Scribble Muse, wherefore art thou?

[shinelumiere]

I have dubbed my second essay for my eng-comp class the essay from hell, or devil in disguise, whichever pops out of my mouth at the moment.

the first draft of this essay was due....*points in the general direection of 2 weeks ago* and for some reason or other the teacher gave the class an extention, for which I wanted to drop on my knees and offer sacrifice up to the gods for my luck. thankfully I didn't, and kept my seat. I think the teacher and my classmates would have wondered about my sanity then *grin*

for one reason or another, I've been unable to write, I mean seriously write, I can babble to myself all day long, it's like I'm talking to someone, who's tuneing me out, everybody dose it, much like I'm doing to my friends horse babble as I type this.

and I've always been able to concoct little stories, like my sock-coffee mug bit a few journals ago. but when it comes to writeing a serious piece....well, that's not true, because my last essay was a serious piece, but it was more of a story....but so was the lucy thing.....*mutters* like I've said repeatedly, I can't figure out if this is writers block, or that I'm simply too close to the subject or what.

long story short, I'm not happy with the essay, but it's written, and it's better than not turning anything in and getting an F or incomplete, and hopefuly I have better luck with my third paper and my other test essay....who knows, maybe my love of argueing will work for me on that, since the essay is persuasive....

alrighty, so the acctual essay, you'd like to see that huh.

L. S.

Eng-Com 121

May, 15^th 2007

Room 228

 

For the Love of Lucy

 

When you think of Lucille Ball, the first thing that you probably think of is the show “I Love Lucy”. However, as not many people know, Lucille Ball did many things other than that show, both before and after.

 

Born in Jamestown New York, Lucille spent the first three years of her life moving from one town to the next because of her fathers work. Unfortunately when she was three her father contracted and died from Typhoid Fever. After his death her mother moved them back to Jamestown and with the help of her parents continued to raise Lucy and her brother Frederick.

 

While she was young Lucy’s grandfather would take the family to vaudeville shows and often encouraged Lucy to perform in her own and school plays. At the age of fifteen, Lucille left school and moved to New York City to study acting. While enrolled in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts she was told that she had no future at all as a performer and went home not long after.

 

Several years later Miss Ball moved back to New York to try again at becoming an actress. While she had some success as a fashion model for designer Hattie Carnegie and at the Chesterfield Girl, she had very limited success in her stage career. Under the stage name Diane Belmont –inspired by the Belmont race track on Long Island- Lucille was hired and quickly fired from several Broadway productions.

 

Finally in 1933 Lucille seemed to catch a break. When he mother of one of the Goldwyn Girls wouldn’t let their daughter go to Hollywood, Lucy was able to make her debut onto the big screen. Though the role was unaccredited, Lucy played as one of the Goldwyn Girls in the movie” Roman Scandals”. After her part in that film Lucy moved to Hollywood permanently.

 

During the 1930’s she was signed on as a contract player for RKO, playing in many small roles. Though she was known as “The Queen of the B’s” and she played in movies with such well known celebrities as The Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges, she never achieved high film success.

 

In 1940 Lucille met the first and better known of her two husbands, Desi Arnaz. Desi had been performing the lead role in the Broadway production of “Too Many Girls” and was cast in the same role in the film version; Lucille was cast as the female lead. Their attraction sparked almost instantly, less than a year after meeting each other they were married.

 

In 1948 Lucy was cast as Liz Cugat (to become Cooper later) in the radio program “My Favorite Husband” aired by CBS. The character was very similar to Lucy Ricardo in that she would try to help with something and end up in wacky situations. After two years of running with great success, CBS asked Lucy to develop the program for television.

 

Lucy agreed to develop the show, on the condition that she was able to work with Desi. CBS executives did not feel that viewers “would not accept and All-American redhead and a Cuban as a couple”. When CBS showed such lack of interest, Lucy and Desi formed Desilu Productions and filmed the pilot episode with their own money.

 

CBS was initially unimpressed with the episode produced by Desilu, so the couple created and toured a vaudeville act based on the same ideas as the show. The tour was a huge success and convinced CBS to put the show in their line up.

 

The “I Love Lucy” show developed many first in television production history, many of which are still used today. In return for taking a pay cut to help finance the filming of the show – something not often done in the early days of television – CBS gave the rights to the show back to Desilu. During televisions infancy the concept of the rerun had not yet been conceived and many people questioned why anyone would want to see a program a second time. Because Desilu retained the rights they were able to keep the profits of the shows second airings in the future.

 

Karl Freund – who was Desilu’s director of photography – introduced a three camera technique that became standard in the filming of situation comedies. Although using this technique improved the progress and time it took to film a show, because “I love Lucy“ was filmed in front of a of a live studio audience and involved shooting long, medium and close up shots, the cast and crew required great discipline and close choreography.

 

After many tries at having children, with no success in conceiving as all, Lucy and Desi followed the advice of Desi’s mother who felt that because they were not married in a church their marriage was not sanctioned by god and therefore they would not be able to conceive. In June of 1949 Lucy and Desi had a second marriage ceremony at the Our Lady of the Valley Catholic church. Although Lucy did manage to conceive about six months after the second ceremony, it sadly ended in a miscarriage.

 

Finally in July of 1951 Lucy gave birth to a baby girl. Although the couple had agreed to name the child Susan if it was born a girl, while Lucy was recovering from the birth, Desi signed the birth certificate with the name Lucie as a surprise for his wife. Only ten months after the birth of their daughter Lucy found out that she was pregnant again. When pregnant the first time, the “I Love Lucy” show was just starting out, and they were able to get away with disguising the fact with loose clothing and certain camera angles. At the time of the second pregnancy, the show had quickly climbed to the top of the charts and become number 1. Because of the shows high rating instead of suspending the show during her pregnancy, the producers and writers decided to write in the pregnancy and because Lucy was having a scheduled cesarean section, the writers were able to coincide the birth of “Little Ricky” on the show with the real life birth of Desi Jr.

 

Unfortunately with the stress of long rehearsals and the running of the Desilu Production company, shortly after the filming of the final episode of the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” the couple divorced.

In late 1960 Ball appeared in the Broadway musical “Wildcat” that was a successful show and was sold our most nights, however, due to Lucille becoming too ill to continue in the show it had to close early. In 1961 Ball met and married a stand up comic by the name of Gary Morton who was later brought into the Desilu Company and later became a producer within the company. Mr. Morton also played bit parts occasionally in Balls future series.

 

Although Lucy did a few movies after the end of “I love Lucy” which included “Your, Mine and Ours” and the musical “Mame” Lucy’s later career is more known in her work in television. From 1962 until 1968 Lucy stared in a show titled “The Lucy Show” where her character got into situations similar to Lucy Ricardo, the main difference being that her character went by the name Carmichael and was a widow. In 1968 Lucille changed the show by bringing her children on to the show and the main characters children and changed Carmichael to Carter and changed the shows title to “Here’s Lucy”.

 

In between these shows and the few movies that she stared in during this time Lucy also made several appearances on talk shows and the like. After the end of “Here’s Lucy” Ball was fairly inactive in her acting career until the mid 1960’s when she tried to reawaken her television career. In 1982 she made hosted a special two part retrospective on the show “Three’s Company” showing clips and talking about the plot line of the show up until the point the special was aired. In 1986 Lucy stared in a made for television movie about an elderly homeless woman titled “Stone Pillow”. Her comeback sitcom “Life with Lucy” in 1986 unfortunately was a failure and was canceled after only eight episodes had aired. Many speculated that this last sitcom failed because the plots were once again similar to her previous shows and it was watching a seventy year old trying to act like a forty year old.

 

Even after her death – in 1989, at the age of seventy seven – Lucille continues to grow in fame and notoriety. She has had many awards posthumously bestowed upon her, from the Women’s International Center’s “Living Legacy Award to the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 

Lucille Ball was a fantastic actress and though she was known best for her role as Lucy Ricardo, she is so much more. Whether it was dancing as a chorus girl or slap sticking through a vaudeville act, Lucille kept going and through it all brought forth one of Americas most well known and loved television personality’s and with hope she will continue to be honored for her brilliance as she is today.

I left the citations off naturally, but if you really want to know where I found all my info I can tell you, just ask.