-(amplified rummaging) -(muffled chatter)
LUCY: Hello, hello, hello.
One, two, three, four. Ready to record.
Hi there.
♪ ♪
LUCIE ARNAZ LUCKINBILL: My parents had these tapes,
these audiotapes that they kept.
LUCY (over speakers): "B" for babies. I love them.
Sorry mine are growing up so fast.
"C" for cats.
I admire and envy their self-sufficient attitude.
"D" for Desi.
I thank him for my two beautiful, healthy children
and my freedom.
LUCIE: There are, you know, 20-some tapes like this.
DESI (over speakers): A lot of this area are things
that nobody knows but me.
LUCIE: Underneath all of this painful stuff
and disappointments,
at the core, it's all about unconditional love.
I find now that I am much more forgiving
in my looking back at all of this.
A lot is much clearer to me now.
♪ ♪
ANNOUNCER: America's number one show, I Love Lucy.
-(applause) -MALE HOST: Here's Lucille Ball
and Desi Arnaz, the number one team, of course, of television.
(cheering, applause)
DESI: That's kind of one of those things, you know, that,
if you're lucky enough, maybe,
-they say, once in a lifetime. -(cheering, applause)
LUCY RICARDO: Ricky, come here.
Ricky, no matter what you've done,
I forgive you.
(audience laughter)
LUCY: To the rest of the world, a Hollywood couple
-has no problems. -DESI: Mm-hmm.
LUCY: Of course we do, but I don't think they believe it.
If we have a house, two cars and a pool, what the hell problem have we got?
DESI: It's too bad Lucille and Desi weren't Lucy and Ricky. (laughs)
LUCY: I was madly in love with Desi,
and, uh, I've never felt that way about anyone before.
♪ ♪
ROY ROWAN: It is my privilege to present to you
the costar of the I Love Lucy show, a grand fellow and a great showman,
ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Desi Arnaz.
(band playing lively music)
Thank you, Roy.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
We welcome you to Desilu Playhouse.
I'd like you to meet, young lady,
my favorite redhead,
the, uh... the vice president
of Desilu Productions Incorporated...
(scattered laughter)
I am the president.
(laughter)
The mother of my children, ladies and gentlemen,
she plays Lucy, Lucille Ball.
(cheering, applause)
There she is!
Oh, she's so pretty.
Thank you, honey.
Thank you.
This-- uh, by the way, I play Ricky.
-(projector starts) -(film rattling)
♪ ♪
RICKY (laughs): Hey, look at that.
That's the night before we got married.
LUCY: We have had fun,
-haven't we, honey? -Yes, sir.
These have been the best 15 years of my life.
-What's the matter? -We've only been married 13 years.
-(audience laughter) -Oh.
Well, I-I mean it seems like 15.
What?
No, uh, what I mean is, uh, it-it doesn't seem possible
that all that fun could have been crammed into only 13 years.
(audience laughter)
DESI: The show was
one of the most wonderful things to happen in my life.
But the reason that that happened
was that Lucy was the most loved character in the world.
MADAME LAMOND (French accent): Raise the right leg
even with the bar.
(takes deep breath)
(audience laughter)
Now, then, lower the leg slowly to the floor.
(audience laughter)
CAROL BURNETT: She was fearless in her comedy.
She was very physical.
Madam, the leg down.
À bas! À bas!
-À bas? À bas. -À bas.
(audience laughter)
À bas! À bas!
À bas!
You saw someone who was so beautiful,
and she wasn't afraid to look ugly.
(audience laughter)
Which is something you never-- almost never saw women do.
BURNETT: Put on a fat suit, black out your teeth,
put on a fright wig, uh, all-all sorts of things.
And I think that's why everything holds up today,
because it was belly laughs.
(audience laughter)
LAURA LaPLACA: I don't like when people
call her work effortless.
(audience laughter continues)
There were no advantages to being a woman
in the 1950s television industry.
She wasn't lucky. She wasn't a genius.
She wasn't innately talented.
She really built her success.
♪ ♪
I've been studying Lucy since I was five years old.
It's pretty clear that she had this kind of
scientific approach to what generates a laugh.
LUCY: I came up with, uh, something
that I had read called "the enchanted sense of play."
I played the Lucy character while Desi played straight man.
We'd say, "All right, let's play. Let's pretend now."
And that way, we, uh, don't have any trouble
believing what we're doing.
There.
RICKY: It kind of looks like her.
This is excellent, Ricardo.
-(screaming wildly) -Hey!
Lucy!
LUCY: It's sort of skipping into things rather than plodding.
Looking at the ridiculous side sometimes when things are a little rough.
I never started out to be, uh, an actress.
Well, I had a grandfather who never missed
one of the vaudeville shows.
He took us every Saturday.
-(applause) -Two and a half hours,
make people cry and laugh, and it was pure magic.
-(audience laughter) -And I think that really
sparked me to be in the business.
Our father died before I was born,
so my grandfather brought us up.
He was a very kind man.
And, uh, he was the same as a father.
♪ ♪
We lived on a lake, Chautauqua Lake.
Those were tough years.
We didn't know anybody really that was wealthy.
Uh, everybody in the family worked all of the time.
Dede was the commander.
Very authoritative.
Lucy took on that trait.
LUCY: I worked in the park, Celoron Park.
I was, uh, making hamburgers, and I used to holler,
"Look out, look out! Don't step over there!
Step over here and have a hamburger!"
You know, scare the hell out of people. (chuckles)
They were also good hamburgers.
FRED BALL: Lucy was always doing her own thing.
And, uh, when I was 12, she went to New York.
(water flowing)
One day, I had a little girlfriend over,
and we were target practicing.
♪ ♪
And so there was myself, the girlfriend
and a little boy from next door.
And Grandpa.
This girlfriend of mine had the rifle,
aimed it, and the neighbor jumped up at the same time.
(gunshot)
And it hit him in the back and paralyzed him.
It was nobody's fault.
It was just an accident.
LUCY: They sued my grandfather for everything we had.
They went on the stand to say that my grandfather
had made a target of this kid and let us practice on him.
It-it was a-- the most horrible thing.
It ruined our home life, we moved away,
and my grandfather was never the same.
BETTY: Did the accident with the, the trial and everything
don't you think that strengthened your family feeling too?
LUCY: Yes probably. I was too young then to step out and take care of them.
I always, as their fortunes waned during those years
I was very eager to make enough to take the burden off their shoulders.
(trolley clacking)
LUCY: When I came to this town, I was 15, 16.
I didn't know anyone in showbiz.
I didn't even know how to look it up in the paper.
♪ ♪
I got jobs as a showgirl, but I never kept one.
Because after a couple weeks, they'd realize that I was a dud, a real nothin'.
So I said, "I've had it. I have had it.
"I am going to find out how to do something
that pays me something."
♪ ♪
So I became a model. I became a good model.
To add a little glamour to my life,
I changed my name to Diane Belmont.
I also was saying that I was from Montana, so I acquired a nickname.
"Two Gun."
I was walking down the street in July,
and someone said, "How would you like to go to California?"
And I said, "I'd go anyplace to get out of this heat."
And they needed to produce 12 showgirls for Sam Goldwyn.
One girl backed out-- her mother said she couldn't go--
after 12 of them were chosen.
Mr. Jim Mulvey said, "All right, you're tall enough.
I think Mr. Goldwyn will like you. We don't have time to test you."
And thank God they didn't.
I never would've made it
'cause I never made a screen test in my life.
(whistle blows)
We got on the train.
We came out here for a job that was supposed to take six weeks.
It took six months, that picture with Eddie Cantor
called Roman Scandals.
I had an absolutely wonderful association with everyone at the studio.
I loved Hollywood.
I saw in it a place I wanted to live, a place I wanted to bring my family.
I had no thought of ever going back.
♪ ♪
(audience laughter)
What are you made up for, Lucy?
Oh, darn it, you recognized me.
(audience laughter)
Well, if I hadn't worn this, would you have known who it was?
Of course. What are you trying to prove?
Well, I was just practicing.
You know, us movie stars have to go around disguised
-or our fans will mob us. -(laughs)
Why, if it isn't Lucy Ricardo.
Gee, can I have your autograph?
Oh, Fred, don't be smart.
Who's being smart?
I want it on a check for this month's rent.
(audience laughter)
You'll get your money, my good man.
Us movie stars always pay our bills.
(audience laughter)
ETHEL: Hey, wait a minute.
I thought Ricky was gonna be the star.
Oh, he'll be one, too. Don't worry.
"Too"?
♪ Yo quero pedir ♪
♪ Que mi negra me quiera ♪
♪ Que tenga dinero ♪
♪ Y que no se muera... ♪
EDUARDO MACHADO: I remember the first time I saw Ricky.
I was a kid growing up in the San Fernando Valley.
-Good morning, dear. -And I kind of learned English
from watching I Love Lucy, you know.
-...a sus saludes. -A la salud. -A cubita bella.
Uh, l'chaim.
(audience laughter)
MACHADO: Desi brought sophistication
where Latinos have hardly ever been seen as sophisticated.
♪ Babalú... ♪
(shouts)
MACHADO: There was Carmen Miranda.
She had bananas.
There were Cesar Romero, but he didn't play Cuban.
And Desi came in and said, "I'm Cuban Pete.
I'm the king of the rumba beat."
♪ Olé, olé, olé, olé ♪
-♪ Olé, olé, olé, olé ♪ -♪ Olé, olé, olé, olé ♪
♪ Olé, olé, olé, olé ♪
Ah!
Yeah!
Ah!
(band playing flourish)
Ah! Yeah! Yeah! Ah!
-Hey! -(song ends)
(seagulls chirping)
(ship horn blows)
DESI: I got to this country, you know, broke,
and, uh, I didn't speak the language.
So... I was just trying to make a dollar.
(laughs)
'Cause I had nothing to start out with.
♪ ♪
Well, my father said, "Today you're 16.
"In my book, that means that you're no longer a child.
You're now a man."
This fellow was raising canaries, and my job was to clean the cages.
I got $15 a week and one meal.
Some guy had a little band called the Siboney Septet.
He offered me $39 a week.
So that's how I got into show business.
("Bésame" by Mongo Santamaria playing, lyrics in Spanish)
LUCIE: My father finished high school
by the skin of his teeth,
but he got an opportunity to learn from the best.
My father always said he learned everything he knew
about the band business from working with Xavier Cugat.
CHARO: He was the king of the rhumba.
The king of Latin music.
Now he saw me when I was 16 years old.
And that's how I ended up in the United States of America.
And people liked me. Thank God!
Cugat discovered a lot of excellent talented people,
and I am one of them.
(trilling)
(whooping rhythmically)
Cugat discovered Desi.
And he could see that he was a real dreamer.
(singing in Spanish)
I met Desi because I knew Xavier Cugat.
They have a lot in common,
although Cugat was older.
Because Cugat grew up also in Cuba.
So they were, like they say in America, two peas in a pod.
Cugat the maestro, and the student Desi.
(singing continues in Spanish)
DESI: It was the greatest experience in the world.
And even though he didn't pay much money,
I learned a hell of a lot about the band business.
Was like going to college.
(song ends)
LUCY (over speakers): I was so grateful to be any part
of the business.
(helicopter whirring)
I was a part of it.
I didn't care what I did.
They never had to ask me twice to do anything.
♪ ♪
I said, "I want to know about this.
I want to know how to do this."
In those days, there were no working hours.
We worked all day and all night,
maybe 3:00 in the morning.
And we'd be there at 6:00.
See, when you're not beautiful and you're not too bright,
you attract attention any way you can.
The trouble with you is you're all trying to be comics.
Don't you ever take anything seriously?
After you've sat around for a year trying to get a job,
you won't take anything seriously either.
LUCY: So I got a chance to work many times
because I didn't mind what I did.
I just knew it was action.
It was just doing something that no one else wanted to do.
Those were the days when you had a mom-and-a-pop, uh, studio.
♪ ♪
They were our security.
They had publicity departments who made us a certain type.
They dressed us, they trained us.
They shoved us into "B" pictures whether we wanted it or not.
I never minded it.
I knew I was getting a well-paid apprenticeship.
That's the difference.
Lela was the first one at RKO who was giving any thought
to the young people that were under contract there.
And I became, by her own admission, one of her best students.
I was happily part of her group
that she surrounded Ginger with at the time.
Ginger worked harder than
anybody I've ever known in the business.
Ginger was not, uh, a great dancer when she started.
-She was not a big star. -(camera clicking)
She was not a great actress.
She learned all these things,
and she learned it with real hard work.
RKO was very good to me.
And it was just, uh, a place
that I was very grateful to have grown up in.
Eventually, they would send me scripts and say,
"Would you like to do this?"
One day, I saw on a script "Lucille Ball type."
That was one of the biggest thrills I had ever...
uh, could imagine.
Imagine anybody knew who Lucille Ball was.
DESI: I said, "Cugat, I got to quit.
I got to get my little band."
He says, "Go to Miami," so I got a little job down there.
I says, "I got the job. Send me the band."
(band playing jazzy Cuban music)
We played the first set, the guy says, "You're fired."
(laughter)
He says, "That is the worst sound I have ever heard in my life."
(laughter)
And he was right.
So I said, "Let me try to figure out."
And I had this big conga drum with me.
Now, in Cuba, everybody does the conga in Carnival time,
particularly in my hometown.
It's like the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Everybody from the island comes to Santiago,
and they do the conga line.
(music ends)
I bought a bottle of rum.
I says, "Drink up. We're gonna play something new."
(band playing lively conga music)
-That's how the conga started. -(man laughing)
My dance of desperation.
MACHADO: All those rhythms, they were all Afro-Cuban.
And he took that and made it the definition of Cuba for the world.
JUDY GARLAND: ♪ One, two, three ♪
♪ Boom! ♪
CHARO: 1... 2... 3... Kick!
When you have that rhythm so heavy,
all percussion. It goes to your bones.
DESI: I did a play on Broadway called Too Many Girls.
And then RKO bought it for a film,
and they brought me out to Hollywood to do my part I did on Broadway.
-(performers cheering) -(lively music playing)
LUCY: I was told that I was
going to play an ingenue in Too Many Girls.
And, uh, at that time,
I did a picture called Dance, Girl, Dance,
which was a real brassy burlesque queen.
(crowd jeering)
(crowd gasping, murmuring)
(women screaming)
I had been doing that scene all day,
and so I went at lunchtime into the commissary.
I had a big black eye and bruises on my face.
And in that interim, I met Desi Arnaz.
DESI: We were rehearsing the music,
directed by George Abbott.
I said to Mr. Abbott, "She's gonna be the ingenue?
You're out of your mind."
♪ ♪
DESI: Later on that afternoon, it was the first get-together,
and I said to the piano player, I said,
"Oh, my, that's a hunk of woman."
He says, "You met her this morning.
That's Lucille Ball."
I said, "That's Lucille Ball?"
Will someone please come? There's a waiter fainted out here.
DESI: She came over.
I said, "If you don't have anything to do tonight,
uh, how would you like to learn how to do the rumba?"
She says, "I don't and I'd love to."
I said, "Look, you love me?"
She said, "Yes. I love you."
I says, "I want kids."
I said, "What else is there?"
We got married six months later.
-(projector starts) -(film rattling)
♪ ♪
MAN: How would you define the word "love"?
LUCY: Um...
(smacks lips)
I don't know.
It's such a wonderful, uh, thing that I feel
when you say that.
Not that you can do no wrong,
but that I would do anything in the world to make you happier.
With me, it's-it's wanting to please,
wanting to, uh, devote myself, too.
I never been asked that before.
(soft audience laughter)
How do you define it?
(laughter, applause)
That's great.
MACHADO: Nobody wanted him to have anything to do with her.
It was just a taboo
that a white woman is married to a dark person.
Also, when you're perceived as exotic, which Cubans are,
passionate and hot-tempered
rather than intellectual or, you know...
But they both insisted on it.
And that's the beginning of climbing a big mountain.
♪ ♪
BETTY: You felt right from the beginning
that this was going to be difficult didn't you?
LUCY: Well, I hope that I wasn't running,
uh, with a lot of negative thinking.
I knew that it was precarious.
Ricky, uh, will be home soon.
Uh... Ricky casa soon.
-(audience laughter) -Soon.
Hi, hon-- Mother!
(gasps) ¡Mi vida!
When did you get in?!
-How are you? -(chuckles): Ay, mi amor.
(Ricky laughing)
(Ricky's mother speaking Spanish)
Oh, isn't this wonderful?
(audience laughter)
LUCY: My mother-in-law wasn't, uh,
so demanding of me as she was of Desi.
I spent a great deal of time just getting along and being nice.
(Ricky speaking Spanish)
(Ricky's mother speaking Spanish)
(Ricky speaking Spanish)
(all laughing)
(audience laughter)
BETTY: Did she come out to Hollywood as soon as you two moved out here?
LUCY: Yes. She always went where he went.
BETTY: Mm-hmm.
LUCY: From the time his father let go,
somebody had to take care of his mother,
and he very gallantly did it.
♪ ♪
LUCIE: My mother and my father were both
caretakers of their own families.
The first night that they went out on their date,
that first night that they met, they exchanged those stories.
LUCY: I couldn't wait to get my family out here,
to put them all under one roof.
That way, we could make it.
LUCIE: Her mother had nothing,
so she ended up being the head of the family
and had to take care of them for the rest of her life, basically.
And same with my dad.
His parents divorced the minute that his mother
got to the United States, and he had to take care
of his mother for the rest of his life.
They brought to this marriage a belief system
that the most important thing was family.
BURNETT: The first time I saw Lucy up on the screen
was in a movie that she did at MGM, and it was in Technicolor,
called Du Barry Was a Lady.
And I just thought she was so beautiful
with that orange-red hair and that complexion.
But in those movies,
they did not touch upon her comedic talent.
So I had no idea that she was a comedian.
They didn't know that she had that skill set.
And I find it one of the great crimes,
really, one of the great artistic crimes.
-DESI: They called her "The Queen of the B's". -(whip cracks)
In those days remember they were called the B pictures. Smaller budgets.
REPORTER: Were you envious of her success?
DESI: No not at all. But I couldn't stay out here and just, don't do anything.
LUCY: He was under contract to Metro,
but nothing happened.
So he went into the Army.
And when he got out of the Army,
he went on the road with his band five years,
and he was in the Army three and a half.
So eight and a half years of our first nine years,
we were not together.
Tell me, what's it like being married to an entertainer?
Oh, it's very exciting. (chuckles)
After all, there's no business like show business.
You may quote me.
(audience laughter)
Fine.
You're not the jealous type, then, hmm?
Well, what is there to be jealous about?
Well, after all, Ricky is a handsome, charming man,
surrounded by showgirls all the time.
Well...
And he is out every night in a nightclub.
When he says he's at rehearsal, he's at rehearsal. (chuckles)
May I quote you on that?
Oh, sure, sure.
(audience laughter)
(sighs): Hmm.
Well, I guess that's the kind of trust that's made your marriage last.
-Isn't it? -Hmm?
I said that's the kind of trust that's made your marriage last.
Yeah, that's the kind of trust that you have to have
in-in that kind of a... any kind of a marriage.
(audience laughter)
♪ ♪
JOURNEY GUNDERSON: I've had a front-row seat
for more than a decade now, carefully observing
how Lucille Ball's career has been characterized.
And there's such a disproportionate focus on
how hard-nosed she could be.
But think about how many times she must have had things
mansplained to her on a set.
You see, honey, there isn't a husband alive
who can stand living with a wife who's right all the time.
Not-not even when she is right?
No.
That's more than any man can take.
GUNDERSON: And as a woman, you had to be really good,
because it wasn't necessarily going to be embraced.
Her commitment was about always improving.
You never see her let up.
LUCY: When I really had to sit down
and decide what I wanted to do, I did go back
to what I had done in pictures, and, uh, I was amazed really
to find out that I picked out about eight or nine domestic scenes.
I know that if I'm playing something that I understand,
a-a housewife or secretary,
that I can portray that all right because I lived it.
I got my big start for any of the comedy
that I finally got into on radio.
BOB LeMOND: It's time for My Favorite Husband,
starring Lucille Ball.
LUCY: Jell-O, everybody!
-(applause) -(band playing theme music)
MADELYN PUGH DAVIS: My first impression of Lucy,
I was scared to death.
I had never really met a real movie star before.
♪ ♪
BOB CARROLL JR.: We were on staff at CBS.
We got a chance to do the script.
DAVIS: This is our very, very first big show,
and, uh, she came on pretty strong.
She wasn't happy with some of the scripts,
and I was just terrified that I'd get fired,
I guess, is what I was afraid of.
JESS OPPENHEIMER: The radio show was
in about its 12th week, and it wasn't doing well at all,
and I-I wrote a script for it.
DAVIS: And Jess had had
a lot of experience as a producer, head writer,
so he came on and we got sort of organized.
It was 1948, and my dad, for the previous six years,
had been writing The Baby Snooks Show
starring Fanny Brice, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Fanny got into a-a salary dispute with CBS,
and she walked off the show.
So, suddenly, he was unemployed.
Just had a baby, just bought a house.
He was very open to a new job, even though his friends said,
"Don't go work for Lucille Ball.
She's very difficult to work with."
-(applause) -(band playing theme music)
RICHARD DENNING: Well, here we are, darling.
LUCY: "Darling"?
Now you call me "darling"!
(Lucy laughs dramatically)
But what am I when we're alone? Your slave.
You beat me with a cane and push my poor broken body
-down the stairs! -(audience laughter)
Oh, I don't care for myself, but you push the children after me!
DENNING: The children? I did not!
LUCY: Then where are they?
(audience laughter)
♪ ♪
ANNOUNCER: After ten years of experiment,
television now takes its place as a new American art and industry.
With the inauguration of regular television broadcast,
set owners enjoy the novel experience of receiving pictures through the air.
LUCY: It was new to everyone,
the networks and people in general,
and the studios frowned upon it.
ED WYNN: Lucille Ball!
-(applause) -(laughs)
I love you, you know,
in your radio shows every Friday night.
You know, the one called My Favorite Husband.
DESI: CBS wanted to adapt a radio show for television,
and she says, "I'll do it if Desi plays the husband."
(rhythmic drumming)
-♪ Babalú... ♪ -No, no, no, no.
I want you to sing "Babalú," but, uh...
wait, wait.
(audience laughter)
LUCY: No one wanted him to play my husband
because he was Cuban, and they wanted a real American couple.
LUCIE: They always dreamed of being together,
working together and having an ability to have a family.
You know, "Can't we just keep you off the road, Des?"
LUCY: We'd been married nine years
and been together a-a year and two months.
If that.
You can't have children that way.
You cannot have them by telephone.
DESI: So I told Lucy, said, "Maybe they're right.
"Maybe nobody will believe you and I
(laughs): working together, you know."
So, in those days, I had the big band, you know.
-MAN: Yeah. -DESI: And we used to do vaudeville.
So I told Lucy, "The next time that I go on tour,
"why don't you come with me?
We'll do a couple numbers and see what the audience thinks."
♪ ♪
LUCY: Did they look upon us as
something strange or could they like us together?
We didn't know what to expect.
DESI: Bob and Madelyn wrote a little sketch.
She did the clown bit.
She did "Cuban Pete" with me and "boom, boom, boom, boom"
and knocked my hat off my head,
and the audience throughout the country,
they love us being together.
The head of CBS saw us.
He said, "Well, they have been married for ten years.
-Maybe they'll believe that they are." -(man laughing)
LUCY: In the meantime, I had been feeling very strange.
And I said, "I am pregnant."
I'd waited all these years, and suddenly I knew I was.
♪ ♪
-BETTY: How did you feel? -LUCY: I felt so elated,
but I hadn't had a test yet or anything.
I took the test in New York,
-and, uh, Winchell had a-a spy, -(Betty laughs)
-whatever you call it... -BETTY: Oh, yeah.
LUCY: ...in the lab, which he's been doing for years.
And they knew the answer to the test before I did.
They told Winchell, and he had it on his Sunday night show.
ANNOUNCER: Walter Winchell dispenses
Broadway gossip, last-minute scoops,
in a breathless mixture for Sunday night listeners.
LUCY: And I woke up Desi and said, "We're gonna have a baby!
It's it. The test is okay."
He said, "How do you know? How do you know?
You're not supposed to know till Monday morning."
I said, "Winchell told me.
-(Betty laughs) -Winchell said so."
He says, "How you like that?"
GUNDERSON: When you think about the fact
that Lucille Ball struggled to become pregnant,
remarried Desi Arnaz with a Catholic ceremony
because her mother-in-law believed
that part of the reason she couldn't get pregnant
was that they didn't have a Catholic wedding,
and to know that Walter Winchell broke the news
that she was pregnant before she heard it herself
makes me want to cry for her.
BETTY: Do you think being in vaudeville
had anything to do with you losing the baby?
LUCY: I don't know.
(birds chirping)
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: It was around Christmas 1950,
CBS made a deal with Lucy and Desi to make a pilot.
But the deal didn't say anything about what the show was gonna be about.
♪ ♪
LaPLACA: The initial vision was that
Lucy and Desi were going to play movie stars,
and they changed that right away.
(pen scribbling)
(stamp thumps)
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: My dad came up with,
uh, this idea of a guy who's been raised in show business
and he wants nothing more than to get away from it
and have a normal home life.
RICKY: Now, look, Lucy, you know how I feel about this.
I don't want my wife in show business.
And he marries a girl who's dying to get into show business.
LUCY RICARDO: Yeah, I know you, Ricky Ricardo.
Just because you're gonna be a big television star,
you're casting me aside like an old shoe.
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: And they incorporated material
that Bob and Madelyn had written
-for the vaudeville routine. -(applause)
RICKY: Anytime you're ready, Professor, we'll go with you.
(audience laughter)
-(sneezes) -(Ricky yells)
(audience laughter)
LUCY: We had a hell of a time.
We brought the rafters down.
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: Once they did the pilot,
they found someone who would sponsor the show.
And the amazing thing about Lucy was
she was five months pregnant when she shot the pilot.
LUCY: When I finally did get pregnant,
I cried with joy.
I-I just couldn't believe it.
That's when I had Lucie.
Well, I was very ill after Lucie, and it took me months to recover.
Desi was the perfect, uh, husband for little Lucie.
BETTY: Did you enjoy changing the baby and bathing it?
-LUCY: Oh, God, yeah. -BETTY: Yeah.
LUCY: I could put salt on them and eat them.
(Betty laughs)
And I had to go back to work, too, uh,
so I missed hours and hours and hours, you know?
JESS OPPENHEIMER: When we started Lucy,
the routines hadn't been set and the practices hadn't been,
uh, established yet, so we moved right into
a whole business that none of us knew
the slightest thing about.
DESI: In those days,
when we did a show in California,
all they got in the East Coast was kinescope.
And it was very bad quality.
Well, Lucy and I had been trying to be together
for quite a long time,
and we had no intention of going to New York.
I said, "Well, why don't we do it on film?
And then everybody will get the same quality."
Then CBS came in and said,
"Well, Lucy works better in front of an audience."
And they were right.
She does work better in front of an audience.
So I said, "Well, why don't we do it on film
in front of an audience?"
They said, "You know how to do that?"
I said, "Sure."
I didn't have the slightest idea.
LUCY: It came about that he was a great producer,
which amazed all of us.
But most of all, he learned to hire good men for the job
and then let them do it.
♪ ♪
DAVID DANIELS: Desi was not somebody
who relied on luck, you know.
He was very intentional in who he was gonna bring to the team.
My father was a director in the early days of television.
He had already done dozens and dozens
of live television productions in New York.
Karl Freund was an extraordinary expert
when it came to lighting and filmmaking
and was renowned in the film industry.
Whether it was Madelyn, Jess or Bob Carroll, expert writers.
Danny Cahn, you know, the editor.
Desi was a collaborator in the supreme sense.
And that's where you get the best stuff.
-Hey, what's this? -I don't know.
(gasps) Why, it's half...
-half a horse. -(audience laughter)
Hey, look, here's the rest of it. (laughs)
Oh, Ethel! This is it, this is it!
We'll do a horse act.
But it takes two people to do a horse act.
Well, what are you doing tonight?
(laughs) I guess I could.
Yeah, come on. Let's try it on.
-Okay. -(audience laughter)
Lucy!
(audience laughter)
I'm only doing this benefit for you.
I should think you could do this one little thing for me.
Listen, Lucy, even for sweet charity,
I am not going to be the back end of a horse.
(audience laughter)
♪ ♪
DANIELS: My father worked with her in the late '40s on a play
and was responsible for getting Vivian Vance,
uh, to play the role of Ethel.
GUNDERSON: Back then, a big part of the culture
was pitting women against each other,
and there weren't opportunities for women
to work together as teammates as much.
Th-Th-They look like women from Mars!
(high-pitched gibberish)
GUNDERSON: And so you didn't see that
until Lucy and Ethel and their antics.
(audience exclaiming, laughing)
They keep each other in check.
Oh, no, you're not gonna get me in on this.
-Listen to me, Baby Face. -(audience laughter)
GUNDERSON: They conspire.
They commiserate.
I trust you.
-(audience laughter) -(wailing)
GUNDERSON: That's an important story
for girls and women to see.
-ETHEL: Yoo-hoo! -Yoo-hoo!
Morning, Lucy. I brought up your mail.
-(audience laughter) -Oh!
LUCY: I have approved of you since the day
I, uh, set eyes on you.
You know, you were hired without my seeing you. Remember?
VANCE: I know.
I've often wondered, Miss Ball...
-(both laugh) -LUCY: Had I seen...
VANCE: ...had you seen me first--
I've often wondered, but one can never say.
RICKY: Lucy!
(high-pitched): Yoo-hoo!
Where are you?
I'm right here, dear.
(audience laughter)
Lucy, how you've changed.
(audience laughter)
Yes, it's a new way I'm doing my hair.
(audience laughter)
DESI: Nobody wanted Bill Frawley to play Fred.
The networks didn't want it, the agencies didn't want it.
They said he hadn't done anything in a long time,
he had a drinking problem, and, uh, the more they kept knocking him down,
the more I thought he was right for the part.
RICKY: Fred!
-Fred... -Ricky, let go of our washing machine!
-Oh, no. -(audience laughter)
Let go of it!
Fred, I won't want you to get stuck with it.
-I want to get stuck! -You don't want it.
Lucy, will you kindly take your hands off of my washing machine?
Why should I take my hands off your washing machine
when it belongs to us?
Come on, now.
(overlapping arguing)
(washing machine crashes)
(audience laughter)
Look what happened to your washing machine.
(audience laughter)
MIDLER: One of the things about the show that was so magical
was seeing an ensemble working
at the height, at the skill level that you just didn't see very often.
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: Everybody was very close.
It was like a little theater group.
I mean, the-the one point of friction is Frawley and Vance.
What are you doing here?
Lucy, is that my date?
He's no dream. He's a nightmare.
(audience laughter)
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: Vivian was 22 years younger
than Bill Frawley, and she was offended
that people would think that she could be married to
"that old man," as she called him.
Bill Frawley heard her complaining to somebody,
and he was really offended by that.
Sometimes I feel like I was married to a garbage disposal.
(audience laughter)
Quiet, fat boy.
(audience laughter)
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: They were the only people
doing this filming a sitcom in front of an audience
with-with moving cameras.
Uh, they were the only people doing it.
And so the plan was
there would be three cameras on all the time,
which would keep things in sync,
but it was very expensive, and so, because of that,
Desi had a rule: no retakes.
LUCIE: You know, 400 people in the bleachers,
and they do a warm-up, the band starts up,
and you do that show, and you do that show once.
(band playing I Love Lucy theme)
LUCY: Now, no one knew the great potential
of being able to come into millions of living rooms
and the instant love and close feeling after one performance.
(theme music ends)
That all was an unknown quantity when we started.
♪ ♪
LUCY RICARDO: Is that you, Ricky?
Yeah, honey.
-Hello, baby! -Hi.
NORMAN LEAR: I Love Lucy did a lot
for helping Americans understand
that just because a guy was male didn't mean
that he was the dominant character.
There you are.
Oh, you great big, handsome husband, you.
LEAR: Women could be the dominant character, too.
-Lucy. -Yes, dear?
What have you done?
(audience laughter)
LEAR: When I saw it on television,
I fell in love with her immediately.
I think I'll get another station.
This evening, we-- Stop that, now!
-Go back and sit down! -(audience laughter)
There had never been anyone like her before.
Greetings, Gates. Slip me some skin, boy.
(audience laughter)
MIDLER: You realize that women could do this, too.
-(groans) -(audience laughter)
MIDLER: It wasn't just Charlie Chaplin.
It wasn't just Buster Keaton.
LEAR: And Desi certainly brought
some new understanding to the male part of a marriage.
(Ricky speaking angrily in Spanish)
-How dare you say that to me? -(audience laughter)
What did I say?
I don't know, but how dare you?
(audience laughter)
(helicopter whirring)
(crowd screaming excitedly)
(camera clicking)
♪ ♪
LEAR: We fell in love with Lucy and Desi.
When you are watching,
it isn't race that you're thinking about.
And so that capacity exists,
and there's a giant human lesson, I would think, in that.
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.
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: The first season, they shot
-41 shows in 41 weeks. -(applause)
And they found out at the end of the first season
Lucy's pregnant again.
♪ Rockaby, baby ♪
♪ On the treetop ♪ No?
DICK CAVETT: At that time, there was controversy, believe it or not,
-over the fact that you... -LUCY: I know.
CAVETT: ...appeared pregnant in a comedy series.
-LUCY: I know. -You could never use the word.
LUCY: No. I-I think I wanted to say, uh,
"I feel like a pregnant goose," and they said I could say,
"I feel like an expectant swan."
(audience laughter)
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: My dad immediately just said,
"Congratulations.
Now I know what we're gonna do next season."
And they both said, you know, "You're crazy.
They won't let you do that on television."
And my dad said, "Of course they will."
♪ When the bough breaks ♪
♪ The cradle will fall ♪
Uh...
("Rockaby Baby" continues)
-Honey, honey. -(audience laughter)
-Honey, no. -(laughing): Yes.
-Really? -Yes.
Why didn't you tell me?
-Why, you didn't give me a chance. -Are you kidding?
-No. I tried... -It's me!
(audience laughter)
-I'm gonna be a father! -(applause)
DESI: ♪ We're having a baby ♪
-♪ My baby and me ♪ -(audience laughter)
(audience laughter)
DESI ARNAZ JR.: I was there
when they were doing the shows, only I was in Mom's stomach.
And so it feels like I was part of something that was
going on from even before I was born.
Ricky, this is it.
-This is... -This is it! -This is it!
-This is it! Let's go! -(audience laughter)
This is it!
We have to hurry, Ricky!
We have to hurry, she says!
DESI ARNAZ JR.: The day I was born, the show was on about
Little Ricky being born, so I was in the public eye
even before I was able to communicate.
Hey, wait for me!
(audience laughter)
DESI: ♪ We're having a baby ♪
♪ My baby ♪
♪ And me. ♪
(applause)
(band playing outro music)
♪ ♪
DESI: So many of you were kind enough
to send us wires and write us letters of congratulation
on the birth of our new son that...
well, it was just wonderful, really.
Lucy wanted me to tell you how much we appreciate
your thoughtfulness and that you'll be hearing from us soon.
LaPLACA: What's remarkable is that
the pregnancy was the basis for what we now call a rerun.
At the time I Love Lucy was emerging, television shows were seen one time,
and because Desi had ownership of those films,
they began to run repeat episodes
when the show was on hiatus and established the rerun model
that really transformed the entire television industry.
LUCY: I only remember the serenity and the rest,
which I needed badly, and I was allowed to get my rest.
-BETTY: Mm-hmm. -LUCY: That was the last, uh,
that I was allowed to get.
♪ ♪
It is my pleasure to present the Television Academy's
1953 National Award for the Best Situation Comedy
-to I Love Lucy. -(audience cheering)
LUCY: We didn't expect to win this tonight.
We're awful happy we did.
We're awful proud to be a part of this industry,
really we are.
We're trying real hard and we're gonna keep it up.
-Thank you. -(applause)
Uh, the Lucy show was at its peak that second year.
(camera clicking)
LaPLACA: They're setting records every week,
outpacing the inauguration of the president,
outpacing the coronation of the queen.
LUCY: Oh, honey, look.
Fry pans, a griddle, a Dutch oven, a saucepan.
LaPLACA: They're like the first lifestyle brand.
For great Christmas buys, it's Westinghouse Royal gifts.
Why not give your husband a carton of Philip Morris cigarettes?
DESI: There is nothing newer in the world than a Ford.
We just love ours.
(horn honks)
LaPLACA: It was really a part of people's psyche
as American postwar consumers.
You get out! Come on out!
I can't. I'm not dry yet.
(audience laughter)
(gavel pounding)
(cameras clicking)
(gallery murmuring)
JOHN PARNELL THOMAS: The question before this committee
and the scope of its present inquiry will be to determine
the extent of Communist infiltration
in the Hollywood motion picture industry.
♪ ♪
We have subpoenaed witnesses.
All we are after are the facts.
MAN: Are you a member of the Communist Party
or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
MAN: Are you a member of the Communist Party?
MAN: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
LUCIE: This was a horrifying thing going on
in the country right then,
where the House on Un-American Activities Committee
was literally dragging people off the streets
and saying, "You're a Communist."
LUCY: There was a lot of witch-hunting
at the time, and they definitely took people
that they knew were absolutely cleared of anything like this.
The responsibility of a congressional investigating committee
was never better pointed up than in the case of Lucille Ball.
♪ ♪
The committee has long been in possession of information indicating that Miss Ball,
for purposes of voting, uh, signed as a Communist in 1936.
Grandpa was always for the working man.
We did register Communist to pacify him.
LUCIE: They interviewed her about it at great length,
and they cleared her.
Then later on, somebody found that card,
and this one paper ran this huge, big, red headline--
red ink--
"Lucille Ball is a card-carrying Communist."
And she was just scared.
She was scared that people wouldn't believe her.
This could destroy everything that they had.
And my father took charge that week.
♪ ♪
He invited all the press into our house,
and he told them exactly what my mother had done,
that she'd never been involved in the Communist Party.
When he brought them to the filming of the show,
he got J. Edgar Hoover on the phone
and, you know, put the phone up to the microphone.
He said, "Your wife is cleared of any charges, 100% clear."
Then he introduced my mother to the audience,
and he came up with his famous line.
DESI: The only thing red about her
-was her hair. -(audience laughter)
And even that was not legitimate.
(cheering, applause)
LUCIE: Then the whole audience stood up and gave her a standing ovation.
DESI: It made me so mad because,
in Cuba, we lost all of our money because my father was the first guy
that put a Communist in jail.
Now I'm here in this country and we're doing all right then,
you know, we're doing real good,
and then she's accused of being a Communist.
♪ ♪
LUCIE: He would talk about Cuba sometimes,
and he would talk about how beautiful it was.
Once in a while, he'd say that.
But he didn't talk about it a lot.
Thank you, Ed.
Thank you very, very much, ladies and gentlemen. (sniffs)
You know, I think if it wouldn't have been for Lucy,
I would have stopped trying a long time ago
because I was always the guy that didn't fit.
And you know something, though, that I really want to tell you tonight?
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
is 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.
(applause)
LUCIE: For years and years and years,
he did not tell me that story, and nobody else did either.
("Quimbara" by Celia Cruz playing)
It was too traumatic.
(song continues, lyrics in Spanish)
DESI: My whole life has been a bunch of accidents.
Everything that happened to me is because something else happened.
My father was the mayor of my hometown.
My uncle was the chief of police.
We had that town-- we were really popular.
(laughter, clapping)
(song continues, lyrics in Spanish)
LUCIE: My father came from
a very comfortable childhood in Cuba.
DESI ARNAZ JR.: The Arnaz family comes from
a paramilitary and medical background.
LUCIE: They had several homes.
They had ranches, boats, servants.
He was an only child, but my grandfather
and my grandmother's family were one of the founders of Bacardí Rum.
DESI ARNAZ JR.: And Dad was either gonna be
a lawyer or doctor, go to Notre Dame in America.
(song ends)
(clamoring)
The Cuban Revolution happened when he was 14 years old.
LUCIE: The Machado administration
that his father worked for was overthrown.
His uncle called him and said,
"You got to get your mother right now and you got to get out of the house."
He said, "What do I take?" He goes, "Nothing!
Take her now. They're coming down the street."
DESI: In 48 hours we lost everything we had. Everything.
They put all the congressmen in jail. All the mayors. All the governors.
Everybody was in the can.
And my dad was there for 6 months.
LUCIE: Everything was gone in an instant.
No matter what he did for the rest of his life,
it was never gonna be good enough.
It's never gonna be Cuba.
We're never gonna go home.
MACHADO: There's a big difference
between being an immigrant and being a refugee,
and Desi was a refugee.
♪ ♪
A refugee doesn't want to leave
and has to for political reasons.
The longing is to find a place where you feel like you belong
and where you feel the warmth of who you used to be.
But there's no way to ever really find it.
And I think that's at the core of Desi.
And certainly at the core of Desi's mother.
When he got really successful, he bought her a house for Christmas.
And he wanted everything to look like the house they had in Cuba.
And she said, "Nice try, Desi, but it's still not Cuba."
And I think that was Desi's struggle in his life.
Because he never really felt at home,
and he kept looking for it.
Everywhere.
LUCY: Naturally, you-you want to know
how much you can do to help and, uh, what you can do to change,
and, uh, anything to get him to talk and to air his-his discontent.
That-that was my purpose at the time.
Are your eggs all right, dear?
(scattered audience laughter)
"How are your eggs, Lucy?"
Oh, they're just fine, thank you.
(audience laughter)
"Would you care for some more coffee?"
Oh, no, thanks. It's just right, thank you.
"You're a wonderful cook." Oh, do you really think so?
Oh, thank you.
(audience laughter)
Would you care for sugar in your coffee?
"Oh, well, thank you. Don't mind if I do."
You are back there, aren't you?
(audience laughter)
♪ ♪
DESI: We here at Desilu are aiming high.
We're aiming very high.
LEAR: They established their own studio.
I mean, that's an enormous business operation.
And Desi took the lead in that.
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: And when I Love Lucy became a megahit,
that whole studio filled up soundstages
because of everybody wanting to use
what they called "the Desilu technique."
JOHNNY CARSON: You know, the remarkable thing about you
and-and your life is that you came from Cuba
and ended up as one of the biggest producers
of television shows here in Hollywood.
♪ ♪
You had many, many big stars working for Desilu.
DESI: Yeah. Mainly, I had Lucy.
DANIELS: You know, my father said, over and over and over again,
Lucille Ball was the greatest actor of the 20th century.
He directed Sir Laurence Olivier,
Julie Harris, Sally Field, Paul Newman.
But no matter who he was talking to,
Lucille Ball was the greatest actor he had ever worked with.
LUCY RICARDO: Hello, friends.
I'm your Vitameatavegamin girl.
All you do is take a tablespoonful after every meal.
-DIRECTOR: Now you take some. -Oh.
(audience laughter)
It's so tasty, too.
(audience laughter)
LUCY: You don't necessarily have to be a funny person to get a laugh.
I'm not a funny person.
♪ ♪
JESS OPPENHEIMER: Lucille Ball is the kind of
a performer who needs a lot of rehearsal,
and if she gets enough of it,
there's just no heights to what sh-- what she can't reach.
Rehearsal, for my mom, came from years ago
with people like Buster Keaton, who was a mentor to her
and taught her all about how important the props were.
-(shouting frantically) -(audience laughter)
LUCY: We absolutely believe
the silly things we do, and I mean really believe it.
(audience laughter)
You can usually identify with the initial trouble.
(woman shouts)
(audience laughter)
She gets to do what most everyone
would really like to do in a situation.
(audience laughter)
It's the exaggeration of a believable star.
(woman speaking Italian angrily)
(audience exclaiming, laughing)
As an actress, body movement is one of the most divine things
to know about.
You should be observing everyone's body movements,
everyone's-- cats, dogs, old ladies in the park, drunks.
Just observe.
(audience laughter)
♪ ♪
I'm happy that I brought laughter
because I have been shown the value of it.
In so many ways.
(drumroll)
(band playing fanfare)
(band playing gentle music)
ANNOUNCER: This is the main studio
of Desilu Productions.
Just behind this door
is the office of the president of Desilu Productions.
And here seated at his desk, we find the boss.
(band playing I Love Lucy theme)
Uh, correction. This is the boss's boss.
JESS OPPENHEIMER: Lucy, of course, had been a star for years.
Desi had a terrible time adjusting,
and he was hurt, I think, by all the publicity which said
the success of I Love Lucy was due to her artistry.
DESI: Just a minute. This is my desk.
It says here "president."
Well, if you want to get technical.
LUCIE: No matter how hard he worked
or what a great businessman he was, she was the clown.
The show was built around her.
DESI: As president of Desilu Productions,
I would like to...
Hi, Joan! I just saw your show and I thought you were marvelous.
-You were so cute! -Thank you, Lucy.
Oh, when you were on that horse, I just--
Oh, hi. How are you?
-That golf routine was a riot. -Lucy, I was...
I've never laughed so... (laughs)
-Lucy, I was just... -You are interrupting me.
(audience laughter)
I am interrupting you?
You interrupted me.
♪ ♪
JESS OPPENHEIMER: I don't think that he was very happy
in a relationship where his wife was
more powerful than he was.
And as he started to get stronger and stronger
in the producing side of it,
he kept staying away more and more.
LUCY: His work was harder,
he was getting more tired,
and, uh, he felt great need to run off on his boat
and his golf vacations and to the racetrack.
He always had to go, go, go.
JESS OPPENHEIMER: Her home life was very unhappy,
and, uh, the release that she had was in her work.
She'd come in and she would want to
rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, day in and day out, long hours.
LUCY: We had no idea that Desilu
was going to become what it was.
Work became our whole life.
BETTY: And what happened after you sold the reruns for 5 million?
Why didn't he retire right then and there?
LUCY: He wanted to because we had done our five years,
and that's all we planned was five years.
And I remember we talked about it.
DESI: She didn't want to quit.
She'll never want to quit.
Why doesn't Bob Hope quit? Or Jack Benny?
Like Hope says, he gets bored fishing
because he can't get a laugh from the fish.
That's... I'm not judging.
Because that's their life and they enjoy that.
I happen to like other things, besides being in front of an audience.
(applause)
Thank you. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to our new show.
We have some wonderful guests lined up for you.
-LUCY: Psst. -What's the matter?
It's time to do the show.
-Oh. Time to do the show. -(audience laughter)
I'll see you in a minute.
(drumroll)
(band playing lively intro)
ANNOUNCER: The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.
(band playing I Love Lucy theme)
LUCIE: They wanted to keep working,
but they wanted to work less, and so they said,
"We're gonna do the same show,
but we'll do it as a monthly thing, like once a month."
-(screams) -(audience laughter)
LaPLACA: Those shows have this really
dramatic loss of quality.
-(audience laughter) -Now, stop it!
LaPLACA: There's a lot of stories
about how difficult it was for them on the set,
and I think it's very visible on the screen.
Why do I have to act like such a goof always?
Oh, I don't know.
I guess it's part of your charm.
-(audience laughter) -Yeah.
Somebody ought to give me a good swift kick in the pants.
-I'll volunteer. -(audience laughter)
That is merely a figure of speech.
LUCIE: I think there was a cost
to the success that they attained with I Love Lucy.
I do.
♪ ♪
But they didn't know how to just appreciate
the joy of doing the show without making it bigger,
making it better, getting a bigger space.
It just seemed to mushroom and-and get all out of hand.
DESI: When the opportunity came to buy RKO, I bought RKO.
Not because I wanted RKO.
But I had only two choices. Either quit or get bigger.
That is the way business is in the United States.
You cannot be half-assed successful.
(helicopter whirring)
MAN: Didn't that used to be RKO?
DESI: That's right.
MAN: You know, one thing is sure, you're not gonna be cramped for space.
DESI: No, sir, not with 35 soundstages and three studios.
♪ ♪
LaPLACA: Within a span of about five years,
they go from filming the I Love Lucy pilot
to operating the largest independent television company in the world.
LUCY: To see it come to life was something.
To see 16, 17, 18, 19 shows going,
it was a revelation how he did it.
DESI: I was at that place at 8 o'clock in the morning,
and I had all my calls to New York,
and I don't think I ever left the place before 10 or 11 o'clock at night.
GREGG OPPENHEIMER: And as Desi had more and more
responsibilities with the studio,
he kept getting called away from the set,
and Lucy would say, "Where you going?
We-we need to rehearse."
And Desi'd say, "What are you talking about?
We know the lines."
LUCIE: And as it got more stressful,
it was harder for him to survive.
He started to drink more.
Then, with the drinking, he would forget and he would be
photographed with some dame.
She was willing to go the extra mile for him,
and he still couldn't pull it back.
And my mother had her own problems, and they didn't make it any better.
She was very hard-edged, and that's the last thing he needed
was a hard edge.
He hurt her by his actions, and she hurt him by her words.
DESI: I got a one track mind.
The biggest fault in my life is that I never learned moderation.
♪ ♪
I either work too hard or I play too hard.
If I drank, I drank too much. If I worked, I worked too much.
I don't know. One of the greatest virtues in the world is moderation.
That's the one I could never learn.
LUCY: So I finally got permission from Desi,
after a long time, to come and join in a conversation.
BETTY: This was the New York psychiatrist?
LUCY: Yes.
We tried to get Desi to continue,
but, uh, Desi never felt that he had a problem,
so he certainly didn't want to discuss it.
BETTY: Did you feel like you got anything out of it yourself?
-LUCY: Yes. -Did you get any insight into yourself?
LUCY: Yes, I did. I got the answer I wanted:
was it my fault or how much of it was my fault
and what to do about it.
BETTY: You decided it wasn't your fault?
LUCY: No, I didn't decide that at all.
I knew where it was my fault.
I was at fault, too, because you can't go
years and years and years being unhappy about a situation
without having it change you.
You get so you can't stand yourself.
LUCIE: They tried this last
family vacation to Europe.
That was a real nightmare.
Then I-I remember a horrible fight one night.
I don't know what it was about, but I-I do remember hearing that.
LUCY: It was a miserable month and a miserable trip.
And, uh...
that's where I decided that, uh, that would be it.
♪ ♪
DESI: I was the one who wanted out.
I brought it up and I, and I laid it.
And I laid the plan for months ahead of time so it would work.
Because I didn't want any part of it anymore.
I just made up my mind I couldn't live anymore, that way.
♪ ♪
LUCY: With the last of the Lucy shows,
it was obvious that Desi was, uh, not, uh--
you know, that we were having trouble.
-Well, I heard. -(women scream)
I heard everything.
I knew it.
I'm through.
Finished.
Oh, now, honey.
Where I really belong is on my uncle's tobacco plantation.
In Cuba.
(audience laughter)
BETTY: Well weren't you rather weepy on that last show?
LUCY: Oh, I was a wreck.
And Desi was a wreck.
Yeah. The cameramen were crying and the...
everybody was in tears.
It was sad.
BETTY: You probably thought there would never by any more didn't you?
LUCY: Well, I didn't care one way or another,
but it was a finish of so many things.
BETTY: Mm-hmm.
("Break It to Me Gently" by Brenda Lee playing)
So then you waited until he asked for the divorce?
LUCY: Oh, I had everything prepared and ready.
Uh, in 20 minutes, I had the lawyer there.
♪ Break it ♪
♪ To me gently ♪
♪ Let me down ♪
♪ The easy way... ♪
LUCIE: They went at it for all the right reasons, originally.
And the only reason I Love Lucy exists
is because they wanted to be together
so they could have a family and make the marriage work.
So they made this show,
and now the rest of the universe has it, and they never got what they wanted.
♪ Love again ♪
♪ 'Cause I'll never ♪
♪ Love ♪
♪ Again ♪
-♪ Never love again. ♪ -(song ends)
♪ ♪
They both, um, sat us down in the living room in Palm Springs.
I remember it so clearly.
And they basically said that, "Your mother and I...
...can't get along well enough to be together anymore."
It was very scary, and I felt so sorry for my dad.
♪ ♪
But the minute they separated,
they became kinder to one another.
The hard edge softened the minute they got divorced.
Because they did love one another.
DANIELS: I Love Lucy built
every episode around that-that idea of fracture
and then coming back together.
And I think we crave that as humans in life.
These were not people that held resentments.
You know, they couldn't be married, but they kept working together.
LUCY: You see, when we worked, we were happy.
We loved our work. We worked very well together.
Even after we were divorced, we worked together.
♪ ♪
Desilu Productions was responsible
for some of the greatest television of the 20th century.
The original Star Trek series,
Mission: Impossible.
Uh, you know, the list goes on and on.
All of these shows were either shot at Desilu or produced by Desilu.
And as a result, there's just a library of contribution
to our culture throughout the world.
(audio dubbed, man speaking Spanish)
-(man laughs) -(audience laughter)
And all of that was Desi.
(camera clicking)
Desi was at the helm of that ship.
♪ ♪
LUCIE: My father wanted the business so bad
that he let the marriage fall apart.
And then the simple joy of creating became the part he had no time to do.
And the business overwhelmed him.
DESI: I hated every minute of it...
...after a while.
♪ ♪
LUCY: I wanted to get as far away as possible.
And I was actually headed for Europe to live.
The children were much smaller, and that would've been
a nice place for their schooling.
But then the Wildcat thing of course formulated.
(band playing "Hey, Look Me Over")
♪ You gotta say, "Hey, look me over ♪
♪ Lend me an ear" ♪
♪ Fresh outta clover ♪
♪ Mortgage up to here... ♪
LUCIE: She was not a theater person.
She's not a singer. She's not a dancer.
♪ I'd figure whenever you're down and out... ♪
And she's gonna give herself a singing, dancing role
on Broadway, eight shows a week.
I can't even figure out what on earth she must have been thinking.
♪ And, look out, world, here I come... ♪
LUCY: Wildcat didn't embarrass me.
It was the choreography that went with it.
♪ ♪
The choreography was done by a very nice gal
and a very feminine girl,
and the routine came out feminine.
And I just didn't feel that it fit the robustness of the show.
But mostly I got hurt.
I like to be strong. That's about the quickest answer.
I don't like to be a weakling. I don't like to be ill.
I'm not a-- at all, a hypochondriac.
I don't enjoy weakness.
I like to have the strength to do what I have to do.
♪ ♪
BURNETT: I remember I went to see a show, and afterwards we went backstage
to see Lucy.
Gary was in the dressing room, and she said, "You know, kid,
he makes me laugh."
Gary was a comedian.
She felt very secure with him.
LUCY: He said, "Will you be my girl?"
(chuckles) The actual "Shall we get married?" came a bit later.
And when I decided it was right,
we did it immediately.
(crowd cheering)
Within five days.
LaPLACA: I don't think the public
rejected Gary Morton, but I think the public
ignored Gary Morton and continues to.
Because it disrupts the fantasy that they want to hold in their minds.
LUCIE: And I know it broke my father's heart,
but my father ended up remarrying after a few years.
♪ ♪
Her name was Edie.
Gorgeous, freckles,
redhead.
He was married to Edie for 26 years.
My mother was married to Gary Morton for 27 years.
They were married to those people
longer than they were married to each other.
It was the best thing, really, in the long run
that happened to either one of them.
(band playing The Lucy Show theme)
ANNOUNCER: The Lucy Show.
Starring Lucille Ball.
Costarring Vivian Vance.
Hey, kids, guess what.
I, uh, I got a referee for your game.
-No kidding! -Who?!
It's me.
What do moms know about football?
Especially you.
(audience laughter)
LaPLACA: The Lucy Show was about
two single women raising kids on their own.
It got a lot of flak in its first year because it was all about Lucy and Viv.
After all, we're all alone here, just two women without a man.
You don't have to rub it in.
(audience laughter)
LUCY: Even with a slight change of format
two or three times, there's always been audience identification with Lucy.
And then without, uh, the husbands,
was certainly audience identification
for millions of women who try to go through life
without a man and have to raise children
and-and what goes on, life without a man.
-Oh. -How do you like this one?
Yeah, he's kind of cute. You like black sheep, Viv?
Like 'em? I was married to one.
(audience laughter)
LaPLACA: Vivian Vance was playing
a divorced single mother.
She was really amplifying a lot of feminist narratives
in a moment when a lot of the women on television around her
were not doing that.
The character she played on television for all those years
was motivating generations of women.
-MAN: Marker. -(quiet chatter)
DIRECTOR: Settle down!
Action!
Hi. I hope you enjoyed our little show.
Oh.
(laughter, applause)
DESI: Oh goddamn! We're giving the minorities a break this week huh?
(Lucy laughs)
Jesus Christ!
The minorities are working this week huh?
-(rhythmic drumming) -♪ Babalú ♪
♪ Babalú ♪
(Desi chatters)
LUCIE: My dad produced the show.
They were already divorced when that happened.
♪ ♪
My mother called him all the time for advice.
LUCY: I never saw anybody
really get down to the root of a story and give you
the fundamentals of it and what we're after.
He could see what was happening, uh, where a lot of other people didn't.
LUCIE: But he didn't enjoy it as much as those early days
when he was figuring it out.
And, um, he got very depressed because of that.
And he drank more.
Basically, his health deteriorated and he wasn't able to function.
And that was a real shame because nobody did it better.
You know, it was like you got to tell the pilot,
"You can't fly the plane anymore because you're not healthy enough."
♪ ♪
MACHADO: He gave up.
I just think it became so connected between the two of them
that, in that way, he was faithful.
But after that show where so much was defined,
he couldn't...
keep going.
He couldn't do it anymore.
And she, because she came from nothing, had to keep going.
Thank you, Oscar.
Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.
-Are we ready? -MAN: Yeah, we are.
LUCY: The financial results of the fiscal year
which ended May 2, 1964.
Gross income for that year was $23,885,251...
BETTY: Now isn't your job unique in the whole world right now?
Aren't you the only woman who's the head of a corporation as big as Desilu?
LUCY: In the entertainment business, I guess, yes.
The other thing that makes mine, uh, even more different
is the fact that I'm working every day.
I'm not in an office presiding.
I'm in a-- I'm-I'm on a stage doing The Lucy Show.
And this makes everything double time, you know.
Double time for everything.
BURNETT: She said, "You know,
"when I was married to the Cuban, Desi did everything.
"Then all I had to do
"was come in on a Monday and be crazy little Lucy.
Everything was there."
LUCY: I have to handle the real problems
of running the studio the way I run it,
and I'm getting there earlier, I'm staying later.
I'm having to oversee a lot of things that I-I'm interested in,
I'd rather someone else would be doing, but at the moment, I have to do it myself.
Well, all I know is, whenever I say, "Do this,"
you say you can't bring that camera in for a close two-shot
because of the camera shadows.
-Yeah. -Try and find out how to eliminate it.
We're bringing it in to the very limit.
And there is no-
I don't know how to light a scene without lights.
Period.
No. No, I'm not asking that.
I'm not questioning that.
♪ ♪
BURNETT: She said, "So now I've got to confront."
And sh-she never had to do that before.
And she said, "Kid,
that's when they put the 'S' on the end of my last name."
♪ ♪
LUCY: I have already sold the one pilot,
The Greatest Show on Earth, and it's going to be on ABC,
and that's an hour show, and it's gonna mean a lot to the company.
And we consummated another deal for three years
with the Danny Thomas empire.
He has, uh, six or seven shows over in my other studio.
George Stevens is making The Greatest Story Ever Told,
and Jesus Christ is parting the waters out there
on the Culver, uh, 40 Acres.
So we're very happy about that.
Our stock is climbing a little bit, and, uh, we're happy about that.
♪ ♪
LUCIE: My mom loved the creative process.
When she could be the Lucy character
and Desi could run the studio, that was all the best.
When she had to take on all of that stuff--
first of all, just run the show without him,
but then run a studio without him?--
she did not like that at all.
She didn't, she didn't care about being the first woman anything.
So as soon as somebody made her a decent offer, she took it.
In Hollywood, the winner is Lucille Ball.
(cheering, applause)
(band playing upbeat theme)
(sighs)
(laughs): Well...
I can't believe it.
(laughter)
I honestly cannot believe it.
I don't have one thing prepared to say because I just didn't expect it.
It's been a long, long time.
(laughter)
(applause)
I have one or two.
And they...
...they mean a lot
because it's given by you all,
part of the industry.
I don't know. It just sort of...
...seemed away and apart of what we're really doing.
It left a long time ago, and I'm glad it's back.
Last time I got it, I thought they gave it to me
because I had a baby.
(laughter)
And that baby is 14 years old now.
(laughter)
I love my work.
Thank you for giving me this for it.
-(applause) -Thank you.
(band playing "Shy")
♪ I'm going fishing for a mate ♪
♪ She's going fishing for a mate ♪
♪ I'm gonna look in every brook ♪
♪ She's gonna look in every brook... ♪
BURNETT: I got my first big break,
and I-I was cast in an off-Broadway show.
♪ ♪
This one night, there was a big buzz in the audience
before the curtain was gonna go up,
and I made the mistake of peeking through and looking out,
and there was that orange hair in the second row.
(sighs)
I was working at the Universal Amphitheatre
before it had a roof.
No one was more surprised than I was to see her at my show.
'Cause I work blue.
You know, it-- you aren't supposed to work blue.
I was early working blue. But she loved to laugh.
BURNETT: We went backstage,
and she said, "Hey, kid."
She called me "kid" because she was 22 years older.
She was so encouraging,
and she said, "Kid,
if you ever need me, you give me a call."
(audience laughter)
LUCY: Touché.
(sneezes loudly)
(audience laughter)
BURNETT: What Lucy gave me was a sense
I could do anything and try anything
and not be afraid of falling on my face.
That I could be free.
(applause)
MIDLER: She was so kind.
And she did take me under her wing.
(cheering, applause)
I think, at that-- by that time in her life,
she sort of decided that was her role.
DAVID SHEEHAN: We have a young lady here
with an I Love Lucy T-shirt on.
-Stand up and... -LUCY: Take your hands off her, David.
-SHEEHAN: Oh, excuse me. -(laughter)
-LUCY: I can see the shirt. -So...
-(laughter) -Thought I'd try to...
MIDLER: You know, big sister or big mama.
Oh, these are some of the actors from our little theater group.
MIDLER: To guide people, to guide younger women along.
BURNETT: Oh, well, I think she felt very proud
when somebody that she mentored and loved did well.
I don't think there's a day goes by
that I don't think of her.
That she doesn't dip into my mind and my heart.
♪ ♪
(applause)
He's right, girls. You look sensational!
-Yeah. -You see, Kim,
apparently we were destined to be gherkins.
-(audience laughter) -(laughs)
MACHADO: Watching Lucy in the later shows,
she became the straight man.
-Young lady, -(clears throat)
will you please explain why you, a waitress,
are sitting at a table and leaving customers standing?
Because it's my coffee break.
(audience laughter)
Well, you could take your coffee break in the kitchen.
Honey, you could eat in the kitchen.
(audience laughter)
MACHADO: And she lost the shoulder she hung on
because that was Desi.
(waves crashing)
(seagulls chirping)
LUCIE: So, my dad had lung cancer, and, um...
there weren't any other treatments for him,
and he decided to forgo any chemo,
and I was taking care of him.
And, uh, I called my mom at one point,
and I said, you know, "I think maybe you should think about
"coming down to Del Mar.
I don't know how much time he has left."
It made her... scared, I think, a little scared.
And when she got there, I, uh, I-I let her sit in his room.
And, um... I did the goofiest thing.
I-I put on old I Love Lucy shows and let them watch them together.
Hey, this is great, Fred.
-This is wonderful. -Yeah, look how big and roomy.
I bet you could hang a whole side of beef in there.
Are you kidding? I bet that you...
(Ricky screams)
(audience laughter)
Hi, Ricky, honey.
(audience laughter)
♪ ♪
Cigarette?
(audience laughter)
LUCIE: I-I wasn't in the room.
I just heard what was going on from outside the door.
(audience laughter)
I could hear them laughing together.
(weakly): ♪ Babalú ♪
(audience laughter)
Where does this go?!
Goes down to the starch vat!
(audience laughter)
Oh! Honey, take it off!
Oh!
(audience laughter)
Hey, what's going on here?!
(audience laughter)
(screams)
(audience laughter)
Oh!
♪ ♪
(audience laughter)
LUCIE: And then she left, she went home,
and she told me she cried all the way home.
About a month later, when he was really, really ill,
I called her and I said, uh...
..."I-I think you should talk to him.
"Don't know if he's gonna be awake much longer.
So if you want to say anything at all, now's a good time."
"Oh, okay. O-Okay." You know.
And I-I... held the phone
o-over to him, and I leaned down like this.
And...
(sighs) ...she said...
..."I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I love you."
And he said, "I love you, too, honey."
♪ ♪
The next morning, at 12:05 in the morning,
he died in my arms.
And I thought, "Wow, he got a chance to speak to her."
The last person he spoke to, other than me and a nurse,
was my mom.
That's great.
And then I realized that December--
12:05 a.m. on December 2nd,
was 24 hours he'd been in a coma--
the day they spoke was November 30th,
their anniversary.
♪ ♪
(applause)
ANNOUNCER: From the John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts in Washington,
the ninth annual Kennedy Center Honors.
When I was offered the part
of Eliot Ness on The Untouchables...
...I can remember the lady sitting up there
was sitting in the front office 'cause she was the boss.
The boss? She owned the studio.
(laughter)
But it was her partner
who persuaded me that I-I should do the show.
(imitating Desi): He said, "We gonna make
the best damn television show on television."
(laughter)
He wanted to be here tonight.
I'd like to read something that he wrote.
"I Love Lucy had just one mission:
"to make people laugh.
"Lucy gave it a rare quality.
"She can perform the wildest, even the messiest
"physical comedy without losing her feminine appeal.
"The New York Times asked me to divide the credit
"for its success between the writers, the directors and the cast.
"I told them, 'Give Lucy 90% of the credit
and divide the other ten percent among the rest of us.'"
Desi concluded, "Lucy was the show.
"Viv and Fred and I were just props--
"damn good props, but props nevertheless.
"P.S.
I Love Lucy was never just a title."
♪ ♪
LUCY (over speakers): Some people in this industry
are still saying, "We got to get big stars.
We got to get big stars."
Well, we'd have to dig some of them up 'cause they're most of them dead.
We've got to make stars now.
So how do you make a star?
You don't necessarily go out and find somebody
wearing a sweater, sitting in a soda fountain.
That's an old, uh, Cinderella story.
I prefer to find a trouper.
People who know what to do when they're given a great opportunity
and they don't take advantage, take advantage, take advantage.
Show business means that the show must go on.
The show comes first instead of your personality.
All of these things can be applied at home
just as easily as it can to your work,
and it's something that I would like to expand on later,
but I hate to put any more time on this tape.
Bye for now.
(tape clicks)
♪ ♪
(music fades)