Happy Anniversary

[Luvsbway]

         

People Magazine, Feb 18th, 1991.

 

Years later it would seem ironic that they met, in 1940, on the RKO set of a picture called Too Many Girls. She was a 28-year-old contract player with a string of forgettable films, he, at 23, a dashing, Cuban-horn nightclub bandleader. They married six months later. While she tended a soaring Hollywood career, he toured the country with his rumba band. In time, as depicted in this week's CBS TV movie Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (Feb. 10), the relationship between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz began to fray with the strain of separation. 

 

By 1950 Lucy was starring on radio with actor Richard Denning in the popular CBS show My Favorite Husband. When the network launched a version of the show for the new medium of television, she insisted that Desi be cast as her spouse. The formula was magic. In its six-year run, I Love Lucy, making perfect use of Ball's vibrant talent and Desi's behind-the-scenes business savvy, would become the most successful comedy series on TV and earn millions for the couple's production company, Desilu. Each week 40 million viewers watched the onscreen antics of the Ricardo family. But off-screen, the Arnaz marriage, which produced two children before ending in a 1960 divorce, was a volatile interplay of alcoholism, infidelity—and a surpassing love that endured for nearly 50 years. 

 

William Asher, I Love Lucy director: 

 

Before the show began [in 1951] they had already been separated. An actress and a bandleader. He was on the road; she was a working professional. That's the kind of marriage that has failure written all over it. You're separated a while, and before you know it. those giblets begin to jump. 

 

Bob Weiskopf, who with partner Bob Schiller was a longtime writer for Ball and Arnaz: 

 

At the time the consensus was, "What the hell do we want with a Latin bandleader who can't speak English?" But she wanted him because she knew that if he went on the road with the band, he'd be catting around all the time. She wanted him at home, where she felt the marriage would have a better chance of lasting, which of course it did. 

 

Charles Pomerantz, Lucy's longtime publicist: 

 

Before they did the series, he was a bandleader coming home at 3 or 4 in the morning. And by then she was up and on her way to makeup at RKO. She used to say, "We just can't keep meeting in the Sepulveda tunnel." And her strategy must've worked, because she got pregnant right away. She said she finally had him where she wanted him... for a couple of days. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd, one of Lucy's closest friends: 

 

Lucy had two or three miscarriages before she gave birth to little Lucie |on July 17, 1951. three months before the show's debut). She thought that having a baby would hold them together. 

 

Bart Andrews, author of three books on the couple and their work: 

 

Some of Desi's womanizing was alleviated from the moment little Lucie was born. I think he felt more sensitive about those things and stopped some of that. For a while, at least. 

 

William Asher: When they were having the baby and we did the show about the birth of Little Ricky [which coincided with the birth of their second child, Desi Jr., on Jan. 19, 1953], Desi was terribly emotional about her. He really was crazy about her. You could feel how they felt. 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis, who along with Bob Carroll made up Lucy's longest-running comedy-writing team: 

 

Desi was a charmer. We used to call him the Cuban Arm because he'd put his arm around you and say, "Listen, amigo..." And you were done for. 

 

Phyllis McGuire, the singer, who met Lucy in the early 1950s: 

 

I could see what she saw in him. He was flashy, lovable, absolutely charming. And that accent... 

 

June Allyson, who with her husband, Dick Powell, was a friend of the couple's: 

 

Lucy was very bright, but Desi was the brains. He was the staunch one. He ran the whole thing. Lucy just deferred to him. 

 

William Luce, coscreenwriter for Lucy & Desi: 

 

Before the Laughter: When they were beginning I Love Lucy, Desi bargained for ownership of those 179 episodes, so they could show them to their children. There was no concept of reruns in those days. A few years later Desi sold them all back to CBS for millions. 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis: One time [in 1957] he was off the set doing something, and Lucy says, "I suppose he's buying RKO." Which he was. 

 

Bob Weiskopf: Once, on the set, Lucy tripped on a cable. She didn't fall, just sort of stumbled. He grabbed us, "Jeez, amigos, anything happens to her, and we're all in the shrimp business." 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis: He always knew she was the star. Never in all those years did I ever hear him say, "Where's my part?" He just thought she was it, and if she was taken care of, that was all that counted. He protected her. People were always asking her to do commercials and things, and he'd say, "No, she doesn't do that." 

 

Bob Weiskopf: There were never any knock-down-drag-out fights around the set. Desi was from an upper-crust sort of society in Cuba. He was too well-mannered. He'd be the last person in the world to drag out the dirty linen in front of anybody. 

 

Keith Thibodeaux, who played Little Ricky on the I Love Lucy show: 

 

[At their home] there was always tension. One time Desi Jr. and I were playing in the backyard, and they were in the guest house. We heard a lot of loud arguing and cursing and glass shattering and screaming, and we were scared. Desi Jr. turned to me and said, "There they go again." I was about 9,10 years old. 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis: They had one fight, and I remember we thought, "There goes the series." By the time we were all hearing about it, they'd already made up. That's the way they were. 

 

Bob Weiskopf: There were a lot of occasions when Lucy insulted Desi—usually indirectly. She'd mention to someone else, Vivian [Vance, who played Ethel Mertz], for example, what had happened in a poker game over the weekend in Palm Springs. In front of him, she'd talk about what stupid plays he had made. I thought, "Jesus Christ, this guy's a saint." I would have punched her in the nose. 

 

Keith Thibodeaux: They had separate bedrooms in Beverly Hills at one point. Once, at their home in Palm Springs, she told her chauffeur to drive her down to the Indian Wells Country Club. She asked my father [a family friend] to go along with her. She went to the lounge to have a drink, and Desi walked in with a couple of women on his arm. When he saw Lucy at the bar, he turned around and took off.

 

Charles Pomerantz: The magazine Confidential came out with a story saying Desi was a womanizer. I gave an advance copy to Desi, and Lucy said, "I want to read this story." It was during a rehearsal day, and she went into her dressing room. Everybody was frozen on the set. She finally came out, tossed the magazine to Desi and said, "Oh, hell, I could tell them worse than that." 

 

Bob Weiskopf: He was never drunk on the set. But he did always think in terms of liquor. We once worked very late, and I started to look at my watch. Desi says, "Jesus, I'm sorry, amigos. Who'd like something to drink?" No thought as to whether anyone might like a sandwich. Just, "My God! Going all this time without a cocktail!" 

 

Jim Bacon, veteran Hollywood reporter for the Associated Press: The big problem with their marriage was that when Desi would get drunk, he was wild. If he was out carousing, he wouldn't call in one whore, he'd call in 18. One night when I was with him in Palm Springs, he didn't do anything but sit on the floor naked and sing "Babaloo" with all these whores around. 

 

Bob Weiskopf: Basically, Desi's attitude was, "What the hell's the matter? I love her. When I go out with women, they're usually hookers. Those don't count." 

 

Shelley Winters, a longtime friend: They had a house in Palm Springs where he used to go and just stay and drink. I think he just wanted Lucy to think he was off being unfaithful, just to make her miserable. He just couldn't take that she was so much more important than he was. Nobody ever called her Mrs. Arnaz. 

 

Jim Bacon: Lucy put up with it quite a bit, but then it just became too embarrassing. Especially when he got arrested on Hollywood Boulevard. That was sometime in the '50s. The cops picked him up, drunk, standing in front of this whorehouse, singing Cuban songs. 

 

Bart Andrews: She told me that by 1956 it wasn't even a marriage anymore. They were just going through a routine for the children. She told me that for the last five years of their marriage, it was "just booze and broads." That was in her divorce papers, as a matter of fact. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: Desi was the love of Lucy's life. It was romantic, passionate, everything you could imagine in a love affair, and she was deeply hurt by what happened. They had tried like three times to get a divorce, but Lucy had always stopped it. Finally she planned to move to Switzerland, take her kids and get out of Hollywood. At the time, in 1960, she had one final commitment to do Wildcat on Broadway. 

 

Shelley Winters: I saw her [postdivorce] in Wildcat when she met Gary Morton [the nightclub comic she married in 1961]. She realized she needed someone who wouldn't be clobbered too much by her success and who would take care of her. 

 

Jack Carter, the comedian who introduced Ball to Gary Morton: When Jimmy Durante died I in 1980], his widow, Margie, asked Desi to help with the funeral. They were old friends from the Del Mar racetrack days. Desi was so out of it that he kept inviting people, who were dead. He kept calling up that old racetrack crowd, and they were all gone. He was thinking of people from 30 years ago when they were kids. At the funeral Desi stood in the back, stammering. He didn't know where he was. He was even bombed that day. 

 

William Asher: I think she always loved him. And there's no question that he loved her always. Later, he married her double. Edie [Mack Hirsch] was a marvelous girl in her own right, but she sure as hell looked like Lucy. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: People in Hollywood knew of Desi's philandering and drinking, but she always wanted to keep it private and never hurt him, even in the later years when she was so big and he was really down and out. She always hated what was written about them, so I would say, "Lucy, why don't vow write a book?" She'd say, "No, it's nobody's business." 

 

Jim Bacon: Even after she'd married Gary, whenever she'd see me, she would always take me over to a corner and say, "Have you heard from Desi lately?" She wanted to know how he was getting along. There was always that great, great love there. 

 

Jack Carter: Desi and Gary got along fine. Desi wasn't really that concerned with him. It was like he didn't exist. He'd ask Lucy, "How's that guy?" 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: I don't want to take anything away from her relationship with Gary. He made her extremely happy during the last 25 years of her life. But it was a different kind of happiness. 

 

Jack Carter: Lucy loved Desi till the day she died [following heart surgery on April 26, 1989]. He was the father of her kids. Even after she married Gary, she'd still run these lovely home movies of her and Desi and the kids when they were little. Everybody was in them, smiling by the pool, running up real fast, waving hello, Lucy walking knock-kneed and doing her Lucy faces. She'd sit there giving commentaries. She loved watching those movies. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: At the end, we drove down to Del Mar, where she went to see Desi a few days before he died [of lung cancer on Dec. 2, 1986]. She was very, very shook-up. She left that place and broke down and said, "That was the one love..." 

 

William Asher: Maybe I'm the romantic, but there was a great, great love there, there really was. Desi was very unhappy about the breakup, and I think she was too. I don't think either one of them ever got over it. 

 

Things happen. It was very sad. But they're together now. 

 

—Susan Schindehette, Andrew Abrahams, Leah Feldon-Mitchell and Marie Moneysmith in Los Angeles 

[Luvsbway]

[C L A U D E]

Funny, I wanted to post that People magazine article, thanks for doing it, it was a good one.

[Taylor]

Very nice. But Edie never looked like Lucy. Why do they always say that?

[Brock]

Very nice. But Edie never looked like Lucy. Why do they always say that?

 

 

People seem to think that red hair = looking like Lucy. Hence, all those crazy people a decade ago pushing for a Lucy movie starring Debra Messing.

[C L A U D E]

True, when you see Red Skelton, Danny Kaye and Carol Burnett, first thought is, OH MY GOD, IS THAT LUCY?  I used to wonder the same thing the many times I would see pics of Edie and wonder, what the hell have they been smoking.  Edie looks nothing like Lucy.

[desilufan2]

Happy Anniversary Lucy and Desi. I wish things could have ended differently for the two of you.... but life and mistakes happen.

[C L A U D E]

They were better friends than they were a great married couple, no more fighting, mutual respect and two children together and advising each other and having nothing but fond memories of their union, all those fights forgotten and life goes on.

[Lucyilove]

         

People Magazine, Feb 18th, 1991.

 

Years later it would seem ironic that they met, in 1940, on the RKO set of a picture called Too Many Girls. She was a 28-year-old contract player with a string of forgettable films, he, at 23, a dashing, Cuban-horn nightclub bandleader. They married six months later. While she tended a soaring Hollywood career, he toured the country with his rumba band. In time, as depicted in this week's CBS TV movie Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (Feb. 10), the relationship between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz began to fray with the strain of separation. 

 

By 1950 Lucy was starring on radio with actor Richard Denning in the popular CBS show My Favorite Husband. When the network launched a version of the show for the new medium of television, she insisted that Desi be cast as her spouse. The formula was magic. In its six-year run, I Love Lucy, making perfect use of Ball's vibrant talent and Desi's behind-the-scenes business savvy, would become the most successful comedy series on TV and earn millions for the couple's production company, Desilu. Each week 40 million viewers watched the onscreen antics of the Ricardo family. But off-screen, the Arnaz marriage, which produced two children before ending in a 1960 divorce, was a volatile interplay of alcoholism, infidelity—and a surpassing love that endured for nearly 50 years. 

 

William Asher, I Love Lucy director: 

 

Before the show began [in 1951] they had already been separated. An actress and a bandleader. He was on the road; she was a working professional. That's the kind of marriage that has failure written all over it. You're separated a while, and before you know it. those giblets begin to jump. 

 

Bob Weiskopf, who with partner Bob Schiller was a longtime writer for Ball and Arnaz: 

 

At the time the consensus was, "What the hell do we want with a Latin bandleader who can't speak English?" But she wanted him because she knew that if he went on the road with the band, he'd be catting around all the time. She wanted him at home, where she felt the marriage would have a better chance of lasting, which of course it did. 

 

Charles Pomerantz, Lucy's longtime publicist: 

 

Before they did the series, he was a bandleader coming home at 3 or 4 in the morning. And by then she was up and on her way to makeup at RKO. She used to say, "We just can't keep meeting in the Sepulveda tunnel." And her strategy must've worked, because she got pregnant right away. She said she finally had him where she wanted him... for a couple of days. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd, one of Lucy's closest friends: 

 

Lucy had two or three miscarriages before she gave birth to little Lucie |on July 17, 1951. three months before the show's debut). She thought that having a baby would hold them together. 

 

Bart Andrews, author of three books on the couple and their work: 

 

Some of Desi's womanizing was alleviated from the moment little Lucie was born. I think he felt more sensitive about those things and stopped some of that. For a while, at least. 

 

William Asher: When they were having the baby and we did the show about the birth of Little Ricky [which coincided with the birth of their second child, Desi Jr., on Jan. 19, 1953], Desi was terribly emotional about her. He really was crazy about her. You could feel how they felt. 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis, who along with Bob Carroll made up Lucy's longest-running comedy-writing team: 

 

Desi was a charmer. We used to call him the Cuban Arm because he'd put his arm around you and say, "Listen, amigo..." And you were done for. 

 

Phyllis McGuire, the singer, who met Lucy in the early 1950s: 

 

I could see what she saw in him. He was flashy, lovable, absolutely charming. And that accent... 

 

June Allyson, who with her husband, Dick Powell, was a friend of the couple's: 

 

Lucy was very bright, but Desi was the brains. He was the staunch one. He ran the whole thing. Lucy just deferred to him. 

 

William Luce, coscreenwriter for Lucy & Desi: 

 

Before the Laughter: When they were beginning I Love Lucy, Desi bargained for ownership of those 179 episodes, so they could show them to their children. There was no concept of reruns in those days. A few years later Desi sold them all back to CBS for millions. 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis: One time [in 1957] he was off the set doing something, and Lucy says, "I suppose he's buying RKO." Which he was. 

 

Bob Weiskopf: Once, on the set, Lucy tripped on a cable. She didn't fall, just sort of stumbled. He grabbed us, "Jeez, amigos, anything happens to her, and we're all in the shrimp business." 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis: He always knew she was the star. Never in all those years did I ever hear him say, "Where's my part?" He just thought she was it, and if she was taken care of, that was all that counted. He protected her. People were always asking her to do commercials and things, and he'd say, "No, she doesn't do that." 

 

Bob Weiskopf: There were never any knock-down-drag-out fights around the set. Desi was from an upper-crust sort of society in Cuba. He was too well-mannered. He'd be the last person in the world to drag out the dirty linen in front of anybody. 

 

Keith Thibodeaux, who played Little Ricky on the I Love Lucy show: 

 

[At their home] there was always tension. One time Desi Jr. and I were playing in the backyard, and they were in the guest house. We heard a lot of loud arguing and cursing and glass shattering and screaming, and we were scared. Desi Jr. turned to me and said, "There they go again." I was about 9,10 years old. 

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis: They had one fight, and I remember we thought, "There goes the series." By the time we were all hearing about it, they'd already made up. That's the way they were. 

 

Bob Weiskopf: There were a lot of occasions when Lucy insulted Desi—usually indirectly. She'd mention to someone else, Vivian [Vance, who played Ethel Mertz], for example, what had happened in a poker game over the weekend in Palm Springs. In front of him, she'd talk about what stupid plays he had made. I thought, "Jesus Christ, this guy's a saint." I would have punched her in the nose. 

 

Keith Thibodeaux: They had separate bedrooms in Beverly Hills at one point. Once, at their home in Palm Springs, she told her chauffeur to drive her down to the Indian Wells Country Club. She asked my father [a family friend] to go along with her. She went to the lounge to have a drink, and Desi walked in with a couple of women on his arm. When he saw Lucy at the bar, he turned around and took off.

 

Charles Pomerantz: The magazine Confidential came out with a story saying Desi was a womanizer. I gave an advance copy to Desi, and Lucy said, "I want to read this story." It was during a rehearsal day, and she went into her dressing room. Everybody was frozen on the set. She finally came out, tossed the magazine to Desi and said, "Oh, hell, I could tell them worse than that." 

 

Bob Weiskopf: He was never drunk on the set. But he did always think in terms of liquor. We once worked very late, and I started to look at my watch. Desi says, "Jesus, I'm sorry, amigos. Who'd like something to drink?" No thought as to whether anyone might like a sandwich. Just, "My God! Going all this time without a cocktail!" 

 

Jim Bacon, veteran Hollywood reporter for the Associated Press: The big problem with their marriage was that when Desi would get drunk, he was wild. If he was out carousing, he wouldn't call in one whore, he'd call in 18. One night when I was with him in Palm Springs, he didn't do anything but sit on the floor naked and sing "Babaloo" with all these whores around. 

 

Bob Weiskopf: Basically, Desi's attitude was, "What the hell's the matter? I love her. When I go out with women, they're usually hookers. Those don't count." 

 

Shelley Winters, a longtime friend: They had a house in Palm Springs where he used to go and just stay and drink. I think he just wanted Lucy to think he was off being unfaithful, just to make her miserable. He just couldn't take that she was so much more important than he was. Nobody ever called her Mrs. Arnaz. 

 

Jim Bacon: Lucy put up with it quite a bit, but then it just became too embarrassing. Especially when he got arrested on Hollywood Boulevard. That was sometime in the '50s. The cops picked him up, drunk, standing in front of this whorehouse, singing Cuban songs. 

 

Bart Andrews: She told me that by 1956 it wasn't even a marriage anymore. They were just going through a routine for the children. She told me that for the last five years of their marriage, it was "just booze and broads." That was in her divorce papers, as a matter of fact. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: Desi was the love of Lucy's life. It was romantic, passionate, everything you could imagine in a love affair, and she was deeply hurt by what happened. They had tried like three times to get a divorce, but Lucy had always stopped it. Finally she planned to move to Switzerland, take her kids and get out of Hollywood. At the time, in 1960, she had one final commitment to do Wildcat on Broadway. 

 

Shelley Winters: I saw her [postdivorce] in Wildcat when she met Gary Morton [the nightclub comic she married in 1961]. She realized she needed someone who wouldn't be clobbered too much by her success and who would take care of her. 

 

Jack Carter, the comedian who introduced Ball to Gary Morton: When Jimmy Durante died I in 1980], his widow, Margie, asked Desi to help with the funeral. They were old friends from the Del Mar racetrack days. Desi was so out of it that he kept inviting people, who were dead. He kept calling up that old racetrack crowd, and they were all gone. He was thinking of people from 30 years ago when they were kids. At the funeral Desi stood in the back, stammering. He didn't know where he was. He was even bombed that day. 

 

William Asher: I think she always loved him. And there's no question that he loved her always. Later, he married her double. Edie [Mack Hirsch] was a marvelous girl in her own right, but she sure as hell looked like Lucy. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: People in Hollywood knew of Desi's philandering and drinking, but she always wanted to keep it private and never hurt him, even in the later years when she was so big and he was really down and out. She always hated what was written about them, so I would say, "Lucy, why don't vow write a book?" She'd say, "No, it's nobody's business." 

 

Jim Bacon: Even after she'd married Gary, whenever she'd see me, she would always take me over to a corner and say, "Have you heard from Desi lately?" She wanted to know how he was getting along. There was always that great, great love there. 

 

Jack Carter: Desi and Gary got along fine. Desi wasn't really that concerned with him. It was like he didn't exist. He'd ask Lucy, "How's that guy?" 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: I don't want to take anything away from her relationship with Gary. He made her extremely happy during the last 25 years of her life. But it was a different kind of happiness. 

 

Jack Carter: Lucy loved Desi till the day she died [following heart surgery on April 26, 1989]. He was the father of her kids. Even after she married Gary, she'd still run these lovely home movies of her and Desi and the kids when they were little. Everybody was in them, smiling by the pool, running up real fast, waving hello, Lucy walking knock-kneed and doing her Lucy faces. She'd sit there giving commentaries. She loved watching those movies. 

 

Lillian Briggs Winograd: At the end, we drove down to Del Mar, where she went to see Desi a few days before he died [of lung cancer on Dec. 2, 1986]. She was very, very shook-up. She left that place and broke down and said, "That was the one love..." 

 

William Asher: Maybe I'm the romantic, but there was a great, great love there, there really was. Desi was very unhappy about the breakup, and I think she was too. I don't think either one of them ever got over it. 

 

Things happen. It was very sad. But they're together now. 

 

—Susan Schindehette, Andrew Abrahams, Leah Feldon-Mitchell and Marie Moneysmith in Los Angeles 

 

 

Great even-handed  article yet curious why none of these people were interviewed for LUCY & DESI: A HOME MOVIE hmmm...   

[HarryCarter]

Great even-handed article yet curious why none of these people were interviewed for LUCY & DESI: A HOME MOVIE hmmm...

 

Madelyn Davis, Bob Schiller, Bob Weiskopf, James Bacon, and Charlie Pomerantz were interviewed for Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie.

[Lucyilove]

Madelyn Davis, Bob Schiller, Bob Weiskopf, James Bacon, and Charlie Pomerantz were interviewed for Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie.

 

I was just being a smart aleck but you what I meant, I don't recall anything this blunt about Desi being said on the show.

[C L A U D E]

We got it, how about saying negative stuff about the kids.  In the OTHER article, about a year after Lucy died, people like Paula Stewart saying things like LUCY DID NOT HAVE A GREAT MONUMENT BECAUSE THE KIDS WERE TOO CHEAP TO PAY FOR IT.

[Brock]

We got it, how about saying negative stuff about the kids.  In the OTHER article, about a year after Lucy died, people like Paula Stewart saying things like LUCY DID NOT HAVE A GREAT MONUMENT BECAUSE THE KIDS WERE TOO CHEAP TO PAY FOR IT.

 

What was Lucille Ball's 'scuse for the near-matching monument she gave her own mother next door?

[C L A U D E]

Lucy was not vain or NEEDING a huge monument, so, with the plot she bought for both herself and her mum were little boxes for ashes.  She did not WANT to match Bette Davis' humongous one or even Liberace's.  Now those TWO were always looking to impress people.  Hey, I didn't call the kids cheap, Paula Stewart, who knew them both very well, did.  It's yet another thing that Lucy and Lucie had in common it seems, they were both very careful with a buck.  After they auctioned off Jackie Kennedy's stuff, Lucie was said to have remarked that they should have done that with Lucy's possessions and it seems like she might be doing that now.

[desilufan2]

We got it, how about saying negative stuff about the kids.  In the OTHER article, about a year after Lucy died, people like Paula Stewart saying things like LUCY DID NOT HAVE A GREAT MONUMENT BECAUSE THE KIDS WERE TOO CHEAP TO PAY FOR IT.

 

  I get bad vibes from Paula. Seems like a very catty unkind woman more than willing to take advantage.

[desilufan2]

They were better friends than they were a great married couple, no more fighting, mutual respect and two children together and advising each other and having nothing but fond memories of their union, all those fights forgotten and life goes on.

 Hmm.. kinda disagree with you here. All wasn't forgotten. How could it? It was a deep hurt. Of course she readily got on with her life but how on earth do you ever forget?

[C L A U D E]

You're right, people forgive and move on but rarely forget completely.  Back to Paula, I think it's more because she was Lucy's great friend, so she would side with her instead of the kids.

[desilufan2]

You're right, people forgive and move on but rarely forget completely.  Back to Paula, I think it's more because she was Lucy's great friend, so she would side with her instead of the kids.

 I have visited Paula's website and seen many of her videos on Youtube, I find the woman extremely unpleasant. I know she was supposedly Lucy's "great" friend and introduced her to Gary but yeesh .... what a piece of work.

[C L A U D E]

Funny, Lee Tannen just loves her, LOL!

[Luvsbway]

I agree with the above.  Yeah they may have been better friends and advisers but all was not forgotten.  There is too much said and written in the post divorce years to indicate so.  Not only by the 2 parties involved but by friends and family too.  If all was forgotten and only the fond memories were left how come their seemed to be so much sadness on both of their parts.  If all was forgotten would Lucy have sounded so bitter in the BW interview?  As someone on here previously mentioned, if it was truly in the past she would have had a different attitude in that interview.  You could only have that much bitterness towards someone if you still loved them, you had what looked like a great marriage from the outside and you still could not figure out how it all went so wrong.

 

 

As for Paula I think Lucy had some sort of debt of gratitude to her for introducing her to Gary.  From Lee's book she seemed like a trouble maker.  I was watching the first season sister's wedding episode of TLS recently.  Lucy has a line where she is listing people that she needs to call and invite to the wedding.  She says something to the effect of needing to call the family, and then lists Fred and Cleo's whole families and then says Paula and Jack.  Viv's next line is, "they are not family" to which Lucy replies something similar to "they are like family".

[desilufan2]

 

I agree with the above.  Yeah they may have been better friends and advisers but all was not forgotten.  There is too much said and written in the post divorce years to indicate so.  Not only by the 2 parties involved but by friends and family too.  If all was forgotten and only the fond memories were left how come their seemed to be so much sadness on both of their parts.  If all was forgotten would Lucy have sounded so bitter in the BW interview?  As someone on here previously mentioned, if it was truly in the past she would have had a different attitude in that interview.  You could only have that much bitterness towards someone if you still loved them, you had what looked like a great marriage from the outside and you still could not figure out how it all went so wrong.

 

 

As for Paula I think Lucy had some sort of debt of gratitude to her for introducing her to Gary.  From Lee's book she seemed like a trouble maker.  I was watching the first season sister's wedding episode of TLS recently.  Lucy has a line where she is listing people that she needs to call and invite to the wedding.  She says something to the effect of needing to call the family, and then lists Fred and Cleo's whole families and then says Paula and Jack.  Viv's next line is, "they are not family" to which Lucy replies something similar to "they are like family".

 

 

 I agree with you about Lucy and Desi post divorce. As for Paula's importance to Lucy.. I know she was close to Paula  and she and Jack Carter were a big part of her life but I cant help it. I don't like her. You should hear her describe her first meeting with Lucy(she of course had no idea who she was but don't they all?) Why Lucy was SOOO HELPLESS until she offered to help her out and then Lucy practically FELL into her arms with graditude. And it wasn't just the story she told but how she told it.

[Luvsbway]

On Tumbler this weekend there were some anniversary picture posts with quotes.  I was able to attribute all the quotes I saw back to their sources (books, documentaries, etc...).  This quote I can not place and never read before.    

 

Lucy and I already had that One in a lifetime kind of Love. It is time for us to become friends.
We were both damaged fron this big romance that lasted two decades, but we cannot just erase each other away. 
I think of Her every day, even her voice echoes in my conscience. 
You can’t just erase Your Soul Mate Away”- Desi Arnaz

 

It's a lovely quote and very sad.  Does anyone know where it came from and maybe the year?  

[C L A U D E]

Never heard it before.  AND LUCY DID NOT SHOW GREAT BITTERNESS ON THE BARBARA WALTERS INTERVIEW, she was asked for the very first time about the marriage on the air and responded with facts.  You see, when she said he was a LOSER, she meant whatever he built up, he then had to tear down, everything he built up, he then had to lose, and he claims she's still like that today, you see, the quote came from his own lips . . . or have I said this many times before.

[Luvsbway]

Oh Claude you and your dead horse. I'm with you on how you interrupt the interview, and yes facts but there was a tone to how she said it. My take is bitterness.

[C L A U D E]

There wasn't any tone, she was just a very blunt person who said things directly and not all dolled up with wallups of bullshit.  By the way, I love you Shel and don't want you to think I'm insulting YOU in any way on any comments I make here, but I like Lucy, I do not tolerate these comments constantly being made that are just not true.  You have said hundreds of comments about Lucy lately and they are all well thought out and very insightful, your reviews of every show were better than most critics, but this one, no, I do not agree at all.  And you might call it beating a dead horse, but I call it, being incensed at comments that people just don't seem to want to understand.