#Clay Gowran

[papermoonloveslucy]

TALKING SHOP

June 25, 1967

ON CAMERA, LUCILLE BALL is the funniest female in America. They gave her a second Emmy early this month to attest to the fact. 

With the cameras turned off, she is an interesting combination of several people - hard-headed business woman, mother concerned and even outraged at some of the things being done to today's children, and talented actress who, happily, does not feel a need to keep reminding everyone around her she is a talented actress. 

The last is an attribute rare among Hollywood's distaff division. 

It was in Hollywood this writer met Miss Ball recently and talked with her at Desilu Productions, formerly the old RKO movie studios. Lucille once worked for RKO for $50 a week; now she is president of Desilu and in the process of selling it - for 17 million dollars. 

I let a tape recorder run while we talked. So, take the stand, Miss Ball. 

Q. You've sold Desilu to Gulf & Western Industries for all those millions. Have you turned over control yet? 

A. No, not yet. We haven't signed, or had the stockholders meeting, but it's coming up, and to all intents and purposes the deal is going thru. 

Q. What are you going to do then? What about next year will there be a Lucy Show on television in 1968-69? [The coming 1967-68 season is the sixth for the program, never out of the Top Ten.] 

A. I don't know. I never know about a next year until it comes. They [CBS-TV officials] always start asking me in December, and I tell them in March, April, or May. 

Q. Then you don't know whether you'll do another year of Lucy Shows after 1967-68, or some other series, or what? 

A. O, I wouldn't do any other series, ever. I may do the Lucy Show again, and I may not. I may just do movies. I really have no idea, not now. 

Q. Don't you ever reach a point where you'd like to put your feet up and not do anything, just loaf, with all that money? 

A. Sure I have a wish to put my feet up, but only because I've earned it and have something to go back to. To put them up forever wouldn't interest me. I can enjoy a vacation because it has an end. 

Q. What is there to stories about you being peeved because CBS is planning to build a show around Doris Day next year? There were reports in gossip columns. 

A. They didn't come from Doris Day or from me, and both of us are embarrassed. The story is true they have asked her to do something, and there apparently was an assumption by someone they were asking her to be available in case I stop. 

Q. But the story is you were angry because they were planning to put so much money into this Doris Day thing, to make it so big? 

A. Those are just lines people put in. I haven't any reason to be peeved, no reason to be anything but embarrassed. It doesn't matter to me, one way or the other, what they do. 

Q. In your biography, provided by your publicity agent, it says that when you were a 15-year-old you enrolled in the John Murray Anderson dramatic school in New York City, and that the first lines you read caused the instructor to "close his eyes in disbelief." Did that happen, and what were the lines? 

A. [Laughing] Something about water and horses, and I said "warter" and "horrrses," and he imitated me and then kind of gave up in disgust. 

Q. After that, you were a chorus girl on Broadway? 

A. [More laughter] Nope, never got in a chorus. I had several jobs, but always got fired before a show opened. 

Q. Why? 

A. I just didn't measure up. I was tall enough and young enough to be a show girl, but I guess I just didn't make any impression. 

A switch in the interview came about here. Lucille asked a question - How far from Chicago is Northwestern University? 

"My daughter Lucie [15 years old] is interested in the drama school there," she explained. "A lot of great people have come from it, so it evidently has a fine way of teaching. I suggested it to Lucie, in fact, so she could be thinking about it, because she is interested in acting." 

WHAT, we wanted to know, did Miss Ball think of the practice of "aiming" shows at the younger generation, of trying to capture such viewers thru sensationalism and sex. 

She had thoughts on the subject, angry ones. Yes, it's being done, she said, and deliberately, in TV. 

"But they are doing it in movies even more, and in books even more, more, more," she said. "I see motion pictures my children have seen, and I tell them, You went to THAT movie - They let you in THAT theater - I don't believe it.'

"Further, I can't believe kids can walk up to a rack in a store and buy the books they can buy today. I just can't believe it, but there the books and magazines are, in any stand all over the country." 

Lucille Ball has been "Lucy" on television for 11 years now, from 1951 to 1957 in the I Love Lucy series, and since 1962 in the Lucy Show. 

Who is Lucy and what is she like? We asked because characters on the home screens seem to develop real personalities of their own. Lucille Ball recognized this in her answer; she talked as tho of a living person, not an image on celluloid. 

"Lucy is very much like I am, I've found, in her sincerity and her enthusiasm, almost childish enthusiasm, and in her exaggerations and disappointments," Lucille said. "And these are the things we play on in the show. 

"We've found thru the years people love Lucy because she gets into predicaments they can understand. And we've found out something else that any man or woman playing opposite Lucy must be careful never to show what looks like real anger towards Lucy, because that will bring the audience down upon them. 

"They must be long suffering in enduring the troubles Lucy causes. If they seem really impatient with our gal, viewers will say - in hundreds of letters - 'My gosh, don't you know Lucy didn't really mean to do that to you?" 

Maybe it's just that Lucille, herself, attracts such sympathy from audiences. Because, back when she was playing the wife on radio's My Favorite Husband, the husband [Richard Denning] also had to be careful not to sound really angry at her on the air. 

"If he did," she giggled, "letters poured in. The ones to him would say, 'How can you treat her that way?' And those to me would announce, 'You should have a more understanding husband.' Poor Richard, he couldn't win." 

It seems possible. We felt mighty friendly, ourself, towards this Lucy, just from talking with her for an hour. 

#   #   #

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

The sale of Desilu went through as anticipated at the end of 1968. Lucy chose to re-invent “The Lucy Show” as “Here’s Lucy” renting space from Paramount and creating her own production company, Lucille Ball Productions.  

The photo included with the article is from “Lucy the Stunt Man” (TLS S4;E5) aired on October 18, 1965.

CBS created a sitcom for Doris Day titled “The Doris Day Show”.  Like Lucy Carmichael and Lucy Carter, Day played a widow with two children living in California.  Like Ball, Day used her own first name for her character, Doris Martin. After one season on Tuesday nights, “The Doris Day Show” moved to Monday’s at 9:30pm, right after “Here’s Lucy” where ratings instantly improved. 

Both shows had a very recognizable cast member in common - Nelson, the sheep dog. Other cast connected to “Lucy” were Kaye Ballard, Jackie Joseph (Ken Berry’s wife), Strother Martin, and Van Johnson. Other actors recognizable to Lucy fans were Mary Wickes, Barbara Pepper, Charles Lane, Jerry Hausner, Ross Elliott, Bobby Jellison, Lou Krugman, Shirley Mitchell, Parley Baer, Madge Blake, and many, many others.