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New Lucy Books


Mister Hepburn
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Amazing book. My first ever read on Lucy and with that book and the Home Movies done around the same time my 14 year old self started down the rabbit hole 21 years ago.

I haven't had much time with it, but just 4 chapters in and it's the most refreshing Lucy book I've ever read. No sugar and spice portrayals of these people!

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Stuff Shostack had one of the authors (I forget which one) on his radio show and they talked a lot on what the original concept of the book was to be, how Lucie opened many doors for them and how the focus of the book shifted a bit. The interview is on his website for download and like all his Lucy interviews very worth the 99cents.

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I'm reading the book about Carole Lombard and her plane crash. Am only 43% through (according to my kindle) and the only reference to Lucy so far is the fact that the Gables and the Arnazes lived in the same valley. The chapters flip back and forth from chronicling Carole's career to the search party scaling the mountain hoping to find survivors. (Somehow I keep hoping they do...)

 

I did not know Carole had been married to William Powell!, brief that it was.

 

The book details Carole's post-Powell, pre-Gable fling with Russ Columbo which reminds me of a story Lucy told on a talk show. (No, Lucy wasn't a COMIC per se, but she told a story in an entertaining way. I always hate it when people insist Lucy was not a funny woman.)

I paraphrase from memory:

"Carole once told me--and this was while she was married to Clark--, "you know, the big love of my life was Russ Columbo". And I said "Who's Russ Columbo?". Carole: "WHO'S Russ Columbo???" (and Lucy made a face indicating Carole scoffed at her for not knowing). Flash forward: Gary and I are sitting up in bed and flipping through the channels. I yelled "Stop! that's me!!. In an old movie from my days as an extra, I'm on the beach with another girl and we're talking to Russ Columbo. I had no memory of him."

 

Russ died in a freak gunshot accident in 1934 and was only 26. What movie do you think Lucy was referring to? If she did a movie with Columbo, was there a beach scene?

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That's a great story. The movie is Broadway Thru a Keyhole and she is indeed on a beach with Russ Columbo. Lucy wrote in Love, Lucy that she never knew she was in the movie until she had recently seen it on television. She didn't tell the whole story. The film was always in her list of credits.

 

Russ Columbo had lived on Roxbury Drive in the house later owned by Rosemary Clooney. Clooney said Columbo was shot in the house and haunted it. However, Columbo was actually shot at a friend's home and was no longer even living in the Roxbury Drive house when he died.

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I'm reading the book about Carole Lombard and her plane crash. Am only 43% through (according to my kindle) and the only reference to Lucy so far is the fact that the Gables and the Arnazes lived in the same valley. The chapters flip back and forth from chronicling Carole's career to the search party scaling the mountain hoping to find survivors. (Somehow I keep hoping they do...)

 

I did not know Carole had been married to William Powell!, brief that it was.

 

The book details Carole's post-Powell, pre-Gable fling with Russ Columbo which reminds me of a story Lucy told on a talk show. (No, Lucy wasn't a COMIC per se, but she told a story in an entertaining way. I always hate it when people insist Lucy was not a funny woman.)

I paraphrased from memory:

"Carole once told me--and this was while she was married to Clark--, "you know, the big love of my life was Russ Columbo". And I said "Who's Russ Columbo?". Carole: "WHO'S Russ Columbo???" (and Lucy made a face indicating Carole scoffed at her for not knowing). Flash forward: Gary and I are sitting up in bed and flipping through the channels. I yelled "Stop! that's me!!. In an old movie from my days as an extra, I'm on the beach with another girl and we're talking to Russ Columbo. I had no memory of him."

 

Russ died in a freak gunshot accident in 1934 and was only 26. What movie do you think Lucy was referring to? If she did a movie with Columbo, was there a beach scene?

 

 

Just Researched:  Broadway Thru A Keyhole, 1933 - co-stas:  Ann Sothern and others [they were friends 50+ years, then...] plus (just naming some of her 'veteran regulars') :

Hobart Cavanaugh, Charles Lane, Dennis O'Keefe, as well as Walter Winchell, as himself, newscaster; and writer of story (IMDb and Wiki assistance) - Lucille is llisted, uncredited, as chorine and/or girl on the beach!

 

Loving you, JK

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That's a great story. The movie is Broadway Thru a Keyhole and she is indeed on a beach with Russ Columbo. Lucy wrote in Love, Lucy that she never knew she was in the movie until she had recently seen it on television. She didn't tell the whole story. The film was always in her list of credits.

 

Russ Columbo had lived on Roxbury Drive in the house later owned by Rosemary Clooney. Clooney said Columbo was shot in the house and haunted it. However, Columbo was actually shot at a friend's home and was no longer even living in the Roxbury Drive house when he died.

 

 

Yep, have the film and if memory serves, she and Ann Sothern are walking on the beach with Columbo. Brief, but there she is.

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Here are some shots of Lucy in Broadway Thru a Keyhole.

 

(left to right) Constance Cummings, Russ Columbo, Lucille, John Kelly, Ann Sothern 

 

 

409950623.jpg

 

409950619.jpg

 

Lucy, John Kelly, and Ann:

 

409950622.jpg

 

409950621.jpg

 

Lucy has one line ("Well, you certainly were the life of the party, Louie, while it lasted.") Ann doesn't have any. 

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Now THIS one I don't even believe myself.  I'm looking at books and come across this one book about anything PUNK, I think it was called PUNK is everything, I went through the pages as it had a naked man on the cover.  To my shock and amazement, there is a full page of LUCY in there, the LIFE photos of her eyes on top and her mouth and teeth at the bottom and superimposed over those two beautiful shots of Lucy are some words about PUNK, a bit of text over Lucy's photos, man, is this woman everywhere or what?

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One bio of CBS founder and chairman Bill Pailey says that he and his socialite wife Babe took Lucy to see My Fair Lady, as they socilaized seeing as she was their biggest star at CBS.  Another says that Lucy was invited to stay at their country retreat in New Hampshire as Bill and Babe had to build that there as they were not allowed into certain country clubs around New York city as HE was Jewish.  I was always curious to find out if Lucy had been invited to Truman Capote's famous party of the century as it was held in '66 when Lucy was at the height of her popularity.  At least I KNOW she made it to the western version, Sammy Davis' party of the century in L A where she DID attend being a good friend of Sammy's and Altovise's.

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