T h e L u c y P h e n o
m e n o n
|
| When I
Love Lucy aired on Monday nights, the country came to a
virtual standstill to watch it. More than ten
million T.V. sets were tuned in to the show on those
nights (there were only fifteen million in the U.S. at
the time). |
In 1952,
when presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson interrupted
the show for a campaign pitch, he was deluged by angry
viewers. (One woman wrote "I love Lucy. I like
Ike. Drop dead.") The department store |
Marshall
Field's moved its evening shopping hours from Monday to
Thursday, because business was so bad on that night.
(They put up a sign saying "We love Lucy,
too.") More people watched the show that announced
Little Ricky's birth in 1953 |
than
watched the swearing in of Eisenhower as the new
president. In fact, the "Lucy Goes to the
Hospital" episode drew a 92 percent share and a 71.1
Nielsen rating--a record which stood for decades. |
| Lucy WAS BORN IN
JAMESTOWN, NEW YORK, ON AUGUST 6, 1911. She was born
to be |
| an entertainer, and would often herd her
neighborhood friends into impromptu plays and |
| productions. She was amazingly
ambitious from an early age, and took off for New York
City to |
| find stardom when she was only
fifteen years old. HARD KNOCKS AND HARD WORK best |
| define Lucy's road to success. Her
early experience in show business would have turned back
all |
| but the most stubborn of
personalities. Her first acting school coach
recommended that she find |
| a different career, and she was
fired from her first four chorus-line jobs. Lucy's
first break came |
when she landed
a chorus girl role in a movie called Roman Scandals. She
headed to Hollywood,
|
 |
where she began to get other small
movie roles, |
| and eventually worked her way up
the ladder to |
| success. BUT EVEN AS THE STAR OF
HER |
| OWN SHOW, she is remembered as
being the |
| hardest
working person on the set. Lucy's brand |
| of comedy was highly energetic, and
demanded |
| a great deal of physical
stamina. During her |
| pregnancy, her fellow actors
remember Lucy |
| leaving the set for a few minutes
to throw up, |
| then coming right back to start
again. No |
| complaints.
THAT KIND OF ENERGY DEFINED HER ENTIRE LIFE. She
ran production companies |
| (Lucille
Ball Productions came after Desilu), created more classic
television (including The Lucy Show |
| and
Here's Lucy), raised two children (Lucie Arnaz and Desi
Arnaz, IV), starred on Broadway, and |
| acted
in a total of eighty movies. She won four Emmy Awards, a
Lifetime Achievement Citation from |
| the
Kennedy Center, and a Presidential Medal of
Freedom. When she died in 1989, she left behind a |
| public
that revered her as an American icon. Her most
important legacy, of course, is the classic T.V. |
| and
movie moments that she created. Our Lucy might appreciate
being missed, but--let's face it--she |
| would
most like the fact she can still make us laugh. |
One of the
most powerful personalities in the world of television,
Lucille Ball virtually defined an era of
entertainment. Along the way, she established
herself as a brilliant comedienne, built a small
Hollywood empire, and even shot down a few antiquated
notions about women. Of course, we hardly noticed
any of that because we were too busy laughing.
Maybe that's why, fifty years later,
One of the most important things
that Lucy showed us was that women could be funny and
attractive all at once--a groundbreaking concept for the
day. This was particularly admirable given that
Lucy was beautiful enough to be a conventional
film star, and, in fact had become a Hollywood movie
sensation as "Queen of the B-Movies." But she
shrugged off the persona of a cool beauty, instead
revelling in the chance to get a laugh. She was never
afraid to look foolish, silly, or even ugly for the sake
of a good gag and her public loved her for it. By proving
this formula, she paved the way for generations of funny
women to come. Think of Carol Burnett, Roseanne, Gilda
Radner, and Candice Bergen--they all owe at least a part
of their success to the amazing Lucy.