Whatever Happened to Vivian Vance?

[Neil]

If this one's been posted before, I haven't seen it.

This guy mangles facts and names.

Claudette COLbert and Charles LaughFton, but my favorite is Bea Bernadette which would make the Desilu Playhouse production "The Song of Benedaret".

And that Vivian was inducted into the Academy Hall of Fame "postHUMously".

I half way expected Risky Riskardo.

Lou Ann perpetuates the myth saying Lucy made Viv gain weight.  She doesn't look like a slight thing in "Blue Veil" as I recall.  Despite Fred always pointing it out, Ethel was never actually FAT.

While he states Viv was born in 1909, he says she was 39 in 1951 and 25 years younger than Frawley (something he states more than once), when it was a MERE 22.

I didn't know Viv appeared in only SEVEN 3rd season Lucy Shows.  He's got that backwards of course.  She was absent from the 3 of the countess episodes, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye.  Assuming there were 7 Viv-less episodes, what were the other two?

 

And about my previous posting of Viv's appearance in the "Edie was a Lady" song.  I think that's the picture they use for Ethel's half of the Mertz wedding photo.  The youtube bkurb says this is from the movie version of Merman's Broadway show  "Take a Chance" with Lillian Roth assuming the lead.  The intro states the number is from "Humpty Dumpty", which was the original title of "Take a Chance" on the road.  I didn't know the movie was made or that Viv was in it. .

 

 

 

[HarryCarter]

Thanks for posting this, Neil!

 

I think Vivian missed six third season episodes - all the ones you mentioned plus Lucy Becomes a Father.

[Mmadluv7]

Thanks so much for Posting this Neil!!

[Mot Morenzi]

Viv missed three of the countess shows, along with Becomes a Father, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye. So only six. She did 20 of the 26 episodes that year. Only during the countess arc was her absence explained.

[C L A U D E]

But weren't there more than three Countess episodes?

[Brock]

But weren't there more than three Countess episodes?

 

Yes, but there were only four while Viv was a series regular. Viv missed three out of four.

[C L A U D E]

As great as Viv always was, I would have loved seeing Ann join the show as her replacement when she left.

[Neil]

 "The Lucy Show" had fewer episodes per season than most shows; maybe fewer than any other show during the 60s, when it was still not uncommon to produce 30 to 39.  Season 5 contains only 22, perhaps because of "Lucy in London".  It would be interesting to have a list of the episodes they chose for the summer reruns. Through the summer of 1970 they reran very few before the summer replacement kicked in.  So for the entire run of TLS and the first 3 seasons of HL, some episodes had only one prime time showing.

An old TV Guide from 1964 says the first "in a series of reruns" for the second season was "Locked in Vault 1".  The 2nd season is unique in that they reran a couple of episodes and then came back with a few new ones before officially starting reruns.  ("Florence Nightengale" is the only one I know for sure was run during the new episode break).  I don't know what year the annual Christmas week episode rerun started. 

Viv missed three of the countess shows, along with Becomes a Father, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye. So only six. She did 20 of the 26 episodes that year. Only during the countess arc was her absence explained.