I Love Lucy: Discovering America’s Best-Loved Sitcom
(
Running from 1951 to 1957 and in syndication for more t...)
Running from 1951 to 1957 and in syndication for more than fifty years, I Love Lucy has a permanent place in the hearts of American television-watchers and has reached multiple generations of viewers. Based on the humorous antics of a New York City housewife, her Cuban bandleader husband, and their landlord best friends, I Love Lucy was not only wildly popular but also groundbreaking for its filming techniques, for its use of a live audience, and for being the first television show to air reruns.
INSIDE I LOVE LUCY:
The beginnings of the show as well as what made it so popular and why modern sitcoms still base their shows on Lucy’s format
I Love Lucy’s main characters, the Ricardos and the Mertzes, best friends and neighbors known to get themselves into amusing predicaments
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaztheir real-life romance and individual careers
How the show was the first to use a three-camera setup and one of the first to be produced on film
Big-name guest stars, including John Wayne, Rock Hudson, and Harpo Marx
A list of the show’s top ten favorite episodes
Vivian Vance was an American comedy actress and singer.
Background
Vivian Vance was born Vivian Roberta Jones in Cherryvale, Kansas on July 26, 1909. She was one of six children of Robert Jones and Mae Ragan. Soon after her birth, the family moved to Independence, Kansas. The family subsequently settled in Albuquerque, N. Mex. , where Vance's talents flowered at the Albuquerque Little Theatre.
Education
In Kansas Vance later studied drama with William Inge. Her dramatics teacher, Vance Randolph, helped her not only with technique but also with her stage name. The directors of the theater group were so impressed with Vance's acting that they took up a collection to send her to New York City to study with Eva Le Gallienne. Upon her arrival in Manhattan in 1932, Vance was disappointed to learn that the school was overenrolled, so she lost thirty-four pounds and started auditioning on her own.
Career
Vance was hired her first time out, for the Broadway show Music in the Air. In her spare time, she sang at the Biltmore Roof, the Club Simplon, and other nightclubs, developing an impressive following. Two years later, when Music in the Air closed, Vance became the understudy for Ethel Merman, the star of Anything Goes. Vance's Broadway break came in 1937 with Hooray for What! when the star left before opening night. In 1941, she starred in Let's Face It on Broadway, with Danny Kaye and Eve Arden, for an eighty-five-week run. Vance and her troupe were among the first entertainers sent to the European Theater during World War II, traveling from North Africa to Italy.
In 1945, after the war, she went to Chicago to take the leading role in The Voice of the Turtle. During this run Vance suffered a nervous breakdown. "One day I was up and about, " she recalled, "the next I was lying in bed in my hotel room, my hands shaking helplessly weeping hysterically from causes I didn't know. " The breakdown left her incapacitated for two years, and she retired to her ranch in Cubero, N. Mex. In 1951, Mel Ferrer called Vance to reprise her role as the "other woman" in The Voice of the Turtle at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, Calif. At first she refused the offer, associating the play with her breakdown. But Ferrer was insistent, and Vance finally agreed. On July 28, 1951, Desi Arnaz, writer Jess Oppenheimer, and Vance's friend director Marc Daniels drove to the La Jolla Playhouse to audition Vance for the role of Ethel Mertz, Lucy's neighbor on the new television show "I Love Lucy. "
Many actresses had already read for the part and been rejected. Hiring was difficult because William Frawley had been cast as Fred Mertz. The actress had to look as if she could be married to Frawley (who was sixty-four years old), yet not be so old that she could not realistically be involved in Lucy's shenanigans.
Vance became active in the Connecticut Association for Mental Health. Early in 1962, Lucille Ball came east for a visit and handed Vance a script for a new series, to be called "The Lucy Show. " "Lucy, don't take it out, " Vance said, "I won't read it. " Six months later, Vance was in Hollywood taping the show. "I don't believe I'd have started the show without Vivian, " Ball said. Vance left the cast after three years, citing difficulties commuting from one coast to another, but every year she returned to California to guest-star in Lucy's shows.
In 1974, the Doddses moved to Belvedere, Calif. , near San Francisco. Vance died there five years later.
(
Running from 1951 to 1957 and in syndication for more t...)
Views
Quotations:
"I don't want to be a star - most of the ones I know are too unhappy. "
"At one point, Lucille's agent wanted to have me fired, telling her that my eyes were bigger than hers. When I head this, I told her that if I had her looks and talent, I'd keep me and fire the agent!"
"When I die, there will be people who send flowers to Ethel Mertz. "
"I loathed William Frawley and the feeling was mutual. Whenever I received a new script, I raced through it, praying that there wouldn’t be a scene where we had to be in bed together. "
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Of her performance in The Voice of the Turtle, a Los Angeles Times critic wrote: "Miss Vance is excellent as the thick-skinned but essentially tenderhearted actress. "
Connections
Vance's first husband was Joseph Shearer Danneck, Jr. They married in 1928 but soon divorced 1931. During the summer of 1941, Vance met and married actor Philip Ober; they had no children. In March 1959, Ober sued for divorce. That same summer, Vance met John Dodds, a literary agent seven years her junior. They were marriedon January 16, 1961, and moved into a 125-year-old white colonial in suburban Stamford, Connecticut.