had never felt that feedback from people before in her whole career and she'd worked very long by this point and worked very hard i think she always thought she might be appreciated but i don't think lucy ever thought that everybody would love her they loved her because they identified with her so while the ricardo's and the harnesses were having babies the rest of the country was energetically engaged in the same activity the baby boom was on the ricardo's and the 50s were a good fit just as international travel was becoming affordable to the middle class the ricardo's and the merchants head for paris they were doing what we were doing but their disasters seemed like a lot more fun than the rest of ours the avalanche of consumerism that followed world war ii echoed in the i love lucy scripts it won't cross this ascent ricky look it says right here this freezer pays for itself oh well let me see hey maybe we ought to get one really sure as soon as he gets through paying for itself tell it to give us a call and come over they bought we bought they sold we bought some more you could model your life after the ricardo's you could dress like them smoke their brand even remodel your house like theirs [Music] by the time the ricardo's moved to the suburbs the great suburban migration was well underway but lucy ricardo was not exactly your typical suburban housewife [Music] she was by no means a june cleaver because she was not happy sending him out to work with a paper bag filled with lunch that she prepared and tidy up the house and make it all ready for him when he gets home that wasn't what she was about the minute he left she started scheming with ethel how she can get her way and do what she wanted to do i think lucy ricardo was less a feminist than an argument for why women needed feminists introducing petunia ricardo what she had was just an insane desire to be noticed [Music] lucy demonstrated how much energy how much ambition was being wasted by the early 50s ethos that women should be in the kitchen [Music] well well you'll do for the comic but who am i gonna get for the ballet dancer [Music] oh ricky you're mean look honey you are not serious about this are you i am too here i am with all this talent bottled up inside of me and you're always sitting on the cork now lucy i'm gonna get in that job it's the last thing i do [Music] [Music] lucy wanted to be in show business more than anything she just worked her way in every time i mean it drove him insane but there was no stopping her nothing i'm fine lucy ricardo yearned for a life in show business and was spectacularly unsuccessful but lucille ball well now that's a redhead of a completely different color and the color was money by 1953 i love lucy was the highest rated show on television on the air two years it won two emmys the sponsor in the network expressed their gratitude by renewing the show for an unprecedented eight million dollars lucille even made the cover of time magazine [Applause] [Music] when their peers honored them on an ed sullivan special the entire country witnessed their gratitude thank you very very much ladies and gentlemen you know i think if it would have been for lucy i would have stopped trying a long time ago because we came to this country and we didn't have a cent in our pockets from cleaning canary cages to this night here in new york it's a long ways and i don't think there's any other country in the world that could give you that opportunity i want to say thank you thank you america thank you but america in the 1950s had a less generous side i can remember opening the paper and reading the headline that said lucille ball is a communist i'm surprised that not one person stood up and said hold it lucille balls going to attack us come on i would not employ any proven or admitted communists because they're just the entertainment industry was an easy target for mccarthy's red baiters fear and paranoia swept through hollywood and lucille was caught up in the wave of accusations grandpa was very involved with the workers and he wanted us to register communist we want to accommodate grandpa so we did we went down a registered communist period well the week that mentioned that lucy was a member of the communist party was quite a shock to everybody like oh here it goes the show's open yeah we thought the show might happen because people's careers were ruined in those days by things like this she was on the brink of losing everything just like that [Applause] lucille ball had to go out this accused communists before people dangerous thing was what would happen with an audience we really didn't know we had no way of knowing we had this commotion going on there was rain close men standing around in the audience she was scared to death desi arnaz tried to find out if cbs was going to support them and he couldn't get anybody to answer it was kind of tense and that night at the show destiny came out and told everybody what had happened and hoped that everybody would stick with them he said you all know about lucy being called communists ladies and gentlemen i know you all been reading the papers today but up till now you only read what other people have said about lucy lucy had never been a communist not now and never will be i was kicked out of cuba because of communism we despise everything about it and now i want you to meet my favorite wife my favorite redhead in fact that's the only thing read about her and even that's not legitimate lucille ball and then she comes out and here she comes through that curtain she runs one end of the stage and vows and she runs the other way and vows they can't get enough of her finally i can relax lucille survived the storm that swamped a lot of smaller boats she continued to dominate the television landscape and hollywood lined up to be part of her parade [Applause] it's just something happens to her when she gets close to a movie star you know that story about her throwing pie on hold and the brown derby yeah that's the one i heard true and also the thing about she is sneaking into cornell's wild world i heard about it that's true as a matter of fact she wanted to join us in our luncheon today [Music] don't worry about it she's not within 10 miles of here all right cap i'll take it from here richard widmark was just one of the major stars who did a turn on i love lucy lucille's dance card also included rock hudson aren't you mrs ricky ricardo charles boyer [Music] john wayne [Music] even superman flew in for an appearance tell me when you're flying around do you have case trouble but then i've had a lot more flying time than you had [Music] there you are come on in here i want an explanation okay come on in here right now can you teach me to fly nothing of all the crazy things that you've done in the fifteen years of whipping my resistance you mean to say that you've been married to her for 15 years yeah 15 years and they call me superman 15 years was a long time for the ricardo's and for the arnessas but when your marriage is a public institution keeping up appearances goes with the territory the public really believed that they knew them and knew their personal life desi lou had an amazing publicity machine they were able to convey a very strong sense of what the arnez ball marriage was like in quote unquote real life lucille and desi encouraged that familiarity the idea that their real marriage was as happy as their tv marriage but it wasn't lucille continued to hope that working together could save their marriage but maybe it wasn't a realistic hope being a a happily married couple or in television and then being unhappily married at home was a strange paradox it it helped to go to work if you know what i mean it helped every morning to have to get up and go to work [Music] once we were on the set it was a happy marriage [Music] lucille ball i think always idealized the wife i think the the wife was a capital w was something that was very meaningful to her in fantasy but that she never really tried to be in reality she loved her family but i'm not sure lucy was ever that honest to herself about about where family fit in i think she dreamed that she and desi arnaz would have a simple little domestic life and she would cook and take care of the babies but but then all of her actions proved that her real desire the real burning desire in her was for something very different [Music] she was born with a drive a mental attitude to move forward to succeed i think it comes from the genes her father her mother her grandfather she adored her father a tall handsome man who bequeathed her his sense of humor before surrendering to typhoid fever he had little else to give and the family was left poor and broken little lucille was three shuffled from relative to relative it was a childhood torn asunder grandpa brought us up and we all worked all of the time and then we had chickens and pigeons and pigs and you know lucy kept track of the house and all the cleaning and some of the cooking and so forth bossy she was in charge she was but i accepted that lucille was compelled to take charge her mother was constantly pulled away from the family in jamestown new york in order to support them we never called her mother or mom [Music] the bond between mother and daughter was unusual and unusually strong more like sisters they remained close their entire lives dede didn't have total control over lucille d.d did have confidence in lucille's ambition it was faith well-placed and lucille rewarded dee dee's confidence as soon as she got her foot in the hollywood door she sent for the whole clan there on north ogden drive she reunited the fractured family of her childhood it was a pattern she repeated again and again lucille and desi were determined to run desi lou as a family business even when the family was more than 800 strong [Music] desi look picnics people did have a good time you'd bring your kids and they'd have lots of food and they'd have games and you'd have three-legged races and all that kind of stuff little dessie and little lucy grew up as part of that larger family loyalty came easily to desi and lucille and generosity too everybody was involved everybody was included it was come in and join the family that's the way lucille felt that's the way she talked this way desi felt and talked family you know we're all family i move that we dedicate the next number to our wonderful friendships here we go ah now they have all right [Music] it's no surprise that their television show radiated that same sense of family a sense that friendships have value we watch those relationships deepen and in the alchemy that is television they became part of our family too but what flowed so effortlessly into our living rooms was actually the result of a lot of effort the pleasure they gave us was for them an exhausting struggle [Music] from the little radio family that created my favorite husband they had grown into a factory that employed hundreds of people shot miles of film and produced dozens of other tv shows i think they were happier before they became stars i think that grind got to them and desi had a problem desi's uh extracurricular activities in a small town like hollywood or beverly hills weren't the best kept secret in the world he was a notorious womanizer and he was a pretty good drinker and he brought a great shadow over her life and depressed her a great deal the lucy desi comedy hour on march 2nd 1960 the i love lucy creative family gathered for the last time the show featured ernie kovacs and his wife the popular singer edie adams who was asked to bring a song i remember choosing the song very carefully it was a very favorite of ernie's and mine i didn't think anything of it at the time but then when we went in to rehearse it was obvious that things were not all well with desi and lucy they weren't speaking just weren't speaking to each other desi would say would you tell miss ball to stand over by the and say would you tell mr arnez that i can't stay and oh i thought oh we're in for a bumpy ride everybody wanted to just get through it get it done get it in the can it was a big cloud over the whole set and everybody was on edge when i sang the song it was i can only give you love that lasts forever and the promise of a dream i can't recall and i love whose burning light will shine the winter's night that's all that's all i can only give you country walks in springtime country walks in springtime and a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall [Music] and a love [Music] that's all it's a poem a poem to love and in my near-sighted eyes i thought everybody was crying and i thought oh my what have i done i picked this song and everybody is crying everybody i just inadvertently picked maybe the most uh inappropriate song for that day say it's me that you adore for now [Music] i love you yes [Music] we knew for a long time it wasn't going to work and uh is our family you know our family we were a family we went on picnics together and wonderful things you know and we just couldn't believe that they were so strong together as lovers and that they would allow it to happen to all of us i don't believe i heard until the very next day that she had indeed filed for divorce and absolutely going through with it it was at the end of an era in television that i don't think we'll see again [Music] it lasted nearly 20 years lucille ball's marriage to desi arnaz and when it was over lucille once again revealed her survival skills she carried on alone she was not the kind of a person to ever say this is the end i'm satisfied and i've done it all and there's nothing more to be accomplished she was not any person that would ever give up never she came back and hard work as always was a cure for practically everything i think she wanted to come back because she loved the work when cbs learned that lucy wanted to return there was no joy and screaming and hollering that we've got her back we've got our lucy back you really say to yourself not it won't work this time [Music] if you're lucille ball a little network skepticism is a minor deterrent steamrolling over all objections she got her new show on the air i never heard a glue like this now come on lucy yeah come on get me around this is come on get me here okay now ugh [Music] i played harry connors her friend next door so i would open each sequence and close it you know i would say now i've got to go to pittsburgh don't get in any trouble and i'd leave then she and viv of course of course would uh get stuck to the wall and uh i would come back and in the last act and say uh that's another fine mess [Music] [Applause] [Music] what happened here what what what's it called all doing here [Music] my character didn't continue because they didn't need me anymore they found their nugget that they needed with the two of them do you think we could squeeze out was wise to keep vivian vance around in some ways that relationship gets almost deeper in the second show with the absence of ricky and fred how can you even talk about a drink of water after always swallowed in that shower well i can't help it apparently drinking water makes me thirsty do you really see a years-long female friendship a real mutual understanding that you almost never see on tv lucy i want to tell you something this is absolutely the last time i slip into my coveralls to be an apprentice on one of your dreadful little projects [Applause] but it wasn't the last time or even the second to the last time before vivian took her last bow with lucy they completed a circle of friendship that stretched over 25 years and almost 300 television shows was the lucy show as good as the desi lucy show no but within just a few weeks the ratings were so high she proved us all wrong she proved she was the superstar and she picked up exactly where she left off at 8 30 monday night in a way that dumbfounded us all well don't be embarrassed i do it all the time i'm gonna have to put in a ski lift [Music] harvey's going to love you baby yeah but you better let me carry you [Music] she always called me kid because she was 22 years older so i was kid and she said you know kid i used to come in and just do lucy and i'd be everything would be perfect i didn't have to do anything but be lucy and she said and then we separated and i had to go in on a monday and i looked at the script and it wasn't right she said and i realized i had to be strong and be what desi was or i would sink well we never we've not always had the problem of not being able to run our cameras in closer but what which causes the shadows she wanted total control over every single thing that was done from the mic man the boom man the lights every writing thing who did the hair excuse me i just saw something what camera is he working in now with that over here that's what i thought over there and that ain't right she definitely was tough um but i mean that in the good sense of the word two and a half years after their divorce lucille bought desi shares of their company at 51 she presided over desilu's 35 sound stages 50 acres of land hundreds of offices and 1700 employees i would like to welcome each of you to this annual meeting of stockholders and i hope that your visit with us today will be both informative and enjoyable when you think of that this is lucy ricardo i mean you visualize the same actress who presents yourself with such a goofball is running this giant company lucille ball was the first female head of a studio and i will tell you she made two very brave decisions one was mission impossible and the other was star trek lucy said all right go ahead and make them lou became one of the best business persons in town she ran that place and she ran it with an iron fist and i guess you have to be a little crusty a lot of people were taken aback because she was a woman she opened those doors for women to be accepted as executives you know lucy did it so why couldn't i you have this image of being a a strong-minded businesswoman as you probably know just an image head of a corporation and i i picture you sitting at the head of a table saying uh you're not pulling your weight fatso out of here and uh i'd like a lot of crying before i do i like to think of you that way for some reason oh you do not that contrasts between no you do not you know i'm not like that at all if i whenever i've had to fire someone i have many sleepless nights and i and i have many times cried lucy was not comfortable being perceived as a woman with real power if she was interviewed as the president of desi lou she would dust the tables while she was being interviewed to show that she was a real gal too i don't think lucy ever wanted that kind of responsibility she didn't like to get up in the morning and have to worry about a stockholders meeting that she was going to have to talk to at lunch she could do it but that's not what she wanted to do she wanted to be performing [Applause] and perform she did taking her lucy character for yet another spin i want you to meet the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me in my life ladies and gentlemen the star of here's lucy miss lucille [Applause] she married gary morton and once again established a family business now gary does the warm-ups and she cast her real children as her tv co-stars we have a lot of good friends in the audience tonight and we have a real big show for you so let's get on with it huh okay okay i almost hate to say it but i think what's missing from here's lucy was ricky without having a co-combatant each show seemed to become just a pretext for comedy bits you know i tell you what burns me up the most being replaced by a computer a machine but there's one constellation people have one advantage over computers we think we know what we're doing [Music] the comedy bits were very well done she continued to have her timing and her ability to do slapstick for a long time she still could be funny but she simply didn't have the focal point the thing that gives the stories real suspense lucy at that point was totally into work for work's sake and not for creating something wonderful she was going by road the scripts were bad and no enthusiasm to do it i think in the end lucy just gave up too i saw her a lot on television and i thought oh she's she's changed [Music] at the age of 75 lucille starred in a fourth attempt to revive her beloved character she was canceled after eight episodes on the final series she was a grandmother but she still had to behave the way she had when she was lucy in the first year and it just didn't go had a party for the cast after the last show it was in a house that had no furniture in it and lucy was a little late she was very serious just kept wandering around to various rooms and looked so sad i just thought it was an omen of what was coming or what had come which was the end of her career [Music] the same year her career ended desi died lucille spoke with him on what would have been their 46th wedding anniversary two days later he was gone as i look back i do not believe that desi ever really left her life there was such a bond between them it would never be broken tv guide says the face of lucille ball has been seen by more people than the face of any human being who ever lived she reigned as the first lady of television for 35 years all she wanted to do was work as an actress and all the public would ever buy her in was lucy and then it came that they wouldn't buy her as lucy and then that was the tragedy of her life i remember seeing her at some charity event and she came on and she said my name is lucy old ball and everybody applauded and she said i used to be on television she didn't have a good happy ending really i don't think i don't think so she never missed sending me flowers on my birthday and she was in the hospital that week and everybody was expecting her to be released i got up the next morning and i turned on the morning news and there was she died on my birthday [Music] and that afternoon her flowers arrived for me [Music] my funny valentines sweet comic valentine you make me smile with my heart [Music] your looks are laughable [Music] unphotographable yet you're my favorite work of art [Music] is your figure less than greek is your mouth a little weak when you open it to speak are you smart [Music] don't change a hair for me [Music] not if you care for me [Music] stay little valentine's day each day [Music] lucille's journey was her valentine to us most of us thanked her with our laughter diane sawyer thanked lucy with these words i can't remember a thing about my real life compared to what i remember about the ricardo's i can remember where every stick of furniture was in their apartment how come we always get sucked into lucy's wild schemes because we're a couple of schnooks that's why it may be that during business hours god and the angels sit around watching six hour documentaries but in the back family room they're watching i love lucy you don't have to lose what being married to you is not easy no but it sure is a lot of fun i believe there's laughter in heaven because lucille ball is there [Music]

Channel: M.B. Archives

Views: 1,123,741

Keywords: i love lucy, lucille ball, lucy and desi, desi arnaz, ricky ricardo, television, classic, vintage, nostalgia, hollywood, old

Id: ZS_j5SSSaNc

Length: 83min 21sec (5001 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2020