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The Last Days of Lucille Ball


Annaleigh

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As for Lucy's tone, that was just HER, no bullshit, no pretense, just the facts man. I agree though that he never let her do talk shows in HIS days with her as he did not want the public to know the private Ms Ball who was not like that Ricardo woman at all. You should hear MY tone when my computer changes size of lettering like now or gives me FRENCH things on here and refuses to give me a question mark, man, this thing will be flying out the window soon i fear.

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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?

Perfection. Everything I would wanna say and more! The whole Lucy and Desi situation wasn't unknown, Gary knew. Desi was his husband in law c'mon! Hahaha. One of the quotes that struck me was right after she died. Gary said 'She's happy now, she's with Desi.' He knew of the love they had. I'm sure Gary also knew of those old love letters between her and Desi that she kept close at hand, to read and cherish.

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Perfection. Everything I would wanna say and more! The whole Lucy and Desi situation wasn't unknown, Gary knew. Desi was his husband in law c'mon! Hahaha. One of the quotes that struck me was right after she died. Gary said 'She's happy now, she's with Desi.' He knew of the love they had. I'm sure Gary also knew of those old love letters between her and Desi that she kept close at hand, to read and cherish.

Well, he was the one who had her bathroom redone while she was doing Mame so they must have FOUND the letters, which were hidden there and read them or as much as he could take of them but you'e right, he always knew anyway that Desi was SUGAR and gary merely sweet and low.
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Never thought about the bathroom remodel, unless the letters were packed away in something more concealed than in an envalope in a drawer, Gary probably did find them, unless he had someone else pack up the drawers. You walk on very thin ground when you deceide to venture down the road of your spouse and an ex. I found a VHS " movie" once of my now husband and his college girlfriend. I had to think for a while before I watched it.

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Never thought about the bathroom remodel, unless the letters were packed away in something more concealed than in an envalope in a drawer, Gary probably did find them, unless he had someone else pack up the drawers. You walk on very thin ground when you deceide to venture down the road of your spouse and an ex. I found a VHS " movie" once of my now husband and his college girlfriend. I had to think for a while before I watched it.

At least you watched it, my kind of girl! LOL! How very Lucy Ricardo of you sweetie, LOL!
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Well, he was the one who had her bathroom redone while she was doing Mame so they must have FOUND the letters, which were hidden there and read them or as much as he could take of them but you'e right, he always knew anyway that Desi was SUGAR and gary merely sweet and low.

I wonder if there was post divorce letters in there. Hmmm... She probably read those constantly and watched those home videos after he was gone. To keep him alive.

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I wonder if there was post divorce letters in there. Hmmm... She probably read those constantly and watched those home videos after he was gone. To keep him alive.

It's been said that gary would wonder why every time he came back from golfing, the whole house smelled of enchiladas and tacos.
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Gary's number one fan putting him down, i just dun't get it.

 

I'm not putting him down - I'm describing the love - yes Lucy loved Desi and Gary but deep down Lucy's love for Desi was much stronger than Gary's whether she admits it or not.

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I'm not putting him down - I'm describing the love - yes Lucy loved Desi and Gary but deep down Lucy's love for Desi was much stronger than Gary's whether she admits it or not.

Wow, never saw that one comin! Which Lucy must have said to both at one time or another. Desi gave her the passion and everything but Gary she could trust and he was just the boring type she needed after all those years of fighting with Desi. Very different men, but one had the advantage of being the one true love of her life.
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