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New Lucy Books


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The book by Henry Bushkin will be out October 15. As I posted earlier this year, Lucy is in the book as well as many other big stars. Should be very interesting. Bushkin was going to publish it though a private company in Febuary but then the publishing folks in New York found excerpts of the book on the internet and became interested.

Bushkin is a lawyer and can be a rat but this guy know a hell of a lot about not only Johnny Carson but much of the hollywood and broadcasting world. Does anyone remember or know about the Frank Sinatra book called "Mr S." written by Frank Sinatra's longtime butler? Henry had a hand in getting that published.

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The book by Henry Bushkin will be out October 15. As I posted earlier this year, Lucy is in the book as well as many other big stars. Should be very interesting. Bushkin was going to publish it though a private company in Febuary but then the publishing folks in New York found excerpts of the book on the internet and became interested.

Bushkin is a lawyer and can be a rat but this guy know a hell of a lot about not only Johnny Carson but much of the hollywood and broadcasting world. Does anyone remember or know about the Frank Sinatra book called "Mr S." written by Frank Sinatra's longtime butler? Henry had a hand in getting that published.

Sounds like a just the type of book I love!

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He he I thought of you Claude when I first found out about this book :marionstrong:

Well, we all know how I hate being BORED, just like Lucy, LOL! Found a few today including Richard Burton's A Life where he rips into Lucy, not that bad, considering it's coming from a scenery chewing alcoholic bastard, LOL! Who hadn't worked in years by the way by the time Lucy taught him how to do comedy so then he went on the road in a comedy with Lizzie.

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Yeah, had to take a sabbatical as I was hurt when told my posts were too provocative, seems they prefer posts that say nothing or are diabetic inducing. BUT, then I remembered Brock is a free thinker and is more broadminded than most so I figured, the people involved should just IGNORE my posts the way I do theirs. So nice to read YOURS again.

WELL.. I adore you and your lovely posts.

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I just read "the Star Shiner" by the "never saw an I Love Lucy" author Evan Richardson, who was very anxious to meet her because he "adored her at MGM". I'm guessing he was born in the early 40s so I don't know how he could have seen any of her MGM movies since he claimed never to have watched television. He's not wild about many of the stars he made up. Lucy comes off better than most. He doesn't have as much of a problem with Lucy's behavior in their interaction as he does with others......like Elizabeth Taylor. He criticizes Lucy's application of her own make up, saying it looked like it was put on by a gorilla with a trowel. He made her up for her YMO appearance on Ed Sullivan and the Mike Douglas Show with Viv. I remember both of these and didn't think she looked her best at either.....so maybe Lucy knows more than he does. He also says her face drooped so, that without the Irma apparatus, she resembled a 'bulldog'. Cruel words and I don't think very accurate. She was only 56 and he makes it sound like she looks like Thurston Hall*. Lucy was impressed enough with his work that she wanted to hire him for "her new TV series Here's Lucy". He admitted he asked for a lot of money to pull up stakes and move to California. She "had had a disagreement with her long time make up man, who she had intended to marry." Who else could this be but Hal King? Later in the book, he surmises that Lucy made up with Hal, but there are several references to Lucy when he talks of promises unkept, made to him by other show biz-zers: "like the time when Lucille Ball promised me the moon and it came to nothing"---which doesn't accurately convey his own description of the events.

The book wasn't quite the self-ego-pumping as it could have been, though there's plenty. The book ends with him a bit humbled, broke and on food stamps, which I assume he still is: I don't think this type of book is going to make him financially self-sufficient.

Three other things:

Gary shows him his arm with 7 expensive watches and asks him to pick the most expensive one. He couldn't pick. Neither could Gary who bragged that he bought them all.

He stood backstage at the Mike Douglas taping and didn't recognize the person standing next to him vivian Vance---because of course he had yet to see an I Love Lucy. He says of Viv: "she had just had a facelift to prepare for the new series" ,referencing HL and implying that she was to be a regular on the show.

You have to feel sorry for the stars that have to subject themselves to the extremely close scrutiny of a make up man/woman, realizing that some day he may write about their flaws--not exactly something they want written about.

And one more thing: he enters Lucy's penthouse as she is observing the traffic snarl below caused by the St. Patrick's Day parade and turns to him dead-pan and says "I hate Pat O'Brien".....Now who says this woman was never witty??

* "Mr. Schuyler" on "Topper"

 

 

 

 

There is a new book coming out by a makeup artist who was apparently part of Lucy's YM&O entourage. Skimming through the preview pages on Amazon, there seems to be the potential for quite a few stories about Lucy, Irma Kusley, and Renita Reachi....but also a disproportionate amount about Tallulah Bankhead. lol Also, it seems a bit on the bitchy side:

 

http://www.amazon.co...ds=Lucille Ball

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I just read "the Star Shiner" by the "never saw an I Love Lucy" author Evan Richardson, who was very anxious to meet her because he "adored her at MGM". I'm guessing he was born in the early 40s so I don't know how he could have seen any of her MGM movies since he claimed never to have watched television. He's not wild about many of the stars he made up. Lucy comes off better than most. He doesn't have as much of a problem with Lucy's behavior in their interaction as he does with others......like Elizabeth Taylor. He criticizes Lucy's application of her own make up, saying it looked like it was put on by a gorilla with a trowel. He made her up for her YMO appearance on Ed Sullivan and the Mike Douglas Show with Viv. I remember both of these and didn't think she looked her best at either.....so maybe Lucy knows more than he does. He also says her face drooped so, that without the Irma apparatus, she resembled a 'bulldog'. Cruel words and I don't think very accurate. She was only 56 and he makes it sound like she looks like Thurston Hall*. Lucy was impressed enough with his work that she wanted to hire him for "her new TV series Here's Lucy". He admitted he asked for a lot of money to pull up stakes and move to California. She "had had a disagreement with her long time make up man, who she had intended to marry." Who else could this be but Hal King? Later in the book, he surmises that Lucy made up with Hal, but there are several references to Lucy when he talks of promises unkept, made to him by other show biz-zers: "like the time when Lucille Ball promised me the moon and it came to nothing"---which doesn't accurately convey his own description of the events.

The book wasn't quite the self-ego-pumping as it could have been, though there's plenty. The book ends with him a bit humbled, broke and on food stamps, which I assume he still is: I don't think this type of book is going to make him financially self-sufficient.

Three other things:

Gary shows him his arm with 7 expensive watches and asks him to pick the most expensive one. He couldn't pick. Neither could Gary who bragged that he bought them all.

He stood backstage at the Mike Douglas taping and didn't recognize the person standing next to him vivian Vance---because of course he had yet to see an I Love Lucy. He says of Viv: "she had just had a facelift to prepare for the new series" ,referencing HL and implying that she was to be a regular on the show.

You have to feel sorry for the stars that have to subject themselves to the extremely close scrutiny of a make up man/woman, realizing that some day he may write about their flaws--not exactly something they want written about.

And one more thing: he enters Lucy's penthouse as she is observing the traffic snarl below caused by the St. Patrick's Day parade and turns to him dead-pan and says "I hate Pat O'Brien".....Now who says this woman was never witty??

* "Mr. Schuyler" on "Topper"

As great a review as I've ever read, LOL!

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Lucy was impressed enough with his work that she wanted to hire him for "her new TV series Here's Lucy". He admitted he asked for a lot of money to pull up stakes and move to California. She "had had a disagreement with her long time make up man, who she had intended to marry." Who else could this be but Hal King?

 

I don't know if this is true, but this is very interesting. Hal King is not credited with Lucy's makeup for the first season of Here's Lucy.

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I believe from genealogical websites and family histories published by his nephews and nieces that he was...a confirmed bachelor.

Well..Big Red certainly wouldn't be the first woman/actress to fall for her gay hairdresser/make-up man/etc., despite his obvious ...proclivities! :lucyshock: (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact so many LOLs "bought" that straight crap about Liberace!! :lucydisgust:
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Well..Big Red certainly wouldn't be the first woman/actress to fall for her gay hairdresser/make-up man/etc., despite his obvious ...proclivities! :lucyshock: (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact so many LOLs "bought" that straight crap about Liberace!! :lucydisgust:

 

Whatever may or may not have happened between Lucy and Hal King, evidently he was back in VERY good graces by the time My Fair Buzzi rolled around.

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Whatever may or may not have happened between Lucy and Hal King, evidently he was back in VERY good graces by the time My Fair Buzzi rolled around.

I think Lucy was like Sinatra in the sense that she cut some people off for a while, and later forgave them. She was supposed to have slapped King on the set of Mame but he was later in her living room I think in the Brochu book. I think it was Brochu who said he was wearing a heavy sweater in the middle of a SUMMER HEATWAVE.

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The Star Shiner author was first hired to do Lucy's make up for a Vogue magazine shoot in 1968. Has anyone ever seen the article?

There's got to be more to the slapping-Hal King story. The visual it created was Lucy hauling off and giving him a Moe Howard slap right in the puss.

There's one story that Lucy told on a David Frost show where she tried (unsuccessfully) to justify a hot tempered action. She had left the caps for her teeth in the make up room and needed them for a photo shoot. Kathatrine Hepburn was being made up for "Mary Queen of Scots". The door was locked so she went to a little open window to the room to plead for her caps and for some reason they wouldn't pay any attention to her.

She then attempted in several sentences to justify her following action to Frost: "I was just SO FRUSTRATED that I took a cup of coffee and hurled it through the window...and it hit Miss Hepburn", who cancel her shoot for the day and went home.

This was at RKO in 1936 before they were in "Stage Door" together. It's a wonder they didn't fire Lucy. WHO would have thought this hot-tempered coffee-hurling stock player would eventually OWN the studio!!

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