Kup's Show

[Luvsbway]

I think only a portion of this was on YouTube.

KUP'S SHOW - Lucille Ball, Otto Preminger, David …:

[C L A U D E]

I think only a portion of this was on YouTube.

KUP'S SHOW - Lucille Ball, Otto Preminger, David …:

She looks so serious in this one, i've seen it many times but love her on any talk show.

[Luvsbway]

I love how she first dug out her pill case and popped something then later rummaged around in her purse.

 

I like her vibe in this.

[C L A U D E]

I love how she first dug out her pill case and popped something then later rummaged around in her purse.

 

I like her vibe in this.

Notice she's wearing BEIGE again, not her best color, although she looks fine here.

[Luvsbway]

I love the boot skirt combo. She looks good here. I did notice her caressing Otto's hand at one point.

[C L A U D E]

I love the boot skirt combo. She looks good here. I did notice her caressing Otto's hand at one point.

I think she had the HOTS for him, he was after all, quite handsome/ugly, which she liked as you know,.

[Brock]

This is the most compelling Lucy interview of them all, IMO. So glad this is back on YouTube.

[Mmadluv7]

THANK GOD its back!! I haven't gotten far, looking at it now- but To see her IN CHARGE of her opinion and so STRONG and so knowledgeable around  0-5:10 is just fascinating!!! 

[leenorman]

Notice she's wearing BEIGE again, not her best color, although she looks fine here.

 

 

Could say a lot about the quality of  this piece of tape; but, looks like her hair was 'done' by an egg beater!  I am, however, happy to see this appearance. 

 

The moderator's fault they are allowed to all talk at the same time - drives me up a wall!!!!   In Kup's defense, he doesn't interrupt with his own opinion, like some of these female 'moderators'/newscasters do today!  Lucille always did say 'props' were her most 'important possessions', on stage, WERE the PROPS.....guess that's why we always see her with a ciggie in hand!!!!

[C L A U D E]

Could say a lot about the quality of  this piece of tape; but, looks like her hair was 'done' by an egg beater!  I am, however, happy to see this appearance. 

 

The moderator's fault they are allowed to all talk at the same time - drives me up a wall!!!!   In Kup's defense, he doesn't interrupt with his own opinion, like some of these female 'moderators'/newscasters do today!  Lucille always did say 'props' were her most 'important possessions', on stage, WERE the PROPS.....guess that's why we always see her with a ciggie in hand!!!!

She did her own hair here Joyce, she always looked so "housewife from next door" normal when she did.  And i'm sue the beige outfits looked great on the racks in the stores but she was too "beige" herself to wear them.  Especially later in life.  As for the interviewer, you're right, let's the guests talk with interrupting, that's what Lucy said about Merv, that he listened, not looking at notes figuring out his next question like most of them do nowadays.

[Mmadluv7]

I love how she first dug out her pill case and popped something then later rummaged around in her purse.

 

I like her vibe in this.

 

so do I. She's so relaxed- you can get an idea of her everyday, normal personality in this. I can almost see her energy here.

She has to chain smoke, take a pill, and take some sips of water before she relaxes. Im not sure how long this show was, but towards the beginning of the clip, she seems

happy to be there, but now bored. Kinda shows me how she always needed to be doing something creatively, which is the reason why people like her stay in the business- they stay active. If this is 77 I wonder if this is after or before her moms death.  

[C L A U D E]

so do I. She's so relaxed- you can get an idea of her everyday, normal personality in this. I can almost see her energy here.

She has to chain smoke, take a pill, and take some sips of water before she relaxes. Im not sure how long this show was, but towards the beginning of the clip, she seems

happy to be there, but now bored. Kinda shows me how she always needed to be doing something creatively, which is the reason why people like her stay in the business- they stay active. If this is 77 I wonder if this is after or before her moms death.  

Well, that's the thing, in most normal talk shows, the main guest, in this case superstar Lucille Ball(s)  would be the first guest and then vanish when the next guest comes out, not here, everybody goes at it at once, LOL!  They interact, i love that.  And what a combination Lucy makes with any of the other three guests, LOL!  People you would NEVER associate with her in any way.  Nazi like director, cerebral writer and upstart belle.  What a combo!

[Mmadluv7]

Well, that's the thing, in most normal talk shows, the main guest, in this case superstar Lucille Ball(s)  would be the first guest and then vanish when the next guest comes out, not here, everybody goes at it at once, LOL!  They interact, i love that.  And what a combination Lucy makes with any of the other three guests, LOL!  People you would NEVER associate with her in any way.  Nazi like director, cerebral writer and upstart belle.  What a combo!

agreed. I love this kind of round table interviewing. The Hollywood reporter does that kind of thing, bringing execs, directors, or actors together to discuss their views on their craft. I think, to get Lucy, to discuss her craft, like people do today, was only touched upon in this show. I wished there were audio tapes, or video footage of her talking, in dETAIL about the ART of acting within her shows (the rehearsing, the techniques etc) and how she was able to separate that artistic part- FROM the studio head. She (and Desi for that matter)had the ability to juggle the mind of an exec and that of the talent, which can be very challenging. Putting out a show, creatively, is one thing, putting out a show, and having to head a studio is another. I LOVE seeing her take compliments and having to shut up and accept them lol 

[Neil]

I think she had the HOTS for him, he was after all, quite handsome/ugly, which she liked as you know,.

Well, I'm not seeing the handsome half of Otto.

 

This is probably as close as we ever got to see the real Lucille Ball, especially on a talk show this late - 1977.  No audience helps relax her.  She's serious but entertaining and able to kid a little.  Not VOID of any humor.  But you'd never know from watching this what type of acting she had done.

I would venture this is the only time we've seen her on a talk show with her own hair.   And yes, the style is a little egg-beater-ish but I still prefer it to the wigs she was wearing at the time.  So without a wig, there's no "Irma lift"?  She looks pretty darn good for 66.

I don't know about some of her views, though.  Lucy tended to make her own career an example for others to follow.  But her career is unique.  Only Carroll O'Connor and Bea Arthur, that I can think of, toiled for as long as she did before hitting it big with long-running regular gigs.  What direction would Lucy's career have gone if I Love Lucy hadn't come along or only had a modest 2 or 3 year run before being forgotten like all but 1 other 50s hit (Honeymooners)?  Like a lot of actresses, by the 1960s, she would have been taking anything she could get.  She may have been Sade, locked in the closet and forgotten about in "Lady in a Cage".  (And when James Caan wields a knife in her direction, she could have done the "spider")

And I must say to Lucy: no one is forcing the american public to actually watch what the networks put on.  They could turn off the set and sit around the piano and sing like the old days ("You DON'T know "There a Long Long Trail"??   And actually other than "Antenna" and "Eddie Albert", I did not.)

[Luvsbway]

I don’t know if she is bored or she’s just over these people. Never saw Mamet speak before and only saw one of his plays but now I can see the correlation in his personality to his writing. I’m not familiar with Elizabeth but she seems nuts. Lucy doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with Otto.

 

I have to disagree with Lucy and agree with Otto about violence in media. Lucy seemed to really rail against sex and violence in entertainment vocally and through the decades. Now days it seems like we get all in a tizzy over how much sex is on TV but there seems to be 3 times more violence and no one really cares about that. Both need to be driven from a plot basis and not just for gratuitous sake. I can see her point that you can watch the news for the violence and we need an escape. Looking at the current landscape though, there are plenty of well written, entertaining shows today that use sex and violence, but you have just as many that don’t use it thoughtfully. I don’t know if this was really the case in the 70s. There has to be a balance.

 

I think the best we will ever get to Lucy and her craft is the seminars, which I would love if we got more of those released. Based on that one on YouTube I think she may get into some of the running the studio stuff in later classes. Too bad there wasn't something like Inside the Actors Studio back then. She would have been great on that.

[C L A U D E]

agreed. I love this kind of round table interviewing. The Hollywood reporter does that kind of thing, bringing execs, directors, or actors together to discuss their views on their craft. I think, to get Lucy, to discuss her craft, like people do today, was only touched upon in this show. I wished there were audio tapes, or video footage of her talking, in dETAIL about the ART of acting within her shows (the rehearsing, the techniques etc) and how she was able to separate that artistic part- FROM the studio head. She (and Desi for that matter)had the ability to juggle the mind of an exec and that of the talent, which can be very challenging. Putting out a show, creatively, is one thing, putting out a show, and having to head a studio is another. I LOVE seeing her take compliments and having to shut up and accept them lol 

There's lots out there to see her like the seminars and every interview she had with so many people over the decades, they should all be released in some sort of compilation, Dick Cavett, Virginia Graham, Merv Griffin, Carson, Mike Douglas, Dinah Shore, Phil Donahue and even Tom Snyder, Barbara Walters too, so much material out there where she was candid and vocal and spoke honestly about all aspects of her life.  Loved the way she was so outspoken and candidly talked about herself and others without putting on that fake Hollywood spin to it, just honest about everything, well, most things, LOL!  I was always upset that 60 minutes never did a spot on her or even Larry King.  

[Irene Kampen Tripp]

She is so REAL and still very PRETTY.

[C L A U D E]

She is so REAL and still very PRETTY.

I'm surprised she went there without her signature Lucy LOOK.  Guess it depended on her mood or rather if this was far from home, maybe her hairdresser and make up person could not go with her.

[Freddie2]

After seeing good old Protestor/Two-Time Arestee/Beverly Hills Housewife/Loony Bin Alumni/Proud Tramp Elizabeth Ashley on the new Netflix hit Russian Doll, I was sparked to give this interview another watch. I find it endlessly fascinating and entertaining; it's easily my favorite interview with Lucy that I've ever seen. None of the other Kup's Show episodes on YouTube come close to matching the bonkers stuff that happens in this one. Not counting Kupcinet, Lucy is the most real person in the room and it's hilarious.

The aesthetic of the whole thing adds a lot to its charm. It looks like a parody of a cheesy talk show, from the fuzzy video tape to the fashions to the cigarettes to all the damn potted plants. How was it that "bullshit" didn't have to be censored? Were there different rules for local TV back then? All four of the panelists make good points here and there, but with Otto skirting around the issue of being a bully, Mamet thinking he's "all that", and Ashley putting up a front, they mostly just look like asses. It's Lucy, totally out of character like we've never seen her, who wins the show. While I'm sure that there are plenty of times we get to see the "real" Lucy (her joyous Password appearances immediately come to mind), this is the only time we get to see this particular facet of who she was, and I am living for it. 

Concept: A few years ago, it was shared on here that someone made a short play out of the YouTube comments for Lucy's Kennedy Center Honors. IMO, this would make for much more engaging theater material. Act One would be a re-staging of the discussion with actors portraying the five participants- perhaps with new songs written by our own Neil or Mot Morenzi. Act Two would be a brand new, unscripted conversation between Elizabeth Ashley, David Mamet, and two youngsters who think they know what they're talking about.

[Luvsbway]

This is hands down one of my favorite interviews of Lucy’s ever. I made sure to save this one in case it ever disappears from YouTube.  Elisabeth is so full of shit in this one it’s hilarious. This weekend I made a clip of Lucy popping a pill (probably a headache one because of all this nonsense), digging through her purse and then smoking a cigarette while calling out Elizabeth. They comments were fantastic and I got a lot of people seeking this full interview out and then chiming back in after watching.

Truly the unfiltered Lucy and the version I would have loved to sit and smoke and drink with (and I don’t smoke). Kup asks Lucy at one point about Desi’s book and her whole face lights up. I also find it interesting how she said that if she ever did a book it would not be until she was 85 and she didn’t want to live that long. Not the first time I’ve heard the dying comment before or when someone should write a book so she’s consistent.

I’ve never watched any of the other Kup Shows so I just assumed they were all like this. Of the Dick Cavette shows I’ve seen, Lucy’s attitude is all over the place in those. From very upbeat and happy, to ‘I’d rather be at dinner with a steak and scotch.” But never quite as raw and dare I say bitchy (in a good way) as this. Was Kup’s show some local show and therefore Lucy wasn’t as worried about as many people seeing it, or did she just not feel like turning on “Lucy” this day?

 

[HarryCarter]

Once, my entire office gathered and watched this interview. People were riveted.

I believe Kup's Show was on PBS at this point in time. During this Chicago weekend, Lucy also appeared on the local talk show The Lee Phillips Show, looking quite great and seeming more upbeat.

Lucy was being quite honest about being a longtime Elizabeth Ashley fan. She talked about her a lot in the '60s when Elizabeth rose to fame in Barefoot in the Park. Lucy wanted to put a show together for her at Desilu.

[Freddie2]

Never knew that Lucy wanted to give Liz a show (of course "HarryCarter" would have the scoop!) If Kup's Show was on PBS at the time, speaking from very limited personal experience, I remember PBS occasionally showing works that pushed the boundaries of censorship "back in the day" (the early 2000s), so I guess they have a bit of a pass for whatever reason. Do we know why Lucy was in Chicago during this time? 

And also, as long as it's been mentioned on this thread and the "What's On" thread over the past couple of days, I really feel the need to point out how great Luvsbway's Instagram account is. I've seen a few other Lucy-related accounts, and some have even followed me, but none have such insightful content as our own Shelly's. The posts are always fresh, informative, and timely, with a wealth of interesting tidbits in the comments. It's a real privilege to see every day.

[HarryCarter]

Lucy was in Chicago to accept the Notre Dame Club of Chicago’s Excellence in Entertainment Award.

And I’m in complete agreement about Shelly’s amazing Instagram page!

[Luvsbway]

Thanks for the compliments on my Instagram account.  It truly is a labor of love for me.  Over the past few years running it I’ve sunk myself deep in to the task of not only collecting photos and making videos for my daily posts but also digging deep through internet archives, books, and magazines to find fun stories and interesting facts.

I want to thank everyone here on the lounge, as over the years I’ve absorbed so much information in our daily discussions. But it’s here that I come when I really want to have a fun but informative debate on the really niche stuff Lucy related. It impresses me what all the others here offer.

What really got me with the Instagram was how many people came up to me in Jamestown last year during the Lucy festival and mentioned they followed me. At one point walking back to my car I was stopped by a group who followed me, while at the same time another follower was trying to get my attention from across the street. Or the two girls who flew in from CA and were cheering me on during the trivia contest. Crazy.

[Neil]

On 4/16/2019 at 1:08 PM, Luvsbway said:

 This weekend I made a clip of Lucy popping a pill (probably a headache one because of all this nonsense), digging through her purse and then smoking a cigarette while calling out Elizabeth.

Where can we see this?

On 4/16/2019 at 2:17 PM, HarryCarter said:

Once, my entire office gathered and watched this interview. People were riveted.

I want to work in an office where people are riveted by things like this.

The morally conservative Beverly Hills matron of 1976 is a far cry from the wild teenager keeping time with a much older member of the Jamestown mafia!  Lucy refers to unauthorized biographies.  Other than the Morella/Epstein bio released in 1974, what books is she referring to?   I have this to add to the discussion about whether I Love Lucy would be received well in 1976:  I say a resounding YES,  IF ILL hadn't already existed. The way television gobbles up material, she had done everything Lucy-esque  and the public doesn't take to remakes of past classics (note Karen and Grace stuck in the shower).   All those Life with Lucy nay-sayers said Lucy's comedy was "out-dated".  I say no and that there just wasn't much new to do.   Other than Dick Cavett, this kind of talk show didn't exist even back in 1976 but it is fascinating.  I agree with everyone else: this is the strangest mix of talk show guests ever.  Regrettably Lucy and David Mamet never collaborated on a project.  Imagine Harry Carter's expletives if they had combined "Glengarry Glen Ross" with "Carter's Unique Employment Agency"!