This Month in the Lucyverse

This Month in the Lucyverse*
(*the Lucille Ball universe)
© 2008 By Joyce Kellogg and The Write Stuff
[edited and comments by Michael Karol]
Exclusively for Sitcomboy.com!

Dec. 1, 1937 Vivian Vance became a Broadway star in her first co-starring role on Broadway, playing a Soviet spy alongside Ed Wynn and Roy Roberts (another Lucy veteran supporting cast member) in Hooray for What! The production opened this date at New York;s Wintergarten Theater, ran for 200 performances, and was greeted with generally positive reviews, especially most of those for Vance. [She took over the role at the last minute after a proper stage "star" could not be found to play it, and it was Vance's first non-bit part or chorus role.]
Dec. 2, 1940 Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, newlyweds, are congratulated by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard (and others), who host a champagne party at Chasen’s Restaurant, West Hollywood, wishing them well, this date. [Lombard, a friend, role model and mentor to Ball, died tragically in a plane crash less than two years later, while on a War Bond selling tour. Ball claimed Lombard visited (and advised) her in dreams for many years thereafter.]
Dec. 8, 1949 Lucille Ball, although not eager to move to television, is allowed to appear as a featured guest on other people’s shows to promote her popular My Favorite Husband radio program, and her films. Thus, she leaps into television on LAKT-TV [a local Los Angeles station], with Peter Lind Hayes on his show, Inside The USA, With Chevrolet, playing a dance hostess in a sketch teaming her with Hayes.

Dec. 11, 1957 RKO Studios became the property of Desilu this date, for a sum of $6.1 million, giving Desilu a total of 35 available sound stages for its own use or rental. The Hollywood Reporter noted, "The deal includes all physical assets of RKO’s Gower Street and RKO-Pathe’s Culver City lots, including 26 sound-stages, and 457 furnished and equipped offices." Desilu was at the time one of the biggest producing companies in Hollywood, eclipsing many of the classic movie studios' output. [Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had been under contract at RKO more than a decade earlier. In fact, they met on the set of a 1940 RKO film that starred Lucy and introduced Desi: Too Many Girls.]

Dec. 15, 1960 An omen of the trouble ahead for Lucy's Broadway debut, the musical Wildcat, scheduled to open at the Alvin Theater this date: the show had to be postponed because the day after the final Philadelphia performance, three trucks carrying the sets, costumes and props were caught in a blizzard and snowbound on the New Jersey Turnpike from Thursday until the following Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 20). [The show would open and be a hit, but only because audiences were wild about seeing Ball on stage. Once she became ill and left the show the following spring, it closed, losing much of its (Desilu) investment.]

Home, Jeeves.

Dec. 1, 1937	Vivian Vance became a Broadway star in her first co-starring role on Broadway, playing a Soviet spy alongside Ed Wynn and Roy Roberts (another Lucy veteran supporting cast member) in Hooray for What! The production opened this date at New York;s Wintergarten Theater, ran for 200 performances, and was greeted with generally positive reviews, especially most of those for Vance. [She took over the role at the last minute after a proper stage "star" could not be found to play it, and it was Vance's first non-bit part or chorus role.]
Dec. 2, 1940	Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, newlyweds, are congratulated by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard (and others), who host a champagne party at Chasen’s Restaurant, West Hollywood, wishing them well, this date. [Lombard, a friend, role model and mentor to Ball, died tragically in a plane crash less than two years later, while on a War Bond selling tour. Ball claimed Lombard visited (and advised) her in dreams for many years thereafter.]
Dec. 8, 1949	Lucille Ball, although not eager to move to television, is allowed to appear as a featured guest on other people’s shows to promote her popular My Favorite Husband radio program, and her films. Thus, she leaps into television on LAKT-TV [a local Los Angeles station], with Peter Lind Hayes on his show, Inside The USA, With Chevrolet, playing a dance hostess in a sketch teaming her with Hayes.
Dec. 11, 1957	RKO Studios became the property of Desilu this date, for a sum of $6.1 million, giving Desilu a total of 35 available sound stages for its own use or rental. The Hollywood Reporter noted, "The deal includes all physical assets of RKO’s Gower Street and RKO-Pathe’s Culver City lots, including 26 sound-stages, and 457 furnished and equipped offices." Desilu was at the time one of the biggest producing companies in Hollywood, eclipsing many of the classic movie studios' output. [Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had been under contract at RKO more than a decade earlier. In fact, they met on the set of a 1940 RKO film that starred Lucy and introduced Desi: Too Many Girls.]
Dec. 15, 1960	An omen of the trouble ahead for Lucy's Broadway debut, the musical Wildcat, scheduled to open at the Alvin Theater this date: the show had to be postponed because the day after the final Philadelphia performance, three trucks carrying the sets, costumes and props were caught in a blizzard and snowbound on the New Jersey Turnpike from Thursday until the following Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 20). [The show would open and be a hit, but only because audiences were wild about seeing Ball on stage. Once she became ill and left the show the following spring, it closed, losing much of its (Desilu) investment.]