Jump to content

The Last Days of Lucille Ball


Annaleigh

Recommended Posts

Just read this article and thought maybe you all would like to read it also. Thoughts?

 

 

http://www.neatorama...f-lucille-ball/

 

Very sad article. Made me kind of tear up. She really was depressed pretty badly and I think depression can lead you to death. That's what happened to my grandmother. She just got sick and tired of living and was actually angry that she kept waking up every morning until finally she died.

 

By the way, I didn't know Lucy was discharged from the hospital after the first operation. I had never heard that she went home and was ordered to stay in a room downstairs?? Is this right or did this person get their facts screwed up?

 

Another question kind of out of the blue: Howcome Lucy's gravestone doesn't have Arnaz on it? Even in Jamestown now it's "Ball" but it has Morton on it somewhere, right? Why isn't Arnaz on there? Seems weird to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another question kind of out of the blue: Howcome Lucy's gravestone doesn't have Arnaz on it? Even in Jamestown now it's "Ball" but it has Morton on it somewhere, right? Why isn't Arnaz on there? Seems weird to me.

 

If a woman divorces and re-marries, she's technically no longer entitled to legally use her former married name. I have never seen an example of a divorced woman who was re-married at the time of death to have the last name of a former husband on their memorial...unless they used the last name in question as their professional name. Had she stayed a swingin single after 1960, the grave would undoubtedly read "Lucille Ball Arnaz".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If a woman divorces and re-marries, she's technically no longer entitled to legally use her former married name. I have never seen an example of a divorced woman who was re-married at the time of death to have the last name of a former husband on their memorial...unless they used the last name in question as their professional name. Had she stayed a swingin single after 1960, the grave would undoubtedly read "Lucille Ball Arnaz".

 

I see. I kinda figured that but since she had children with him, I thought they might want to honor the Arnaz name too. Hmm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very sad article but I don't think it's very accurate. I don't recall either that she went home after the first operation. That would be completely unlikely especially after such a big operation. There was only a week that passed from the operation to her death so it's definitely an error. Not sure either why Arnaz was never written on her gravestone. I guess because her maiden name was Ball and her current marriage was with Morton hence there was obviously no need for the Arnaz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see. I kinda figured that but since she had children with him, I thought they might want to honor the Arnaz name too. Hmm.

 

Since "Lucille Ball Morton" (well, "MORTON, Lucille Ball") was on her original marker at Forest Lawn, it was probably's Lucy's own wishes as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If a woman divorces and re-marries, she's technically no longer entitled to legally use her former married name. I have never seen an example of a divorced woman who was re-married at the time of death to have the last name of a former husband on their memorial...unless they used the last name in question as their professional name. Had she stayed a swingin single after 1960, the grave would undoubtedly read "Lucille Ball Arnaz".

 

You took the words right out of my mouth! It must have been while you were kissing me! :lucyhaha:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the frig do you expect from an article that says E T H Y L Mertz, morons! Of course it's wrong, she went into the hospital and a week later instead of getting better, she diied there. Before six am, all alone as her hubby had cancelled her nurse. This seems to be taken from the Lee Tannen book OR a Lee Tannen article and it might have been a year earlier when she had her stroke that she had that incident with the room downstairs. As for the marker on her old resting place in Hollywood, she bought it herself and always insisted on Morton's name being on everything, from the front door mat to the monogrammed napkins. Even the silverware she swiped from that Hotel with the W thinking that upside down, it stood for an M for Morton.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very sad article but I don't think it's very accurate. I don't recall either that she went home after the first operation. That would be completely unlikely especially after such a big operation. There was only a week that passed from the operation to her death so it's definitely an error. Not sure either why Arnaz was never written on her gravestone. I guess because her maiden name was Ball and her current marriage was with Morton hence there was obviously no need for the Arnaz.

Yeah that's the only thing about it that was wrong. She was recovering at the hospital.

 

But as for the depression after LWL and Desi's death seems so correct. She lost the love of her life, she loved him completely. That bit also came from Lee Tannen, we can trust his word over the article author.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah that's the only thing about it that was wrong. She was recovering at the hospital.

 

But as for the depression after LWL and Desi's death seems so correct. She lost the love of her life, she loved him completely. That bit also came from Lee Tannen, we can trust his word over the article author.

Oh Lee did get some things wrong in his book also, which is so surprising when these people claim to be so close to her. But his errors were inconsequential like Jim Brochu's. Always about her shows or appearances and unimportant things like those.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last days in Lucy's life were actually not that bad. She had family surrounding her, she was walking around unaided in her hospital room. Considering she was in hospital it was as good as it can be considering the huge operation she had. Unfortunately though her heart must have been so weak she made a bad movement in bed that evening and it caused her to have another aortic anuyerism. It would have happened very quickly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh Lee did get some things wrong in his book also, which is so surprising when these people claim to be so close to her. But his errors were inconsequential like Jim Brochu's. Always about her shows or appearances and unimportant things like those.

Of course. But the striking thing that hit me was the toll on her emotions after those 2 tragedies in her life. I always knew it but it is as if she died feeling miserable emotionally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last days in Lucy's life were actually not that bad. She had family surrounding her, she was walking around unaided in her hospital room. Considering she was in hospital it was as good as it can be considering the huge operation she had. Unfortunately though her heart must have been so weak she made a bad movement in bed that evening and it caused her to have another aortic anuyerism. It would have happened very quickly.

This is true but this article is talking about the emotional toll on her after 1986 until her death.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Of course. But the striking thing that hit me was the toll on her emotions after those 2 tragedies in her life. I always knew it but it is as if she died feeling miserable emotionally.

 

Yep. Like I said depression can lead to death.

 

I didn't notice the "Ethyl" but I did notice a lot of other annoying typos. The author should probably keep their day job. Lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last days in Lucy's life were actually not that bad. She had family surrounding her, she was walking around unaided in her hospital room. Considering she was in hospital it was as good as it can be considering the huge operation she had. Unfortunately though her heart must have been so weak she made a bad movement in bed that evening and it caused her to have another aortic anuyerism. It would have happened very quickly.

That`s what Joan Rivers said when Lucy died. She said Gilda Radner dying of cancer so young was sad, Lucy dying surrounded by family and friends, loved by the world and having made it to the top of her profession was not sad, OR WORDS TO THAT EFFECT. As for Lucy`s health, it wasn`t movement in bed, they had repaired the aorta but not at the place it ruptured again.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with who said “don’t quit your day job”. That’s some pretty poor writing. It looks like this person took a lot out of Lee’s book but did it very inaccurately. It implies that Lucy was at home when she had the pain that was the torn aorta. It mostly defiantly was in the hospital as this was stated many places. I also don’t buy the room downstairs thing either. Doesn’t Lee’s book have a story where he brings Lucy lilacs in bed after she had a stroke? That story clearly took place in the master bedroom. After the stroke is the only time the room downstairs would have made sense, but since she did not go home from the hospital then no. Claude when was the paparazzi photo taken of Lucy on the way home from the hospital? Was this after the 88 stroke?

 

I was looking back over the letters that were in the infamous Widow Morton’s auction and there is one that Lucy wrote to Gary around their 24th wedding anniversary (which puts it at 1985) where all she asks for is better health for both of them and this is coming after she got so sick doing Stone Pillow. It’s always very interesting to see photos of Lucy in the 1980’s compared with those in the 1970’s. In the 1970’s (and with the heavy makeup) Lucy could pass for 10 years younger than she was. By the 1980’s she looks more than just 10 years older than a previous decade and more like someone in their 70s. I don’t think she took aging from stress very well. In the Yapp book there are some photos of Lucy and Desi taken right after they bought RKO so that would make these photos around 1958. Compare these to ones of the couple from 1951 and the start of ILL. These people look like they have aged way more than just 8 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The whole end of 1986 was a damned disaster. She does this terrible show on bad advice and is cancelled, something that has never happened to Lucy before (some may want to debate HL’s ending as less than voluntary, I think not). So she feels like she has lost all her fans, or if she hasn’t then they only love her from the best of times, no one wants to see grandmother Lucy. It’s not like Betty White who has been able to carry fans from her original great TV work, but those younger that discovered her as Rose are watching her work today and don’t have this one image set in their mind.

I always say that Lucy listened to the wrong husband on the LWL advice. Isn’t it noted that Desi told her NOT to do the show? The thing to question here is what were the motivating factors behind her going back to TV? Was it an attempt to make some people happy? Did she really miss working? I’m pretty sure it was not the money (at least to her). If Lucy wanted to work I’m sure someone could have found her better stuff, but did she just not have the fight left to turn down anything she felt bad, or not right for her?

 

I listened to that Hollywood Byline the other day again and Lucy says something very interesting on it. At that time (1950) in her career she says that maybe she should be more discriminating in her picture choices. She just loved to work so much she took whatever she was given. Not that she didn’t seek out projects she wanted to do (she used Fancy Pants as an example because she wanted to work with Hope). Once ILL comes along she starts to defer to the husband. In the Byline interview she talks about having an audience when she was doing Dream Girl. Lucy says that she rarely remembered there was an audience out there and that it didn’t make an impact on her performance. Now how many times have we heard in the ILL creation “Lucy works better with an audience”? I think Lucy didn’t know she worked better with an audience until someone like Desi witnessed it and noticed how well it helped her comedy. The more they got to work together the more he understood her acting talent, coupled with an increase in his confidence of knowing what scripts would and would not work, running the business, etc. I’ve read that Desi was very protective of Lucy’s image during those ILL years. He knew how to show her in the best light. Watch any appearance they did during the 50s’. If there was “acting” involved (Sullivan) she was always in the “Lucy” character. If she was being Lucille you didn’t hear her talk all too much, she deferred to Desi. He knew the public wanted to see “Lucy” so he did not want to present anything too drastic from that. Not that this is a bad thing.

 

Lucy started to defer to Desi once she saw how well everything was going and how good his talent was. Always a creature of habit, by the time she gets Gary on board she wanted that same type of person to know what was best for her, so she could just act. It may be in Lucy’s book but she talks about slowly working Gary into production so he could learn it. So here is someone who was never much around TV, trying to learn “the Lucy way” and take over what Desi did, except that Desi was a key part in creating “the Lucy way” and was just a lot more talented overall.

 

Now on to the second crushing event of 86 and death of Desi. Does anyone know how long it was between his diagnoses and his death? I’m think it was all in the same year. I always wonder how much it showed that she still carried a torch for him. I haven’t heard too many stories recounted after Lucy’s death that she told friends regarding her days with him that were super positive with the exception of the business part of their relationship. Was this Lucy’s way of not letting out her true feelings as to not have any of it get back to Gary and/or make herself look better in that she wasn’t going to take the cheating and drinking anymore? Reading the letters in the fore mentioned auction you saw that Lucy really did love Gary and that she realized how good he was for her. Maybe on the boring side, but after the previous 19 years boring is what she wanted. I think all the love letters, notes, etc.. are very telling about Lucy. Obviously these letters are meant for the readers eyes only and are the one true place where you see the unrepressed heart of Lucy. I think when she fell in love she fell very hard. Going back through her book the only man she talks about, other than her husbands, that I feel she really did love was Johnny. Lucy even says that once she got to NYC it took a long time for her to shake that relationship. She would visit Johnny’s family for many years after when she returned to Jamestown. Nowhere else in her book does she talk about any other man she dated this way, even those she was so called “engaged” to which she doesn’t make mention of being engaged to any.

 

I think that these letters over the years show a window to her heart that love sustains. Legally a marriage may have ended but the love hasn’t. The love may change in forms due to necessity, letting go of the past and opening your heart to be loved again, but in reading the Gary letters they are pretty heartfelt 8, 18, 24 years into their marriage. Lucy talks about them taking separate vacations, Palm Springs/Snowmass, and how she already misses him. Who knows what was written or said to Desi in their private conversations. The stories from their friends on the Home Movies about how in the later years when they talked of each other, they cried is very sad. The last phone call story where all Lucy says is “I love you” repeatedly and with more feeling each time is so telling. When he died she had a very strong reaction. Didn’t Lee say in his book that she took to her bed for a week and was inconsolable? Couple that on top of the show being cancelled and Lucy thinking she lost the public’s adoration this has to be one of, if not the lowest point of her life.

 

The Kennedy Center Honors came at one of the best times for her. She needed that diversion, that thing to take her mind of the past few weeks. But you can’t help to think those days in DC being honored and so much of Lucy’s success being shown/talked about in retrospect (and you know there was a lot of ILL praise) it may have had its bad effects too. Sort of reinforcing you are not young anymore, you are not the Lucy from the 1950’s that America grew to love, the love of your life you created those shows with is gone now and you just had a show where you were bringing back a character America loved cancelled after 2 months. Lee’s story of him cracking the joke about Roosevelt and Lucy getting so upset, yelling stuff about how all they do is through awards at you, people you love die and then going in the bedroom and slamming the door conveys a lot. This was a very difficult time for her. My question is who if anyone did she talk to in those days to help her get through this? What friends was she really close to at this time? How do you talk about the cancellation of your show and losing the love of your life with a husband that pushed you into the show, and may secretly resent that you still carried the torch for your past love throughout the whole marriage.

 

So I bring up the much debated Barbara Walters interview. Of course there is bitterness there towards Desi. Do you think that someone so obsessed with her public image is going to sit next to her current husband and talk about the good times with the past love. Lucy will praise Desi up and down for all that he did to make the show and the studio a success but that is ok. That makes her look good. I think that Lucy felt she needed to defend her divorce till the day she died. How she had to make the current marriage look like what she wanted the first one to be. If this second marriage failed it was going to completely tarnish her, as Claude says, General Foods Image. On the Home Movies there are excerpts from an interview (done I assume around the time of Mame, based on the wig) that she seems to candidly talk about the end of the marriage. Does anyone know what this is from and has seen the whole thing?

 

So I’ve rambled on for a while here. Thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with who said “don’t quit your day job”. That’s some pretty poor writing. It looks like this person took a lot out of Lee’s book but did it very inaccurately. It implies that Lucy was at home when she had the pain that was the torn aorta. It mostly defiantly was in the hospital as this was stated many places. I also don’t buy the room downstairs thing either. Doesn’t Lee’s book have a story where he brings Lucy lilacs in bed after she had a stroke? That story clearly took place in the master bedroom. After the stroke is the only time the room downstairs would have made sense, but since she did not go home from the hospital then no. Claude when was the paparazzi photo taken of Lucy on the way home from the hospital? Was this after the 88 stroke?

 

I was looking back over the letters that were in the infamous Widow Morton’s auction and there is one that Lucy wrote to Gary around their 24th wedding anniversary (which puts it at 1985) where all she asks for is better health for both of them and this is coming after she got so sick doing Stone Pillow. It’s always very interesting to see photos of Lucy in the 1980’s compared with those in the 1970’s. In the 1970’s (and with the heavy makeup) Lucy could pass for 10 years younger than she was. By the 1980’s she looks more than just 10 years older than a previous decade and more like someone in their 70s. I don’t think she took aging from stress very well. In the Yapp book there are some photos of Lucy and Desi taken right after they bought RKO so that would make these photos around 1958. Compare these to ones of the couple from 1951 and the start of ILL. These people look like they have aged way more than just 8 years.

Yeah, i thought the exact same thin, that horrible picture of her in the car with flowers in the back MUST BE when she left the hospital after the stroke the previous year. THEN, it's possible they didn't want her climbing stairs and have her sleep downstairs till she was up to that upstairs climb.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The whole end of 1986 was a damned disaster. She does this terrible show on bad advice and is cancelled, something that has never happened to Lucy before (some may want to debate HL’s ending as less than voluntary, I think not). So she feels like she has lost all her fans, or if she hasn’t then they only love her from the best of times, no one wants to see grandmother Lucy. It’s not like Betty White who has been able to carry fans from her original great TV work, but those younger that discovered her as Rose are watching her work today and don’t have this one image set in their mind.

I always say that Lucy listened to the wrong husband on the LWL advice. Isn’t it noted that Desi told her NOT to do the show? The thing to question here is what were the motivating factors behind her going back to TV? Was it an attempt to make some people happy? Did she really miss working? I’m pretty sure it was not the money (at least to her). If Lucy wanted to work I’m sure someone could have found her better stuff, but did she just not have the fight left to turn down anything she felt bad, or not right for her?

 

I listened to that Hollywood Byline the other day again and Lucy says something very interesting on it. At that time (1950) in her career she says that maybe she should be more discriminating in her picture choices. She just loved to work so much she took whatever she was given. Not that she didn’t seek out projects she wanted to do (she used Fancy Pants as an example because she wanted to work with Hope). Once ILL comes along she starts to defer to the husband. In the Byline interview she talks about having an audience when she was doing Dream Girl. Lucy says that she rarely remembered there was an audience out there and that it didn’t make an impact on her performance. Now how many times have we heard in the ILL creation “Lucy works better with an audience”? I think Lucy didn’t know she worked better with an audience until someone like Desi witnessed it and noticed how well it helped her comedy. The more they got to work together the more he understood her acting talent, coupled with an increase in his confidence of knowing what scripts would and would not work, running the business, etc. I’ve read that Desi was very protective of Lucy’s image during those ILL years. He knew how to show her in the best light. Watch any appearance they did during the 50s’. If there was “acting” involved (Sullivan) she was always in the “Lucy” character. If she was being Lucille you didn’t hear her talk all too much, she deferred to Desi. He knew the public wanted to see “Lucy” so he did not want to present anything too drastic from that. Not that this is a bad thing.

 

Lucy started to defer to Desi once she saw how well everything was going and how good his talent was. Always a creature of habit, by the time she gets Gary on board she wanted that same type of person to know what was best for her, so she could just act. It may be in Lucy’s book but she talks about slowly working Gary into production so he could learn it. So here is someone who was never much around TV, trying to learn “the Lucy way” and take over what Desi did, except that Desi was a key part in creating “the Lucy way” and was just a lot more talented overall.

 

Now on to the second crushing event of 86 and death of Desi. Does anyone know how long it was between his diagnoses and his death? I’m think it was all in the same year. I always wonder how much it showed that she still carried a torch for him. I haven’t heard too many stories recounted after Lucy’s death that she told friends regarding her days with him that were super positive with the exception of the business part of their relationship. Was this Lucy’s way of not letting out her true feelings as to not have any of it get back to Gary and/or make herself look better in that she wasn’t going to take the cheating and drinking anymore? Reading the letters in the fore mentioned auction you saw that Lucy really did love Gary and that she realized how good he was for her. Maybe on the boring side, but after the previous 19 years boring is what she wanted. I think all the love letters, notes, etc.. are very telling about Lucy. Obviously these letters are meant for the readers eyes only and are the one true place where you see the unrepressed heart of Lucy. I think when she fell in love she fell very hard. Going back through her book the only man she talks about, other than her husbands, that I feel she really did love was Johnny. Lucy even says that once she got to NYC it took a long time for her to shake that relationship. She would visit Johnny’s family for many years after when she returned to Jamestown. Nowhere else in her book does she talk about any other man she dated this way, even those she was so called “engaged” to which she doesn’t make mention of being engaged to any.

 

I think that these letters over the years show a window to her heart that love sustains. Legally a marriage may have ended but the love hasn’t. The love may change in forms due to necessity, letting go of the past and opening your heart to be loved again, but in reading the Gary letters they are pretty heartfelt 8, 18, 24 years into their marriage. Lucy talks about them taking separate vacations, Palm Springs/Snowmass, and how she already misses him. Who knows what was written or said to Desi in their private conversations. The stories from their friends on the Home Movies about how in the later years when they talked of each other, they cried is very sad. The last phone call story where all Lucy says is “I love you” repeatedly and with more feeling each time is so telling. When he died she had a very strong reaction. Didn’t Lee say in his book that she took to her bed for a week and was inconsolable? Couple that on top of the show being cancelled and Lucy thinking she lost the public’s adoration this has to be one of, if not the lowest point of her life.

 

The Kennedy Center Honors came at one of the best times for her. She needed that diversion, that thing to take her mind of the past few weeks. But you can’t help to think those days in DC being honored and so much of Lucy’s success being shown/talked about in retrospect (and you know there was a lot of ILL praise) it may have had its bad effects too. Sort of reinforcing you are not young anymore, you are not the Lucy from the 1950’s that America grew to love, the love of your life you created those shows with is gone now and you just had a show where you were bringing back a character America loved cancelled after 2 months. Lee’s story of him cracking the joke about Roosevelt and Lucy getting so upset, yelling stuff about how all they do is through awards at you, people you love die and then going in the bedroom and slamming the door conveys a lot. This was a very difficult time for her. My question is who if anyone did she talk to in those days to help her get through this? What friends was she really close to at this time? How do you talk about the cancellation of your show and losing the love of your life with a husband that pushed you into the show, and may secretly resent that you still carried the torch for your past love throughout the whole marriage.

 

So I bring up the much debated Barbara Walters interview. Of course there is bitterness there towards Desi. Do you think that someone so obsessed with her public image is going to sit next to her current husband and talk about the good times with the past love. Lucy will praise Desi up and down for all that he did to make the show and the studio a success but that is ok. That makes her look good. I think that Lucy felt she needed to defend her divorce till the day she died. How she had to make the current marriage look like what she wanted the first one to be. If this second marriage failed it was going to completely tarnish her, as Claude says, General Foods Image. On the Home Movies there are excerpts from an interview (done I assume around the time of Mame, based on the wig) that she seems to candidly talk about the end of the marriage. Does anyone know what this is from and has seen the whole thing?

 

So I’ve rambled on for a while here. Thoughts?

AND THEY SAY I WEAR FUNNY HATS! And they say i write long posts, LOL! Beautifully done Shel, amazing post. I think Desi nixed her doing Mame, not Life with Lucy, i think he was too ill at the time to render opinions one way or the other. I differ with you over only one thing, LUCY did NOT put down Desi on the Babs Walters interview. People forget she kept saying how BRILLIANT he was and GENEROUS and everything, no they focus on her unfortunate remark about hin LOSING everything he built up, his words, not hers that she repeated. Unfortunately she does not mean the term LOSER like we have grown accustumed to these days, but someone building up things and then LOSING them as he has to tear everything down. The truest thing you said back there was Lucy KNEW she HAD to make it with gary because her contemporaries were always marrying and failing at it or lesbians or whatever. Lucy was making the second marriage a sure thing if it killed her.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the compliment, sometimes I get these bursts of thinking about things and being slow at work I have time to think and write.

 

You may be right on the LWL advice as he may have been too ill at that time.

 

I think the issue with the BW interview is partially not WHAT Lucy said but HOW she said it. I’ve been able since I first saw the interview back in the late 90’s to understand what Lucy was trying to say with the “loser” comment. I don’t fault her for that and I think she would have said they same thing even if Gary had not been beside her. What puts the spin on it is the tone she uses to say those things. I wouldn’t say meanness since she is not saying it to be mean, but bitterness as she just couldn’t understand why he had to do those things. Watch Lucy’s whole demeanor and facial expression change when Barbara asks “is this marriage different”. The smile comes out, the tone starts to soften. I do have to disagree where Lucy says that they had houses, but never homes (as in a place where you made a family, not just hung your hat). I think the ranch for those 15 years was the best home life she ever had as evidenced by those Home Movies. They both were so represented in that place from the way it was built, decorated, and all the events that happened. Both kids started their lives there. Both of their books talk about how sad it was for them to leave that place.

Palm Springs from the pictures and movies still seemed like a home. They spent holiday there and was the relaxing getaway. Not that either place didn’t see it’s fair share of arguing and bad times. The BH place now I can agree by the time they got that place it was just a house. Those last 5 years in that house were the worst of times. That was more of a place to hang the hat for Desi in those years. Lucy I don’t believe really made that place into a home until the 60’s.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the compliment, sometimes I get these bursts of thinking about things and being slow at work I have time to think and write.

 

You may be right on the LWL advice as he may have been too ill at that time.

 

I think the issue with the BW interview is partially not WHAT Lucy said but HOW she said it. I’ve been able since I first saw the interview back in the late 90’s to understand what Lucy was trying to say with the “loser” comment. I don’t fault her for that and I think she would have said they same thing even if Gary had not been beside her. What puts the spin on it is the tone she uses to say those things. I wouldn’t say meanness since she is not saying it to be mean, but bitterness as she just couldn’t understand why he had to do those things. Watch Lucy’s whole demeanor and facial expression change when Barbara asks “is this marriage different”. The smile comes out, the tone starts to soften. I do have to disagree where Lucy says that they had houses, but never homes (as in a place where you made a family, not just hung your hat). I think the ranch for those 15 years was the best home life she ever had as evidenced by those Home Movies. They both were so represented in that place from the way it was built, decorated, and all the events that happened. Both kids started their lives there. Both of their books talk about how sad it was for them to leave that place.

Palm Springs from the pictures and movies still seemed like a home. They spent holiday there and was the relaxing getaway. Not that either place didn’t see it’s fair share of arguing and bad times. The BH place now I can agree by the time they got that place it was just a house. Those last 5 years in that house were the worst of times. That was more of a place to hang the hat for Desi in those years. Lucy I don’t believe really made that place into a home until the 60’s.

ZACTLY, they were houses and not homes because he was always elsewhere playing hide the salami with whores and others. I think it was the same story with the Palm Springs house, they could afford anything anywhere and dolled them up but the main occupants were finished marriage wise by then, yes the Ranchito was their only HOME, maybe that's why they did not want to leave it, but death threats against the kids forced them to go. And the funny thing is that story from Lucy about Desi always going to the Roxbury house AFTER the divorce because he loved it so and forgot where he was. In my heart of hearts, i so want to believe that he went after also for nookie with Lucy when Barry Norton was away playing golf or on one of those seperate vacations you mentionned from their letters.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...