Six Degrees of…
Lucille Ball
By Michael Karol
Originally posted 09.03.06

John Emery, a solid movie character player in about 30 films, and classic TV comedies and dramas, made his second film with director Alexander Hall, a friend of Lucille Ball’s who had dated Lucy pre-Desi.
      — In Hall’s classic Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Emery helps set the plot in motion, playing a millionaire playboy’s smarmy personal assistant, who’s out to kill his boss (with the help of his boss’ wife).
      — He also played a shrink in Hall’s final film, Forever Darling, which not so coincidentally starred Lucille Ball.
      — Emery’s Lucy TV connection: aside from guest starring on many of the top dramas of the 1950s and early 1960s, Emery acted in two episodes of I Love Lucy, early in the series’ run (1951) and in its final season as a half-hour sitcom (1956-57).
      — In Jordan, Lloyd Bridges played a heavenly pilot, one of his first, and uncredited, roles; Bridges later co-starred with Emery in Rocketship XM, a classic sci-fi film, in 1950.
      — There are other Lucy connections to Jordan: Edward Everett Horton played the new heavenly messenger responsible for taking a prizefighter before his time. Horton toured in a popular stage vehicle, Springtime for Henry, that same year (1941) with future Lucy co-star Vivian Vance. He also memorably guest-starred on I Love Lucy as a randy upstairs neighbor of the Ricardos.
      — James Gleason, the fight promoter in Jordan, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He was one of the few considered by Lucy and Desi to play Fred Mertz in their new television series, but Gleason wanted too much money.
      — Emery managed to stay wed to the combustible Tallulah Bankhead for four years, from 1937-1941. Ms. Bankhead was one of the better guest stars on The Lucy- Desi Comedy Hour.

Emery co-starred with Joan Davis (see below) in an unsold TV pilot in 1958, in which Joan would've played the first female astronaut. Davis, a solid slapstick comedienne in her right who preceded Lucy in radio and movies, was often compared to Lucy in the 1950s thanks to her very I Love Lucy-ish hit sitcom, I Married Joan.
      — Emery, who was destined to become one of those familiar film supporting faces that one would see and go, “Oh yeah, I know him, but what’s his name?” died in 1964 at the age of 59.

The Lady Wants Mink is a 1953 bauble, an enjoyable sitcom of a movie, produced in the early days of TV when Lucy was two years into her milestone sitcom, I Love Lucy. The director and cast have many Lucy connections. Director William A. Seiter had previously directed Lucy in Roberta (1935), where she had a bit part as a model, and Room Service, in which co-star Lucy took a back seat to the antics of the Marx Brothers.
      — The plot of Mink is simple: a man (Dennis O’Keefe) buys four minks to raise so he can provide his wife (Ruth Hussey) with a mink coat. Complications ensue. The likeable O’Keefe co-starred with Lucy in the 1939 comedy That’s Right, You’re Wrong, playing Kay Kyser’s bandleader. He began as an extra in dozens of films before graduating to juvenile lead. He had an uncredited role as a chorus boy in Lucy’s 1938 film, Joy of Living. He and Lucy both had blink-and-you-miss-’em roles in 1935’s Top Hat: O’Keefe as an elevator passenger, Lucy as a clerk in a flower shop. Both were showcased in the RKO short A Night at the Biltmore Bowl (1935). Finally, both had uncredited roles in the 1934 film Broadway Bill, Lucy as a "blonde telephone operator" and O’Keefe as an extra.
      — Ruth Hussey built a career out of playing weary sophisticates. She co-starred with Lucy in the 1960 adult comedy The Facts of Life. In the film Lucy contemplates having an affair with good friend Bob Hope; Hussey played Bob Hope’s wife.
      — Mink co-star Eve Arden (playing her trademarked wisecracking neighbor), was in the 1937 classic film Stage Door, with Lucy. She and Lucy also co-starred in the unfortunately unfunny comedy Having Wonderful Time, 1938. She appeared with Lucy’s TV co-star, Vivian Vance, in Let’s Face It, a hit review on Broadway in 1947. Arden created the role of Connie Brooks in the popular radio comedy Our Miss Brooks, which she took to television in 1952. She filmed the show at Desilu Studios, owned by Lucy and husband Desi Arnaz, because she respected what Lucy and Desi had done on I Love Lucy. Gale Gordon, who co-starred in Brooks, would become a longtime co-star of Lucy's. Arden cameo’d in one of the most famous I Love Lucy episodes: "L.A. at Last!" She also co-starred in the only sitcom produced by Desi Arnaz Productions that ever made it to the air, The Mothers-in-Law (1967-1969).
      — Mink co-star William Demarest appeared with Lucy in the 1949 film Sorrowful Jones. He played himself on the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Christmas special "The Desilu Review" (which aired December 25, 1959), along with a gaggle of other guest stars and I Love Lucy’s regulars, including William Frawley. Demarest took over the grandfather role from Frawley on My Three Sons in 1965.
      — Popular character actor Gene Lockhart (father of June, grandfather of Anne) co-starred in Lucy’s 1947 comedy, Her Husband’s Affairs. Lovely Hillary Brooke, who spoke with a British accent initially to differentiate herself from all the other blonde starlet wannabes, found she was, ironically, hired many times because she had a British accent. So she used it onscreen and off, and it came in handy during one of the I Love Lucy episodes that took place in Europe, "The Fox Hunt." Brooke also guest-starred on the Desilu hit December Bride.
      — Black actress Isabel Randolph had small parts in several of Lucy’s films: Look Who’s Laughing (1941), Best Foot Forward (1942), The Dark Corner (1946), and The Fuller Brush Girl.

Joan Davis Though Lucy is my favorite female clown, many other Sitcom Queens and funny ladies have touched my heart over the years (see my book, Sitcom Queens: Divas of the Small Screen for the whole list). Not the least of these is raucous, roustabout, slapstick movie, radio and TV comic Joan Davis, who is often compared to Lucy (and just as often unfairly accused of ripping off Lucy’s bits). My two favorite female clowns had more in common than making us laugh for generations.
      — Bob Weiskopf wrote for the Rudy Vallee Sealtest Radio program in 1941, co-starring Joan Davis; he also wrote for many of Lucy's TV series, i.e., I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show.
      — Joan and Lucy both worked with Rudy Vallee, Joan on radio and Lucy on her series (The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Here’s Lucy).
      — Ray Singer, who wrote radio and film (She Gets Her Man) material for Joan, also wrote the "Lucy Wins Jack Benny’s Account" episode of The Lucy Show and co-created Here’s Lucy with Milt Josefsburg in 1968.
      — Joan had a bit part (uncredited) as a phone operator in Bunker Bean; Lucy had a small part (but larger than Joan’s) in this 1936 comedy.
      — Two character actresses — Mary Jane Croft and Sandra Gould — who were regulars on Joan’s sitcom I Married Joan also appeared with Lucy on I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show.
      — On October 7, 1943, Lucy and Joan both guest-starred on the Kraft Music Hall, a live radio broadcast hosted weekly by Bing Crosby. These shows went out live to the troops.
      — Both were in films with Eddie Cantor, Lucy in "extra" parts at the beginning of her careeer, Joan in co-starring parts during the heyday of her film career. Both co-starred with swing bandleader Kay Kyser in films, Lucy in 1939’s That’s Right, You’re Wrong, and Joan in 1943’s Around the World. And both appeared in films with Abbott & Costello (in Lucy's case it was a literal cameo; Joan had one of her best screen roles in A&C's Hold That Ghost).
      — Female versions of "traveling salesman" comedies featured Joan, in 1950’s Traveling Saleswoman, and Lucy, in the same year’s The Fuller Brush Girl. They also capped off their Golden Age film careers playing unlikely harem girls, Joan in the slapstick comedy Harem Girl (1952), and Lucy in 1951’s potboiler, The Magic Carpet.
      — Joan worked with her daughter, Beverly Wills, in her 1950s sitcom, I Married Joan; Lucy employed her daughter, Lucie Arnaz, in the 1960s sitcom Here’s Lucy.
      — Both Lucy and Joan died of heart-related ailments.