ENDED TV SERIES

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I Love Lucy chronicles the lives of married couple Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) in New York City in the 1950’s.

Lucy is determined to make it in show business. There’s just one problem: she has almost no talent. Her husband Ricky is a Cuban American singer and bandleader whose nerves are stretched to the limit by his wife’s bids to become a star. Ricky often reverts to his mother tongue, Spanish, at moments of stress, talking nineteen to the dozen while gesticulating wildly.

The Ricardos’ best friends and landlords are Fred (William Frawley) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance), former vaudevillians whose history only makes Lucy yearn for stardom even more. Fred fought in World War I and lived through the Great Depression, an experience that’s turned him into a penny-pincher. No-nonsense and sometimes grouchy, Fred is a pushover when it comes to Lucy and Ricky’s son, Little Ricky (Keith Thibodeaux). Ethel is from Albuquerque, New Mexico and a former model. She enjoys reliving her vaudeville days, and Ricky sometimes includes her in his shows. Unlike Lucy, Ethel is a talented singer and dancer.

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Main Cast

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Additional Cast

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Trivia

Believe it or not, on-screen husband and wife William Frawley (Fred Mertz) and Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) hated each other.  So strong was their mutual dislike that when offered a spin-off of I Love Lucy they turned it down.

Lucille Ball’s father died before Lucy turned four years old. Her mother had to work several jobs to make ends meet, and Lucy and her younger brother were raised by their grandparents.

I Love Lucy was the first series ever to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings. The feat was not repeated until The Andy Griffith Show and much later, Seinfeld. Of its six seasons on the air, it was the most watched show in the United States for four.

The “re-run” episodes were Desi Arnaz’s idea to allow Lucille to get some rest during her real-life pregnancy. Some of the episodes from the first season were simply re-aired.

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Though Lucy’s second pregnancy (with Desi Arnaz, Jr.) was written into the show, the network censors would not allow her to use the word “pregnant”. She instead had to say “expecting”.

Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo) is the inventor of many techniques taken for granted when filming sitcoms today, such as performing before a live audience, using several cameras at once, and rerunning old episodes.

A disco version of the I Love Lucy song from the show became a hit single in 1977. It stayed in the pop charts for seven weeks and the dance charts for three months.

In 2013, 62 years after the show’s premiere, CBS aired a color version of its Christmas episode. It attracted more than 8 million viewers.

Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) had a nervous breakdown not long before Desi Arnaz happened to see her in a play at the La Jolla Playhouse. Their first choice for Ethel Mertz was unavailable and he thought she would be perfect for the part.

Lucille Ball entered a dramatic school in New York City as a teenager but was ultimately sent home for being “too quiet”. (Her classmate at the time seemed to get all the rave reviews; her name was Bette Davis.) Later, she did some modeling work for Hattie Carnegie and was chosen to be one of the 20 original “Goldwyn Girls” in 1933. (A Goldwyn Girl was a musical stock company of women dancers who were employed by the famous Samuel Goldwyn and used in movies and musicals. Another one of the original 20 was film legend Betty Grable). She later appeared in the film Roman Scandals.

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I Love Lucy was one of the first television shows to be filmed in Hollywood instead of live in New York City. It pioneered the use of three cameras at the same time, resulting in a high-quality print that could be preserved and watched decades later. It was also the first scripted show to be shot on 35mm film in front of a live studio audience.

After I Love Lucy ended William Frawley went on to appear in the series My Three Sons for 5 years.

Desi Arnaz was instrumental in the development of many TV series, most notably The Untouchables.

Throughout the show’s run many huge Hollywood actors and actresses made guest appearances. The money was small and they usually took part either because they were friends of the stars or simply enjoyed the show. The famous names who appeared included John Wayne, Van Johnson, Hedda Hopper, William Holden, Charles Boyer, Lucie Arnaz, Bob Hope, Orson Welles, Rock Hudson, Dub Taylor, Nancy Kulp, Aaron Spelling, Richard Widmark, Beverly Thompson, Richard Crenna, Mary Wickes, Oliver Blake, Paul Harvey, Claude Akins, Barbara Eden, Bill Erwin, George Reeves, Eve Arden, Edward Everett Horton, Bea Benaderet, Vernon Dent.

In 1940, after being under contract to RKO Radio Pictures for several years, Lucille Ball fell in love with Cuban musician and actor Desi Arnaz.

I Love Lucy was voted #2 in TV Guide’s list of “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time”.

Desi Arnaz wrote a startlingly honest autobiography called The Book which included tales of his infidelity and alcoholism. His intention was to write a sequel called Another Book, but he never got the opportunity.

The episode called “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” in the second season, where Lucy gives birth to Ricky Jr., was the most watched show on television up to that time. In America, 71.7% of all TV sets were tuned in to that episode, more than watched the coverage of the inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower the next morning. Even in the decades since, that record of 71.7% has been beaten only once; on September 9, 1956, when Elvis Presley appeared for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show and won an audience share of 82.6%.

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I Love Lucy was based partly on a radio comedy series starring Lucille Ball called My Favorite Husband in which Dick Denning played her spouse. When they decided to take the series to television, it was Ball who suggested that her real life husband Desi Arnaz take his place.

Parts of the actors’ real lives were made into character back stories. Here are a few examples: both Lucille Ball and Lucy Ricardo were born in Jamestown, New York and went to Celeron High School, coming to Manhattan when only young. Like Ricky Ricardo, Desi Arnaz was from Cuba and led his own Latin America band. Both Vivian Vance and Ethel Mertz came from Albuquerque, New Mexico and started their showbiz careers at the Albuquerque Little Theater. William Frawley’s childhood on a Mid-West farm and career as a vaudevillian were shared by Fred Mertz. And when Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz got married they decided to elope to Connecticut, just as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo did.

Vivian Vance was married four times.

Lucille Ball was the first woman ever to own her own studio as head of DesiLu Productions.

Quick costume changes are a fact of life when you’re filming a live television show. If you look closely at Lucy and Ricky’s feet when they’re getting out of bed, you will sometimes notice Desi Arnaz wearing black dress socks with his pajamas, and the reinforced toes and heels of Lucille Ball’s nylons.

Jane Fonda claimed during an interview with Barbara Walters that her father, Henry Fonda, was deeply in love with Lucille Ball and that the two were “very close” during the making of the film Yours, Mine and Ours.

Alcoholism had nearly put paid to William Frawley’s career left by the time I Love Lucy was about to start shooting. Since Arnaz’s first choice for the part of Fred Mertz was unavailable, Frawley started campaigning heavily for the role. Arnaz agreed to consider him on the condition that he was never to show up at work drunk and that if he did he would not just be fired but blacklisted throughout the entire entertainment industry. Frawley agreed and never broke his word. Arnaz became one his very few close friends and on Frawley’s death he took out a full-page advertisement in the trade papers with a picture of him and the words “Buenas noches, amigo!”

I Love Lucy has never stopped airing on television since its premiere in 1951.

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In the book The Last Mafioso Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno (former Mafia boss turned government informant) claims that several of the highest ranking members of the Chicago Mafia family were enraged about how Italians were being portrayed on television, in particular in the series The Untouchables, which was executive produced by Desi Arnaz. Unbeknownst to Arnaz, a contract was put out on his life. One night, several hit men waited outside his home to shoot him, but for some reason he didn’t return home. The hit was supposed to be carried out the following night but by then emotions had cooled and it was called off. Apparently, Arnaz never found out how close he came to being killed.

Vivian Vance was the first person ever to win an Emmy award for Best Supporting Actress.

Both Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz have not one but two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Each has one for Motion Pictures and one for Television.

The very first cover of “TV Guide” magazine in 1953 included a photograph of Lucille Ball with her son, Desi Arnaz, Jr.

Lucille Ball died on the morning of April 26, 1989, of a dissecting aortic aneurysm. She was 77 years old. Her death came on the same day as the 56th birthday of her friend, Carol Burnett, who that afternoon received the flowers that Ball had sent her.

In 1933 Ball played a slave girl in one of her first films, Roman Scandals. She had her eyebrows completely shaved off for the role and, unfortunately, they never grew back.

Lucille and Desi had been having marital problems and began working together on I Love Lucy in a bid to save their marriage.

Desi Arnaz died in 1986 of lung cancer. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. Divorced by then, Ball had called him only two days before on what would have been their 46th wedding anniversary. The conversation was short but sweet, mostly involving the words, “I love you”, and ending with “All right, honey. I’ll talk to you later.”

TV Guide chose Lucille Ball as the greatest TV star of all time.

Early in her career as a model Lucille Ball was afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis and had to spend two years learning how to walk again.

Ball filed for divorce from Arnaz in March 1960, the day after finishing filming of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. The divorce was amicable, each keeping half of their $20 million television empire and 25 per cent of DesiLu stock. Ball kept the Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage homes, while Arnaz kept the beach house in Del Mar and the Horse Ranch in Corona. They also agreed to joint custody of both their children, with Arnaz paying $450 a month in maintenance for each child. Arnaz went on to produce Ball’s hit Broadway musical, Wildcat.

Though they ended up with two beautiful children, Lucille Ball had three miscarriages during her marriage to Arnaz.

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In 1957, Ball and Arnaz sold their rights to 179 of the I Love Lucy shows for $4,500,000 in order to expand their production company, DesiLu. They also sold their rights to the film December Bride for $500,000, as well as giving CBS the rights to their public appearances for the next decade at a price of $1,000,000. They used the proceeds to buy RKO studios (Lucy’s former employer) for $6,125,000. Although Hollywood flinched at their spending so much for a studio, the decision turned out to be the right one, making Desi and Lucy millions of dollars.

Lucille Ball had ornithophobia, a fear of birds – ironic considering her first husband, Arnaz, used to clean bird cages for a living. Her fear stemmed from the day of her father’s death in 1915, about which she remembered little except a picture falling and a bird getting trapped inside the house.

Desi Arnaz’s best friend growing up was Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone, son of famous gangster Al Capone.

After William Frawley died, his estate was valued at $92,446 with his assets set to grow. He had a unique contract with I Love Lucy that stated that he was to be paid in perpetuity, meaning that his estate and heirs continue to benefit from rerun revenues.

On August 6, 2011 915 Lucy look-alikes assembled in her birthplace of Jamestown, New York to celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday. They set a new world record for this type of gathering.

Desi Arnaz was called up for the Army in 1943 but hurt his knee and was classified for limited service. He was put in charge of USO programs at a military hospital. While there, he quickly realized that the first thing the wounded soldiers would ask for was a glass of cold milk and arranged for movie starlets to meet the soldiers and pour the milk for them.

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Both Arnaz and Ball re-married other people after their divorce in 1960 but they remained friends for the rest of their lives, even becoming closer in the decade before their deaths. Arnaz has been quoted as saying that, “I Love Lucy was never just a title”.

William Frawley was a passionate baseball and New York Yankees fan and had it written into his contract that if the Yankees made it to the World Series, he would not have to work during the tournament. As a result, he did not appear in two episodes of the show.