Read Online I Love Lucy: The Untold Story by Jess Oppenheimer, Gregg Oppenheimer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jess Oppenheimer, Gregg Oppenheimer
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alone in its opinion of Desi. When the original pilot film was sent back to New York, Milton Biow screened it for his good friends Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. After the screening, Hammerstein reportedly turned to Biow and delivered a one-line assessment of the show: “Keep the redhead, ditch the Cuban.”
“He’s her husband,” Biow explained. “It’s a package deal. To get her, we have to take him.”
“Well, then for God’s sake don’t let him sing,” Hammerstein replied. “Because no one will understand him.”
So Biow added a clause to his contract with Desilu to insure that Desi’s vocals would be kept to a minimum. “It is agreed,” the clause declared, “that in each program the major emphasis shall be placed on the basic situations arising out of the fictional marriage of [Lucy and Ricky Ricardo], that the orchestra will furnish only incidental or background music except where an occasional script shall require a vocal number by Desi Arnaz as part of the story line.”
Because of that clause, we made it a point during the first year to make any song by Desi an important part of the story. For example, Lucy would be trying to break into the act during the song. But after the show got to be number one, Desi demanded that the restriction be relaxed.And by that time both Biow and Philip Morris wanted the show so badly that neither was about to buck him.
We took pains to humanize the character of Ricky Ricardo by bringing him down in earning power so the average person could identify with his problems. The “Tropicana” nightclub where Ricky worked, for example, was a far cry from the Copacabana. Instead, we made it kind of a middle-class tourist trap patronized mostly by out-of-towners and conventioneers.
There were actually a lot more jokes involving Ricky’s botched pronunciation than ended up on the screen. Seven or eight times a week he would say something during rehearsal that came out funny because of his accent, and the people on the set would throw it in. Desi was an awfully goodsport to go along with this, but I had to take most of them out. I felt the audience would get sick of “accent” jokes if we did them all the time.
Desi’s accent wasn’t the only aspect of his Cuban background that had an effect on the show. His Latin American upbringing influenced the story lines, as well. For instance, we could do stories all day long about Ricky being unfaithful to Lucy (or at least about her thinking that he was being unfaithful), but to do a story about Lucy’s infidelity was quite another thing altogether, because in the Cuban culture in which Desi had been raised, it was accepted that no woman would ever dare to be unfaithful to a man.
Desi and Lucy were diametrically different kinds of performers. Each Monday morning we would assemble for a first reading of that week’s script. This was usually the first time Lucy or anyone else in the cast had laid eyes on it. And Desi was always much better than Lucy at these first read-throughs.He would understand the material as soon as he saw it, and give a good reading the first time through. Of course, his performance would be exactly the same, never any better or any worse, four days later.
Lucy, by contrast, was the kind of performer who needed a lot of rehearsal. If you sat in on one of our Monday morning sessions and then were asked for your opinion, you probably would have said, “The story is fine, the dialogue is excellent, most of the cast is great, but get rid of the redhead. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.”
And Lucy didn’t know what the hell she was doing—at the first reading. But after stumbling through that first read-through, she would take the material to the mat. She fought with it, examined it, internalized it, and when it reappeared, she owned it. Her performance would improve more and more as each day went by. And if she got enough rehearsal time there just were no heights she
“He’s her husband,” Biow explained. “It’s a package deal. To get her, we have to take him.”
“Well, then for God’s sake don’t let him sing,” Hammerstein replied. “Because no one will understand him.”
So Biow added a clause to his contract with Desilu to insure that Desi’s vocals would be kept to a minimum. “It is agreed,” the clause declared, “that in each program the major emphasis shall be placed on the basic situations arising out of the fictional marriage of [Lucy and Ricky Ricardo], that the orchestra will furnish only incidental or background music except where an occasional script shall require a vocal number by Desi Arnaz as part of the story line.”
Because of that clause, we made it a point during the first year to make any song by Desi an important part of the story. For example, Lucy would be trying to break into the act during the song. But after the show got to be number one, Desi demanded that the restriction be relaxed.And by that time both Biow and Philip Morris wanted the show so badly that neither was about to buck him.
We took pains to humanize the character of Ricky Ricardo by bringing him down in earning power so the average person could identify with his problems. The “Tropicana” nightclub where Ricky worked, for example, was a far cry from the Copacabana. Instead, we made it kind of a middle-class tourist trap patronized mostly by out-of-towners and conventioneers.
There were actually a lot more jokes involving Ricky’s botched pronunciation than ended up on the screen. Seven or eight times a week he would say something during rehearsal that came out funny because of his accent, and the people on the set would throw it in. Desi was an awfully goodsport to go along with this, but I had to take most of them out. I felt the audience would get sick of “accent” jokes if we did them all the time.
Desi’s accent wasn’t the only aspect of his Cuban background that had an effect on the show. His Latin American upbringing influenced the story lines, as well. For instance, we could do stories all day long about Ricky being unfaithful to Lucy (or at least about her thinking that he was being unfaithful), but to do a story about Lucy’s infidelity was quite another thing altogether, because in the Cuban culture in which Desi had been raised, it was accepted that no woman would ever dare to be unfaithful to a man.
Desi and Lucy were diametrically different kinds of performers. Each Monday morning we would assemble for a first reading of that week’s script. This was usually the first time Lucy or anyone else in the cast had laid eyes on it. And Desi was always much better than Lucy at these first read-throughs.He would understand the material as soon as he saw it, and give a good reading the first time through. Of course, his performance would be exactly the same, never any better or any worse, four days later.
Lucy, by contrast, was the kind of performer who needed a lot of rehearsal. If you sat in on one of our Monday morning sessions and then were asked for your opinion, you probably would have said, “The story is fine, the dialogue is excellent, most of the cast is great, but get rid of the redhead. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.”
And Lucy didn’t know what the hell she was doing—at the first reading. But after stumbling through that first read-through, she would take the material to the mat. She fought with it, examined it, internalized it, and when it reappeared, she owned it. Her performance would improve more and more as each day went by. And if she got enough rehearsal time there just were no heights she
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