August 20, 2025 • 53 mins
Today Alison interviews Today Alison interviews son of I Love Lucy creator, Gregg Oppenheimer
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How from.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Them love us.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome. Yes, it is the Alison Aringham Show and I'm
Alison Arningram. Some of you may remember me as evil
Nellie Olsen, but tonight, thankfully, I am Alison Aringram and
it's the Alison Argham Show. And here on The Alison
Argham Show, we talk about things that make you feel good,
the movies and the TV shows that made us feel
good and the people who made them, and people who
(00:38):
are doing things now to make the world a better
and more interesting place. And oh I have one with
a boy? Do I have someone who's is filling all
of those categories? And also, you know, I love it
when I get to interview people or my friends so
I've worked with, I get to know so yay, yay,
Tonight tonight, I have this amazing man and usually he's
build us. It's son of you. No, it's like What's sudden,
(00:59):
the Frankstein son of it, Greg Oppenheimer's son of I
Love Lucy creator producer, headwriter Jess Oppenheimer. But Greg Gofmner
in his own right is a producer and has got
numerous plays and radio programs created. And I know him
well from our work at various spurred back and crazy
recreation of old radio shows. You've heard about that where
(01:20):
I do these recreations of old time radio shows. I
got dragged into and it's fabulous. I get to be
Gracie Allen and crazy things. Well, this is the man
where that's happening a lot with it. He's directed me
many many times. This man's brilliant his own right, and
an author and and yes, his dad get created I
Love Lucy kind of a small claim to fame, ladies
and gentlemen. Greg Oppenheimer, son of was a see you see.
(01:53):
You know, we were just talking about trying to do
shows with like new studio audience and this brilliant piece
that that I, you know, helped I participated in recently
and saying yeah, so yeah we did. The whole thing
was great with the BBC, but they chose not to
have a studio audience or a laugh track.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves. But the play
that I wrote in twenty seventeen based on my dad's memoir.
The book was called Laughs, Luck and Lucy, and I
wrote a play called I Love Lucy. If funny thing
happened on the way to the sitcom because the story
(02:30):
of how the show came to be was really sounded
like an eye lucy episode.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh it does, it absolutely is, but yeah, exactly the
idea of that kind of thing being done with complete
silence and no applause or laugh track. It's even even
my show has a freaking applause track, So we try.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
To that became a gripping drama, gripping.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Terrifying drama. I got to meet you. I think really
it was because of the Spurred Vac stuff. And I
tried to even explain what spurredvac is to people, and
I don't even know if I can society.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
To encourage, preserve and encourage radio drama, variety and comedy.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
That's right, and it's absolutely bonkers. I got a call
a few years ago, you want to come to this thing.
We're recreating old time radio shows with you know, uh,
you know, George Burns and Gracie Allen Fiber McGee and
Molly you name all these shows. And we've got all
these actors people like Well from fire Sewn Theater, Phil
(03:33):
Proctor and all these amazing people. And I was like, yeah,
I'll be right over you kidn't and and it's like,
do you want to be Gracy Allen? This one sketch?
I thought, oh, God, love Gracy. Can I do Gracy Allen?
And then I sat up half the night listening to
Gracy Allen went oh, okay, she drops that letter there
and she's sort of flat. And I did it, and
everybody just had a fit and said, I apparently do
(03:55):
a very good Gracy Allen. And now I've been gray
seeing it up all over the place with you guys.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, including when I did the audiobook of my of
my dad's memoir. You played Bracy Allen on that.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah. Now, this is fascinating because not a lot of
people get their their parents memoir published. But your father
is incredibly famous. I mean, it's it's so strange to
have your resume be who are you? Well, I am
the son of But I mean it is absolutely amazing.
Did you just stop it. I have so many friends
who are just absolutely die hard, lifelong I Love Lucy fans.
(04:30):
They are obsessed with I Love Lucy. They could not
live without I love Lucy Rewrens, I love Oh. They
started showing I Love Lucy reruns on the on Delta
on when you get the screen I was like, yay,
and I found myself watching and I love Lucy Rerent.
It was the one the saxophone. She wanted to go
with the band and play the saxophone, which she cannot
actually do, and then pretended to have a boyfriend and
(04:53):
it was insane. And I have friends who's obsessed with Lucy.
So the realization that is your add there was him.
He was the impetus. He was there writing this episode,
creating this thing when it wasn't even it wasn't on
TV yet, it was on the radio and they were
trying to create a show for Lucille Ball but it
was nothing worked, nothing work, And your dad was the
(05:14):
person who said, I think they're going about this wrong here,
let's try this.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, And it all sort of clicks all of a
sudden when when the kind of writing that he did
was the kind of writing that comedy that that Lucy
had had the easiest time with. And he'd worked for
everybody in Hollywood and radio, Jack Benny, fred Astaire, George Burns,
Fred Allen, all the comedy greats, Fanny.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Bryce who I also did.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
The book too, And and he happened to get thrown
together with Lucille Ball and it just worked and she
thought the world.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Of him and her and and you as a child
got to meet all of the most amazing people because
of this.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I should have started an autograph book.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
But don't you feel silly? Yeous? Lad you go? Oh, yeah,
I met so so while why do I not have
all of these people's autographs? Why do I not have
more photos?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Why do I?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
But yeah, you met everybody. But it's amazing. So you
found you found your dad's memoir. He had not published
this or attempted to publish this while he was.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
A lot right well, we were trying to get him
to write his memoir and finally he started it and
he showed it to me, the first eighty pages of
or something, and gave it to me the edit. So,
and I was a practicing lawyer at the time. You
give a lawyer something to edit, you give a lot
of markups, back, a lot of changes. And I edited it.
(06:50):
But then he I think he took my edits and
incorporated them. But then he never worked on it again.
He loved calf like flaying golf, and we just couldn't
get him to go back to it. So after he
passed away, and I found the manuscript again, and it
was just so funny that I said, I'm going to
finish this. And I spent years looking for collecting every
(07:15):
interview he ever did. I didn't quite have it. And
then finally, after a couple of years, I happened to
come across some real to real tapes as somebody had
interviewed him and from UCLA interview him in nineteen sixty
one about his life, about his whole life, and it
was a three hour interview, and okay, now I've got
enough stuff to fill in the gaps that I was missing.
(07:37):
And I sat and I worked in earnest on it
and I published it a long time ago, now about
thirty years here.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
But creating and doing a memoir, writing and creating a
memoir and all the work to go is it's a
lot of work. So I can see where you might
have gotten a great start and then went the hell
of a lot of work doing this thing and just
like kind of bailed on the idea. But now you
didn't really go to show business. Initially, you were raised
absolutely in the heart of show business. It's Lucy and
all of these peoples. And then you're like, I'm going
(08:05):
to go to school and get a real job and
be a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I was prohibited when I graduated. I was one of
the last mid term classes in Los Angeles and we
graduated in January sixty nine, and my dad had just
started doing producing the Wi Reyntals show, and so I
went down and hung around the set, and the first
(08:31):
day it was one of the first shows that they
decided to videotape rehearsals videotape. At that time, it was
sort of primitive in terms of inexpensive videotape. And they
had Sony had a home video thing and my high
school used it to videotape the gym meets and I
(08:52):
was the manager of the gym team, so I knew
how to use this thing.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So that's right. It was sewing you at the first,
like people started doing home videos only everything up until then.
He had a super rate and had film when we
were kids. And then it finally said he had a video.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So they were going to do the rehearsals and the
guy they had some messenger or something, somebody in some union.
They were going to have him do it. He didn't
show up, and I said, I know how to use it,
and so I the first day and at the end
of the day, the production manager said, you want you
want a job? I said, you'll have to ask my dad,
(09:29):
because my dad. I asked my dad if I could
get a job at MGM, and he said, absolutely not.
He didn't believe in nepotism.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
At all, actually not. How old were you at this point,
eighteen eighteen years old to eighteen years old?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And but and my dad said okay, because he had
nothing to do with me getting a job offer. And
so I worked for a few months on the film
crew of the Jamie Reynold Show, taping rehearsals, and I
made once I couldn't keep my mouth shut smart as
eighteen year old, I gave I don't think it was Debbie,
(10:04):
but some I gave somebody it was Tom Bosley I gave.
I gave him a note and no, no, don't Debbie
Reynolds gave me the nickname Fingers, which is an interesting name.
Was to remind me that they hired me from my
fingers and not from my mouth.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Oh my god, I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And that's it, you know, most of it. Most of
doing a TV show is standing around waiting for them
to do the lighting or whatever. And so I was
standing around, but I was listening to, you know, show
his stories but being told by Tom Bosley or or
Al Molnarro. And at one point Alice says to me,
(10:52):
how old are you? Greg? I said eighteen? He says,
tell me something you get much at eighteen?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Okay, like now that would be human resources there.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And I I just loved him. And my dad said that, no,
absolutely not. You're going to go get a degree in something?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Did you do something? Doing some serious with your life.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Because he knew that. You know, his career, despite this
great talent, was based on luck.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well and it's true when we were doing the show
he wrote the memoir of the whole book in the
show and the wild stories about coming to Hollywood with
nothing and is this going to work and then being go, oh,
I'm unemployed again. Ah. So yeah, I imagine after going
through that he might have been a little skittish about
having to go into the business.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah. So I went and got a law degree. I
went to.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
No I did, now that I think about, say, so
we're talking nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy with Debbie Reynolds
and now my brain is going eek because you know,
my father thora Nkrum who worked He worked for Seymour,
Heller and Associates at that same time period, primarily for Liberacci.
But they finished Debbie Reynolds at the stake, they had
Debbie Reynolds, and I'm like, oh my god, did they
(12:07):
cross paths? Did see where my father go down to
the Debbie Reynolds at some point? I mean, it's the
absolutely zero degrees of separation when you get into Hollywood.
It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I loved working at MG and my dad's office. They
gave Dad Louis B. Mayer's office before they built the
Thalberg building and moved the executives in there. Their offices
are on the lot and it was this gigantic office
right at the front and it was looking the air head,
that office, and they gave that to Dad.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
And it was very impressive that beach Seed trying to
write things on a manual typewriter in his car, which
is the stories in this book. The stories in this book, laughs,
Luck and LUCYO. It came the great, the most popular
secome of all time, accurate title that the whole radio
play of the thing that we did and crazy and
(12:54):
Fanny Brice. It was go totally insane, the stories of
this young dog I trying could go make it in
Hollywood and going to you know, Hollywood, and let's go
to Hollywood and vine like that out of the movies.
And he luckily had a couple of friends there, but
they were hustling trying to find jobs and just more
acculously finding out they need someone over here while I
can get over there now, and can you write a
(13:16):
spec script? And then realizing that he didn't have any
house home to go to, I'll go home and write it,
except I'm not staying anywhere, And imagining someone hell laptop,
a manual typewriter in their car, banging something out to
take to a meeting. It's just like unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
He was writing a packer hour in a packer, in
a pack I.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Wrote a script for the packet. I literally in my packer,
just with the running jokes. He had that one sketch,
that one joke that never got used to keep using
the suspect and they go, that's great, we're not using that.
But it's like, I hope no one ever uses it,
because they need it for my next audition.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He was had a charmed path to success. He and
then the amazing thing is, oh he was pretty successful.
I mean, he made a good living as a comedy
writer in Hollywood. But and then, but then when Isla
Lucy happened, all of a sudden, you know, he said,
(14:21):
I've been doing the same thing for years, and all
of a sudden, everybody the world goes absolutely crazy. Uh,
you know. And it's not like he hadn't been working
for talented people before. I mean, her, Fanny Brice was
no slouch, right.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
He was with Fanny Brice for quite something. How long
was he wreading for Fanny Brice shit the huge radio show?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Six years?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah? Yeah, And then it was with Fanny brace was
a contractual thing. She wanted more money, so it was
just like, oh, you don't have a job anymore, which
is welcome Dollywood.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah. Actually, they because TV was coming in that they
cut all the radio budgets and they told Fanny you're
gonna have to take a salary.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Cut, and she said, yeah, no, and she walked.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
She was, you know, a pretty strong personality, she was.
She and Lucy both. But my mom said she'd call
it three in the morning if she thought of something.
She'd call it. My mom would say hello, you know,
barely awaken, and she'd just say, put jess on no
not sorry, bother I thing.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You know, Now, this was Fanny that pulled this stuff,
or Lucy as well. Fanny Danny, that's very Fanny. I
mean when you see all the movies and the stories
about Fanny Brice, it's like that just you know, this powerhouse.
But yeah, at that time, and for a woman at
that time, just be I'm doing my show and this
is how we're doing my show, and this is how
you're all going to be doing my show must have
(15:41):
been just startling and terrifying for someone.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
She was just such an amazing challenge. I mean, she's
been doing the Baby Snooks character since nineteen twelve. Dad
started wrighting doing in nine forty two. I think you
started working out and he well, he wasn't supposed to
be doing it because he was in the Coast Guard.
It was during World War two and you're not allowed
to moonlight.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
That was a section I liked very much explain this
to people. He'd got managed. You know, everyone it was
world War two. Everybody was you know, everybody's going in
what do you do. But it's like, okay, we'll do
the coast Guard. That's great, it can work. And you know,
I'll still be here. I'll be in an office doing things.
But you're you're in the military. You are not supposed
to be off doing other things, right, But your dad
had different ideas about that.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Well, he got assigned to a small desk in a
large room with hundreds of desks in and there was
a sailor at the next desk. He introduced himself, and
it was Ray Stark, who later became a big producer.
But and he asked him what he did. He says, well,
on the outside, I'm an agent. In here, you know,
I just do pr And he said, what do you
(16:51):
mean on the outside. I thought, we're not allowed to moonlight.
And he said, well, what they don't know won't hurt me.
And he said, well, I don't. I don't have an
agent at the moment. Due how would you like another client?
And he said, you sure. My mother in law needs
needs a writer. And he says, what is your mother
(17:12):
in law? Fanny Brice? And and so you know, he
happened to be assigned to the desk next to Fanny
Brice's son, in law who was an agent, and so
he became his agent, and my dad worked for Fanny
right for the next six years.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
So this would probably why when you talk about that
so much of his career was luck, because seriously, what
are the odds of going to the Coast Guard and
getting a desk job next to Fanny Bryce's son in law.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I mean it started from the moment he got
to Hollywood. He went to gets the needed a w
Rexall drug store and turned to his right, and the
guy on the next stool is one of the two
people that he knew in Hollywood except somebody who had
left San Francisco six months earlier that he'd known as
San Francisco an actor, and he gave him a tip
and said, hey, they need writers across the street. And
(18:03):
so he walked across the street and went upstairs with
this exploor and got a job. It was just amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Did he get caught? Did the Coast Guard have any
issues with the fact that he'd actually turned around on
his spare time become the head writer for Fanny Bryce.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
After about a year, they he got a wire from
the commandant of the Coast Guard. It said they knew
that he was moonlighting writing for the Baby Snook Show,
and I think because his.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Name was on it, Yeah, you kind of noticed after
a while.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, and they said, he said, I'm going to have
to dock your entire salary if this continues. Well, he
was getting seventy five dollars an hour from the Coast
Guard and more.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Than that from Fanny from paying more.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, he stopped. So he was a volunteer in the
Coast Guard.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
From then on, Like Doc My Bay getting Dwight, it's
just the whole book. It's hilarious. These these endless scenarios
are just these things. And with Lucy, I mean, now,
she had already been a huge star in movies and
she was so beautiful. And it's funny because people my
age we grew up with like, well, I love Lucy
and the Lucy Show, thought, oh, she's comedian, and for
(19:13):
people of my generation younger to realize, no, before that,
she was a movie star and she was the pretty girl.
She wasn't the goofy redhead. She even blonde in some
of these pictures, and she was this stunningly gorgeous. But
for her, she didn't want to do that because it
was a trap because it was boring because Okay, then
you played the girlfriend and and then what and she
(19:33):
wanted more.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
She was actually the star of a lot of movies,
but there were low budget movies. They were called b
movies and Wyna the Beast, So she wasn't a major
star because of that. She's starting a bunch of low
budget comedies and dramas and she did quite well, and
she was in some major movies too with some major stars,
(19:55):
like Stage Door with Catherine Hepburn and The Big Street
with Henry Fonda. Right, but she just couldn't catch a break.
I mean, they just thought of her as a pretty face,
and so she she thought maybe.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Radio will do it, and so they weren't using her
talent or her comedic abilities because oh she's pretty, and
it was a trap really and she saw and so
going right, But it was fascinating and it was talked
about in the show that we did that the show
that she had when your Dad showed up. It was
to be a comedy about this couple, but it was
(20:30):
kind of weird. They were this very wealthy couple and
no one, we would even nobody would try to do
a show like this. Now they're certain they're talking about
oh yes, and then the maid this, and you're kind
of yeah, I'm not sure people would have been that
thrilled to listen into this show, like the problems. These
people have more money than everybody in the audience. It's like, really, really,
they don't really stud up like they have problems. You know,
(20:53):
there's nothing there.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The vibe they were going forward was the Finnman Nick
and Nora Charles, you knowd banter between two rich people,
and it just didn't My dad didn't think it had
that much appeal. And so when they asked him to
write an episode for it, because the people who were
writing the show had been were were the writers for
Ozzie and Harriet in summer vacation, and so they were
(21:18):
writing this during the summer. They had to go back
to Ozzie and Harriet, so they were looking for someone
to write in the fall. And Dad listened to the
show and read the scripts and said, this isn't this
doesn't work, and so he changed He changed the character,
basically changed her into baby Snooks.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, yeah, he changed it so dramatically that it was
and it strict from what I read there, I said, yeah,
I don't see that that show as the way they
had it could have really worked because times were changing,
and I think people the atmosphere was starting to gradually
become more more egalitarian. People were more concerned with people
in the middle class and the working folk, and the
idea of listening to this terribly wealthy couple. I mean,
(21:56):
she literally had a woman she was paying to give
her a bath. That the sketch is about the maid bathing,
and I think the average person liferator, like, seriously, got
someone giving you a bath? Why am I listening to this?
But when then suddenly changed it and she became absolutely
bonkers and wants to be in show business and wants
to do the play and goes to these outlandish extremes
(22:17):
and is just far more hysterical and drastic about everything. Well,
suddenly it had a whole new life. It was she
She was a whole different personality, and yeah, it was
about eight million times funnier.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And the thing that struck me is when I discovered
the transcription of that show. I was listening to these
transcriptions of my favorite husband show, and I was listening
to the first few shows, and I wasn't to that one,
which was the first when my dad wrote and I realized,
oh my god, he just created Lucy Ricardo right here,
and this is.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
That was completely in the thing we did in the
sketch we did that first show, and the first one
where she's this paulsh lady talking about her maid, than
the next one she suddenly turns into Lucy. Suddenly she's
Lucy Lucy and you're just waiting for Daisy to show up.
It's like, wait, what is this is absolutely the I
Love Lucy show. Now she's completely bonkers and trying to
we weasel her way into show business behind her husband's back.
(23:09):
And it's all those premises and your description of how
she absolutely saw what had happened, whether anybody else saw
him in the audience loving she immediately went to your
father and said she knew that this had changed everything.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, And they hired him the next day to be
head writer, and then within a couple of days they
made him producer and director as well.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And then how did this transition to TV? Because now
we does radio? But he said, at this point TV's happening,
they're starting to cut the pay. Now, how do we
get this this? Did this get this show on GV?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Well? The thing that was interesting, and you never think
this about about Lucy was she she really didn't play
to an audience. And so she was reading the script
and she she was doing really good job reading the script,
but my dad couldn't get her to uh open up
and play in, dramatize and act things out as opposed
(24:08):
to just reading the words.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
On the pape, right, because it's a it's a totally
different medium having that, having done the spurback shows, it's
a totally different thing doing the read as opposed to
the acting, and trying to even incorporate those two. And well,
when we did it with the audience, we're like, okay,
we're also going to act a little more out. But
it's your good. Yeah, how do you transition that? How
do you trans that an actor? And is the writing different?
(24:30):
And when they said okay, great, now it's going to
TV and we're keeping use the word, what the hell
does he do?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So the reason he went to TV is because my
dad would say, you know, acted out, loosen up a
little bit, you know, don't keep your eyes glued to
the page, you know, play it to the audience. And
and and she said, what difference does it make? Nobody.
It was for radio. Nobody at home is going to
be able to tell. And my dad said, the people
in the in this, in the studio audience are going
(24:57):
to be able to tell, and the people at home
will feel that they're diference.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
He'll feel the difference. So feel the difference because the
studio audience will know.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yes, she didn't believe him, and so he gave her tickets.
He hands her a couple of tickets to Jack Benny
and oh my god, what are these four? And he says,
I want you to go to school, and.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Well, Jack Benny would take you to school. That is
going to school watchingd Jack Benny perform.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Benny got more laughs between the punchlines than as a
result of them, because he would stare at the audience
and he would just turn move his.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Three fingers.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah yeah, And the longer he looked at him at
more they laughed. And she came back to the next
rehearsal and she said, oh my gosh, yess, I didn't realize.
And from then on he said it was sometimes he
thought they'd have to use a butterfly net to get
her back to the.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Right, because clearly what she was free there was no
stopping her. That she was absolutely all I mean, guy said,
literally just watching her the other day. Yeah, clearly she
was not have to nail her feet to the floor
to keep her on the stage.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
So as soon as that happened, all of a sudden,
my favorite husband became the hottest ticket in Hollywood to
get into the studio audience and and people kept the
reviews started saying, you know, it's a shame, shame that
the audienses at home can't see Lucy's antics.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
If only this were on TV.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So they said, we want to move it to TV,
and she said, fine, but my husband's got a co
star with me, and they said, we don't think so much.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
They must have had a fit because when they think
about the time period, a there's this woman is making demand.
She's a woman at this time, she's asking for her
husband to be in the show. And her husband is
not your classic wealthy American dude who was playing the
husband before. He's the Cuban And badly, it's like, wait,
what it did, Desier. They had to have just said,
(27:00):
I'm sorry, your husband who is whom? What?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah? No, they said, they thought she should have all
nobody would believe her she should with this one likes
her husband and she said, what are you talking about?
He is my husband.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, it really happened.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
What and they said that you need you need an
all American guy to be your husband.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Right, I mean technically and this time this is technically
a mixed race couple. Exactly in what year nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Nineteen fifty one was nineteen fifty one?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
It started, fact, they have just just said, we can't
do this where we're we're absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot.
There's no way this show is ever going to make
the air.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
So they Desie was doing touring with his band, and
he was a successful band leader and singer, and he said,
you know, why don't you come with me when we
tour and we'll do you know, an act, a vaudivill act.
(28:05):
Vaudeville is still around, and so they would there would
be you know, movie theaters that it would they have
a double bill. But before the double bill, you'd you'd
have a vaudeville act. And then Lucian Desi toured Chicago,
New York, et cetera. And the legend is uh and
(28:27):
some of the movies and people say, well that turned
them around. The CBS said, oh, yes, well.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
We see now that wait, because you say okay, they
started doing it on stage, they saw it. Discord.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
No, that didn't change. Uh. You know, they didn't care
whether Desi was good with her. They just they didn't
think he was the right type of person for for her.
Uh to use a phrase, uh. And so but what
turned him around was, uh, they they got an offer
(28:58):
from NBC, and they didn't want to lose Lucy. They
knew that Lucy was a big talent and one of
the biggest stars on her radio network, and so they
had no choice but to accept Desie, and so they
to keep her happy, to keep him happy, they they
(29:18):
put him. They gave him a job to keep her
in town. Which one of the reasons she wanted to
do a show with him was because she didn't like
him being on tour all the time with the band.
You don't wanted him in Hollywood where she could keep
an eye on him. And so they offered Desie a
job on a radio show. They had a radio show
called Earn Your Vacation.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And they turned your Vacation.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Earn Your Vacation. It was a quiz show, a game
show and those were real big at the time, and
they had the idea of putting him in as a host.
Harry Ackerman had the idea of putting him in. He
was a CBS executive and he said to William Paley,
head of the CBS, and we'll put Desi in his host.
And they said, is a game shows. No, we will
(30:03):
change the name to earn your Caribbean trip and with
the whole yes, and and all the all the prizes
will be trips to the Caribbean, and uh, and this
we have. Don't we have a host that's going on
a couple of weeks. Don't we have a having your
(30:23):
hired a host for that? And he says, yeah, it
was just but it's just a staff announcer at CBS
Radio here in l A. He said, okay, well we can,
we can. You know, what's he going to do? Boycott
the CBS radio airword and barely said he can do
that if if he wants, if it will save Lucy.
(30:46):
If I let's just keep Lucy, I don't care if you.
Then some crime announcer goes to the NBC. What's his
name is, Johnny Carson?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh my god. So it's like, no, we have fire
Johnny Carson because he's just some dude to bring a
Desi on it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Oh dear, so that Desi was hosting your Tropical Trip.
And then they got the.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Word that the pilot sold, and so Johnny got another
job by here he did.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Okay, after that, I actually stayed with CBS for well,
he didn't.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That's hysterically, I didn't. I didn't know Johnny Carster was
that that was? That's well, so yeah, it just and
then your your father continued to write the show for
for how long?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Five years?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Five years?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Last five of the six years he had a five
contract in. After five years, he was of the opinion
that they should end the show well really on a
high note, you know, before they run out of ideas
but to do and he starts getting stale before it
jumps the shark as.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
A later term lad true True, and.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Lucy and Dosi wanted to do it too, but CBS
didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Uh it was it was going too well, don't kill
the the fifth season.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Uh it was when they return home from Europe, when
they take the plane home from Europe and she sneaks
the cheese onto the plane and pretending it's a baby,
and that show really feels like a series finale because
that's what they meant. But then then so and meanwhile
he had been courted by Pat Weaver, who was president
(32:23):
of NBC, who he'd worked with in radio, and finally
he went to NBC at the end of five years
and they decided, Okay, well we need to do something different.
So what's age little Ricky by two and a half years,
and that'll give us some other plot ideas, and then
we'll move them to the country in Connecticut in a
(32:45):
country house out of New York.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I always thought that was weird. The whole thing when
they moved to the house in Connecticut's like, what are
we doing now? What is happening?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Ideas for plot ideas? Because my dad has said to him,
you know, what are we going to We already took
them to Holly, We already took him to Europe. Where
are they going to go next?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
The Moon, which would have been at that time interesting,
But yeah, the country I never bought, like, why would
they live in that house? They would live in that house?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, they Well, a lot of a lot of America
was moving to the suburbs at the.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Time, so it was a theme there. But yeah, it
that was a pretty big house. It was, and they
had many famous people visit them and perform in the
living room. But yeah, I did feel yeah that last season,
I was kind of like, all right, this is not
one of these things, not like the other.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
And my dad so when he announced, he announced a
year ahead of time that he was leaving and so
and then he hired Bob Schuler and Bob Weiskopf to
add to the writing staff because up to then they
had just been him and Bob Carroll and Madeline Pew
writing it. And by the way, the setup of my
dad is head writer uh and Bob and Madeline the
(33:57):
man woman team writing team with him. That was the
basis for the Dick Van Dyke show. Son Carl Reiner
told me that he based that Rob and but Wow
on my dad and Bob Madel not that not that
he based Rob on my dad. Rob was based on
Carl okay was writing for your show of shows for
(34:21):
Sid Caesar. But but just his idea of having UH
and actually they did a thing. They had the history
of the on Tick Van Dyke, he had the history
of when Bob was Rob was hired and but in
Sally were already writers on this show. And that was
true my favorite husband too, because during the time that
the the people from Bozzie and Harriett were writing Lucy's
(34:45):
radio show, Bob and Madeline were writing some of these
scripts too, and so they brought Dad in as head writer,
and Bob Madeline were already there. Uh so you know,
they did the same.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So the concept of the trio that that they was
the basis fordicula.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Okay, so in a way, I mean, he became a
character in a TV show. Technically he is legend.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
But I finally, I finally got a chance. In this
last play that I'm doing, it just wrote to make
my mother a character.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yes, that's kind of hilarious. Yes, I got to play
the mom. Yes, the mother where no matter what you
call her with it's going to be a problem, no
matter what you call it.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Well, you played my grandmother.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Oh that's why I played Grandma, the mother character she
was right, So yeah, yeah, yeah, but we got got
to get the mom in there. And that that's the
other thing too, And reading about it, they're they're in
their new home and they've just had a baby, and
then oh, you don't have a job anymore, and he
has to figure out now how he's going to pay
the rent. And he's not in the car with the
typewriter anymore. He now has a wife and a kid
and has to scramble, and yet again gets lucky.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, he gets a phone call out of it, out
of the blue from CBS saying, you know, we've got
this show for Lucille Paul and we need a writer.
Would you like to write one for us? But that
was the start of his life. I know, he was
working on the Freda Steers radio show and then in
(36:19):
nineteen thirty six it was the first job he got
and then that went off the air, and then he
worked for a variety show that replaced it from the
same sponsor. Back in the thirties, shows were done produced
by the advertising agencies. The networks were just broadcasting facilities.
(36:41):
They really had not much to do with production of
a show. They didn't Their attitude was, yes, you can
use our facilities, but don't make us talk to the actors.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Don't make it well. And that's why we had so
many shows. I remember early in television. In fact, my
father then perform My parents actors did things. There was
the Alcoa Aluminum Hour, the Craft Hour. It was all
these company selling things and and even yeah shows going
(37:13):
into the more modern era, well into the sixties. It
was so and so present. I remember even as a
child ge Lightbulbs presents Rudolph the Redness, Right, It's just
everything was a People complained about product placement. Now you kidding.
The whole show was about selling the tires of the
aluminum foil or what have you.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Well, that's why, Lucy, that's why they smoke so much cigarettes.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
The back of it. They presented the whole show. The Flintstones.
I mean, people have a fit now, younger people when
they see the ads because they wasn't The Flintstones wasn't
for children people with it was a cartoon. It was
not for children. And indeed the Flintstones was sponsored by
tobacco company. And Fred and Varney are going, it's so
smooth and lighting up and this sends young people nowadays
into absolutely seizures that f and Barner smoke it away.
(38:02):
But this is how it was. It was and the
Freda Stair I love we talked about in the show
Fred Astaire. He did a show about dancing and tap
danced on the radio. Yes, he danced on the radio
radio and got away with this and no, but did
people not question the insanity that we are listening to
(38:23):
this person dance?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, the one saving grace was that he usually sing
and dance and thank you. And people don't know this,
but I think Fred Astaire probably introduced more hit songs
than anybody else in the thirties and for he just
you know, all the Gershwin stuff that he did, you know,
(38:48):
being hits, and it was introduced by Fred Astaire, and
in fact might one of the stories in the book
that I like. I don't know how many people still remember.
There was a song called so Rare Mary. It was
a Jimmy Dorsey hit, but it started it was originally
hit in the in the in the thirties. It was
a big hit that anyway, it was. It's a standard
(39:14):
of from American songbook. And but it was written by
a friend of my dad's in San Francisco who was
trying to make it as a as a songwriter. And
he heard that you found out Dad's working on the
Freda Stairshaw. My god, if Freda Stair sang our song,
that would make our career and Johnny Green, who who
(39:38):
is he did? He got oscars for all sorts of
things as a musical director, and he wrote Night and Day,
I think uh.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And he.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Dad showed Johnny Green their friend's song and he's said, oh,
this isn't bad to a surprise.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
And and he said okay. And then they said we'll
do it next week. So they get to do it
and Fredis starts to sing it, and he there's a
countermelody in the song that is played by the trumpet,
and the trumpeter stands up opposite fred and starts to
(40:24):
play the counter melody. And it's really hard to sing
against that countermelody. And the whole thing breaks down and
we'll have to get another song. And and and my
dad's friend had and his partner had hawked everything. They
had to send telegrams to every music publisher. You know,
(40:45):
Fredis stare is going to sing our song on this
Tuesday night. So Dad he said no. He jumps up
on the stage he says no, and everybody's staring at him,
and he said, there must be some some way we
can solve this, but he can't think of anything to do.
But suddenly he hears himself talking. He didn't know where
(41:06):
it came from. He just said, what what if can't
we isolate the the trumpet player in a booth and
put a mic on him and Fred won't hear him
at all, but you know, it'll just broadcast and everybody
hear it together. And they said, oh, we can try that,
and they tried it and it worked beautifully, and it
was snapped up the next day and became a huge hit.
(41:31):
Then thirty six, and then again in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Two for so again the luck going the other way here,
for father had not been there, this song wouldn't have
made the air. But it's also like, okay, so he's
writing comedy and he's also doing engineering and musical directions.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well he was an inventor. Yeah, he had eighteen patents.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
D eighteen patents on.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
What only made money off of one of them?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
What did invent?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
What? He invented the in the lens teleprompter, which they
still I mean that little you see when the president
or any politicians give a speech and you see a
little piece of glass that's at an angle.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Any reasons, read a few myself. The number of news
programs on and they turn and that there it is.
It's it's the ye.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
My dad invented that in nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
That's your dad. Yeah, I've been reading those things for
years and sitting in on news programs. So the newscasters
stared at that screen and said it now Alison Aringham
from Yet.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
The first people to ever use the in the lens
teleprompter on TV were Lucy and Desire doing in Philip
Morris commercial.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Again't so he invented the teleprompter. I'm like that. That's
what were some of his other patents that we don't
know about. It's not a hit.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Nothing that ball casters for furniture and all sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
He's like, weird things you don't even think about.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, he had a thing for blind people to know
when the when they're pouring money of water into a
running hot hot water into a coffee cup, when it's
when it's high enough that they should stop pouring.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So he think this is the kind of stuff he
thought about all day.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, when he was when he was like seven, I
think he hooked up something so that that he could
not without leaving his bed, he could get the record player.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
To try to create the remote control, move it so
it would start over again. He's trying to create a
remote control for the stereo.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
We had. I have it right here. That a nine
fifty three Fleetwood TV twenty one inch and it had
a remote control. And it's a it's a piece of
furniture and it was an end table for our sofa.
It's got a cable. It's you know, like this stick.
(43:59):
It ran around, you know, the floorboards, but you could
sit there at the couch and change the channels. And
that was a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah. Yeah, no, the inventions, that's absolutely crazy. I didn't
realize that now having written this, having written this book,
or we'll put it together with his memoir and all
the research you did and everything. What did you think
of the films that have been made about Lucy and
I Love Lucy? Any accuracy do you think they were
on it? Not on it?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
No, not very accurate. I mean that's one of the
reasons I wrote the book, and particularly the reason they
wrote the play, because you know, every few every decade
or so, they do another they make another attempt, and
they're all so grim.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
That's what I heard from everyone who worked with you.
They all said about the movie a nice movie. But no,
that's not what she was like her, that what they
were like her. That's not what happened.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yeah, if everybody's other's throats, you can't make a good
comedy show. I mean. The thing that struck me most
about the Aaron Sarkins, besides the inanthuracy about all the
personalities and their relationships, is none of these people seem
to have various sense of humor.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
And I have noticed this that for some reason, comedy
in the making of comedy is really hard to portray
in a film. I don't know why it should be,
because there are films that are funny, and they have
factors who are hilarious and writers are hilarious. Whenever they
do a film about stand up I think maybe like
Lenny was like good. I've seen a few, but almost
(45:37):
all the time, and drives me crazy as a stand up.
When I see a film about stand up comedy about
a stand up comedian, the stand up comedian is never funny.
It's always a train wreck. There's always something horribly missing,
and I watch it and I go, Okay, this is
about their life and the other scenes with the rest
of their life and the romantic pursuers. Okay, that's all
very good. But whenever it gets to the part where
(45:58):
they're supposed to be funny, when it's a show about
the person is supposed to be hilarious, instead there's it
says it's somehow all collapses. And I don't understand why
people making a movie can't seem to write a stand
up act or portray comedians, because it happens a lot.
It happens a lot where the part where's supposed to
be funny is like the least funny part of the movie.
And and that seems to be what happened again again here.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Comedy dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Comic dying is easy comedy.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
So there's a movie called My Favorite Year, which had
been the atmosphere was right on that one. It was
it looked like a lot of fun and and but
but I I I wanted to write something that showed
that they were having a ball doing this. Everybody, nobody
(46:45):
could wait to get to the typewriter or the set.
Everybody just loved it.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
And they different even shows that are hard to do,
even shows where there are performers and people in production
who don't like each other, or have creative differences in fight.
Generally they're still having a good enough time that otherwise
they quit, they go get another job. The fact that
they're staying is you'll see shows even when years later
(47:10):
people say, oh, yes, well I could never stand so
and so, and we always had it out. But generally
they had a good time eighty percent of the time
or better, they had a really good time making the
show that they could stand being there, even if they
did have somebody they didn't like, right, and.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
They were working six days a week. When they started,
they would work Mondays or Friday, and then rehears and
Saturday where they would film the show. And then my
dad changed that because he decided people needed to have
a home life. That was an interesting thing. You know
what was the show Everybody Loves Raymond?
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
They The thing about that show that was so brilliant
was they the writers went all went home at six o'clock.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Now I see, now you're talking Michael Land and little
house stuff. They had a because he'd s fived Bonanza,
he knew he knew how to do things quickly, and
he had the same crew from Bonanza. So they were
like a well oiled machine. They could do stuff very fast.
He said, we need to go home.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Say summer hiatus was short, right, But they went home
every night because he realized I got this, this writer's
room full of people, and if they don't have a
home life, I got no horse for stories.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Yeah, what are they gonna write about?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Michael, he'd gone through Banana, said, look, I know how
this can be done. But we're all older now, now
we've all gotten married and had kids. This whole gang
him the cur He said, we're all have families. What
if we just start we did all we start insanely
early in the morning. He said, what if we say
so really on the morning, and then we all get
home reasonably for dinner the majority of the time. And
we did. He said, look, the show has to be
more than half the cast as kids got a knock
(48:48):
off after nine hours. Anyway, why don't we schedule this
so we all get out of here so that majority
of the time we can be seen at our homes
in the evening eating dinner. And they didn't, and they
talked about it. Everybody went home for dinner from a
little house. You didn't stay there all night. No, it
just didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I went to a seminar that they gave it the
Writer's Guilt for the Everybody Loves Raymond Staff and they
actually explained all this and all that stuff came from
from real life. I remember. And when they started the thing,
it was the day Arthur Miller died, and and side
Jacobs introduced the seminar and he said, you may have
(49:27):
heard Arthur Miller just died. He says, I guess we
all now we all move up one.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
All right, I cannot believe I'm running up time. People
have to get your book to have to Are you
producing another show anywhere, perferably that I can be in?
Are you producing another event?
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Not? No, I'm going to work on getting that the
play that the prequel to the Isle of Lucy if
anything happened on the way to the sitcom prequel?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Oh no, that's what we were just you were, I
know that was that's that's yeah, the prequel and that
goes pretty far back. So are we trying to get
that up.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
I'm going to get that if I can produce next
year sometimes, but right now you can get is Love Lucy?
If anything happened on the way of the sitcom? On
Audible or Amazon, uh and and and the audiobook which
you are in as maybe Yeah is available on Amazon
uh and uh. On the side, I write, I write lyrics,
(50:32):
so and I've got a recording session from your first
album in October.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Really you're recording your first album? Wait are you singing?
Speaker 2 (50:38):
No? Recording it? But I part I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Nice? Okay? Well, who's doing it?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Uh? One of the best uh jazz uh saxophonist in
the world, Harry Allen wow uh and and a fantastic
piano piano player named Rossano Sportillo. Two vocalists are going
to be Stephanie Occasion and Hillary Gardner, and they're doing
(51:07):
It's gonna be in New Jersey in October, and I'm
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Okay, Well, I hope I hope that when they go
to play it on the radio, someone like your dad
hasn't doesn't have to step in and like move the
trumpet player to a book and it gets on, Where
can people find the book? Where can people find you?
Where can we read more about and hear more about
all the things that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I have a website lucynet dot com, lucnet dot com, Kevin,
It's easy to remember, or you can look me up
on Amazon, all right, so that that's the best place
to find me. I'm also Facebook a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
He is on Facebook a lot. And if you go
on Amazon, remember to chape in Greg Oppenheimer, not just
top Onheimer, or you'll get all the stuff about the
bomb and you want the Lucy Oppenheimer, not the large
atomic bomb up on Heeimer. To make sure to Greg
Gigi's oppen iram, well, thank you for coming on my show.
A font of history and knowledge, A font.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Well, it's been a pleasure. My dad. Once they pulled
the wrong when J. Robert Oppenheimer was declared a security risk,
which people Oppenheimer know about. H there was a headline
news in the paper and they pulled the wrong photo
and they pulled my photo and it is Oppenheimer read
or whatever, and they had the picture of my dad
(52:34):
and oh my god. They apologized and offered to you know,
they fixed it in the late edition, but they offered
to printed retraction and he said no, it's okay. A
less publosition for me the better. And he said he
figured out how many people are going to believe that
the same person invented the atomic bomb? And Lucy Ricardo.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yeah, I would hope I would help people look think
at that, but nowadays, you know, you don't know nowadays
people so well, I'm gonna have to have you on again.
This is good. Keep me posted and I'm always happy
to come and and be Gracie or or or baby
Snooks or whoever else you need me to be at
a moment's notice. And uh, thank you for coming on.
And yes, this is the Alice at Argham Show and
(53:16):
I'm Alison
How from.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Them love us.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome. Yes, it is the Alison Aringham Show and I'm
Alison Arningram. Some of you may remember me as evil
Nellie Olsen, but tonight, thankfully, I am Alison Aringram and
it's the Alison Argham Show. And here on The Alison
Argham Show, we talk about things that make you feel good,
the movies and the TV shows that made us feel
good and the people who made them, and people who
(00:38):
are doing things now to make the world a better
and more interesting place. And oh I have one with
a boy? Do I have someone who's is filling all
of those categories? And also, you know, I love it
when I get to interview people or my friends so
I've worked with, I get to know so yay, yay,
Tonight tonight, I have this amazing man and usually he's
build us. It's son of you. No, it's like What's sudden,
(00:59):
the Frankstein son of it, Greg Oppenheimer's son of I
Love Lucy creator producer, headwriter Jess Oppenheimer. But Greg Gofmner
in his own right is a producer and has got
numerous plays and radio programs created. And I know him
well from our work at various spurred back and crazy
recreation of old radio shows. You've heard about that where
(01:20):
I do these recreations of old time radio shows. I
got dragged into and it's fabulous. I get to be
Gracie Allen and crazy things. Well, this is the man
where that's happening a lot with it. He's directed me
many many times. This man's brilliant his own right, and
an author and and yes, his dad get created I
Love Lucy kind of a small claim to fame, ladies
and gentlemen. Greg Oppenheimer, son of was a see you see.
(01:53):
You know, we were just talking about trying to do
shows with like new studio audience and this brilliant piece
that that I, you know, helped I participated in recently
and saying yeah, so yeah we did. The whole thing
was great with the BBC, but they chose not to
have a studio audience or a laugh track.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves. But the play
that I wrote in twenty seventeen based on my dad's memoir.
The book was called Laughs, Luck and Lucy, and I
wrote a play called I Love Lucy. If funny thing
happened on the way to the sitcom because the story
(02:30):
of how the show came to be was really sounded
like an eye lucy episode.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh it does, it absolutely is, but yeah, exactly the
idea of that kind of thing being done with complete
silence and no applause or laugh track. It's even even
my show has a freaking applause track, So we try.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
To that became a gripping drama, gripping.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Terrifying drama. I got to meet you. I think really
it was because of the Spurred Vac stuff. And I
tried to even explain what spurredvac is to people, and
I don't even know if I can society.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
To encourage, preserve and encourage radio drama, variety and comedy.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
That's right, and it's absolutely bonkers. I got a call
a few years ago, you want to come to this thing.
We're recreating old time radio shows with you know, uh,
you know, George Burns and Gracie Allen Fiber McGee and
Molly you name all these shows. And we've got all
these actors people like Well from fire Sewn Theater, Phil
(03:33):
Proctor and all these amazing people. And I was like, yeah,
I'll be right over you kidn't and and it's like,
do you want to be Gracy Allen? This one sketch?
I thought, oh, God, love Gracy. Can I do Gracy Allen?
And then I sat up half the night listening to
Gracy Allen went oh, okay, she drops that letter there
and she's sort of flat. And I did it, and
everybody just had a fit and said, I apparently do
(03:55):
a very good Gracy Allen. And now I've been gray
seeing it up all over the place with you guys.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, including when I did the audiobook of my of
my dad's memoir. You played Bracy Allen on that.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah. Now, this is fascinating because not a lot of
people get their their parents memoir published. But your father
is incredibly famous. I mean, it's it's so strange to
have your resume be who are you? Well, I am
the son of But I mean it is absolutely amazing.
Did you just stop it. I have so many friends
who are just absolutely die hard, lifelong I Love Lucy fans.
(04:30):
They are obsessed with I Love Lucy. They could not
live without I love Lucy Rewrens, I love Oh. They
started showing I Love Lucy reruns on the on Delta
on when you get the screen I was like, yay,
and I found myself watching and I love Lucy Rerent.
It was the one the saxophone. She wanted to go
with the band and play the saxophone, which she cannot
actually do, and then pretended to have a boyfriend and
(04:53):
it was insane. And I have friends who's obsessed with Lucy.
So the realization that is your add there was him.
He was the impetus. He was there writing this episode,
creating this thing when it wasn't even it wasn't on
TV yet, it was on the radio and they were
trying to create a show for Lucille Ball but it
was nothing worked, nothing work, And your dad was the
(05:14):
person who said, I think they're going about this wrong here,
let's try this.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, And it all sort of clicks all of a
sudden when when the kind of writing that he did
was the kind of writing that comedy that that Lucy
had had the easiest time with. And he'd worked for
everybody in Hollywood and radio, Jack Benny, fred Astaire, George Burns,
Fred Allen, all the comedy greats, Fanny.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Bryce who I also did.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
The book too, And and he happened to get thrown
together with Lucille Ball and it just worked and she
thought the world.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Of him and her and and you as a child
got to meet all of the most amazing people because
of this.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I should have started an autograph book.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
But don't you feel silly? Yeous? Lad you go? Oh, yeah,
I met so so while why do I not have
all of these people's autographs? Why do I not have
more photos?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Why do I?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
But yeah, you met everybody. But it's amazing. So you
found you found your dad's memoir. He had not published
this or attempted to publish this while he was.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
A lot right well, we were trying to get him
to write his memoir and finally he started it and
he showed it to me, the first eighty pages of
or something, and gave it to me the edit. So,
and I was a practicing lawyer at the time. You
give a lawyer something to edit, you give a lot
of markups, back, a lot of changes. And I edited it.
(06:50):
But then he I think he took my edits and
incorporated them. But then he never worked on it again.
He loved calf like flaying golf, and we just couldn't
get him to go back to it. So after he
passed away, and I found the manuscript again, and it
was just so funny that I said, I'm going to
finish this. And I spent years looking for collecting every
(07:15):
interview he ever did. I didn't quite have it. And
then finally, after a couple of years, I happened to
come across some real to real tapes as somebody had
interviewed him and from UCLA interview him in nineteen sixty
one about his life, about his whole life, and it
was a three hour interview, and okay, now I've got
enough stuff to fill in the gaps that I was missing.
(07:37):
And I sat and I worked in earnest on it
and I published it a long time ago, now about
thirty years here.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
But creating and doing a memoir, writing and creating a
memoir and all the work to go is it's a
lot of work. So I can see where you might
have gotten a great start and then went the hell
of a lot of work doing this thing and just
like kind of bailed on the idea. But now you
didn't really go to show business. Initially, you were raised
absolutely in the heart of show business. It's Lucy and
all of these peoples. And then you're like, I'm going
(08:05):
to go to school and get a real job and
be a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I was prohibited when I graduated. I was one of
the last mid term classes in Los Angeles and we
graduated in January sixty nine, and my dad had just
started doing producing the Wi Reyntals show, and so I
went down and hung around the set, and the first
(08:31):
day it was one of the first shows that they
decided to videotape rehearsals videotape. At that time, it was
sort of primitive in terms of inexpensive videotape. And they
had Sony had a home video thing and my high
school used it to videotape the gym meets and I
(08:52):
was the manager of the gym team, so I knew
how to use this thing.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So that's right. It was sewing you at the first,
like people started doing home videos only everything up until then.
He had a super rate and had film when we
were kids. And then it finally said he had a video.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So they were going to do the rehearsals and the
guy they had some messenger or something, somebody in some union.
They were going to have him do it. He didn't
show up, and I said, I know how to use it,
and so I the first day and at the end
of the day, the production manager said, you want you
want a job? I said, you'll have to ask my dad,
(09:29):
because my dad. I asked my dad if I could
get a job at MGM, and he said, absolutely not.
He didn't believe in nepotism.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
At all, actually not. How old were you at this point,
eighteen eighteen years old to eighteen years old?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And but and my dad said okay, because he had
nothing to do with me getting a job offer. And
so I worked for a few months on the film
crew of the Jamie Reynold Show, taping rehearsals, and I
made once I couldn't keep my mouth shut smart as
eighteen year old, I gave I don't think it was Debbie,
(10:04):
but some I gave somebody it was Tom Bosley I gave.
I gave him a note and no, no, don't Debbie
Reynolds gave me the nickname Fingers, which is an interesting name.
Was to remind me that they hired me from my
fingers and not from my mouth.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Oh my god, I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And that's it, you know, most of it. Most of
doing a TV show is standing around waiting for them
to do the lighting or whatever. And so I was
standing around, but I was listening to, you know, show
his stories but being told by Tom Bosley or or
Al Molnarro. And at one point Alice says to me,
(10:52):
how old are you? Greg? I said eighteen? He says,
tell me something you get much at eighteen?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Okay, like now that would be human resources there.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And I I just loved him. And my dad said that, no,
absolutely not. You're going to go get a degree in something?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Did you do something? Doing some serious with your life.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Because he knew that. You know, his career, despite this
great talent, was based on luck.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well and it's true when we were doing the show
he wrote the memoir of the whole book in the
show and the wild stories about coming to Hollywood with
nothing and is this going to work and then being go, oh,
I'm unemployed again. Ah. So yeah, I imagine after going
through that he might have been a little skittish about
having to go into the business.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah. So I went and got a law degree. I
went to.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
No I did, now that I think about, say, so
we're talking nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy with Debbie Reynolds
and now my brain is going eek because you know,
my father thora Nkrum who worked He worked for Seymour,
Heller and Associates at that same time period, primarily for Liberacci.
But they finished Debbie Reynolds at the stake, they had
Debbie Reynolds, and I'm like, oh my god, did they
(12:07):
cross paths? Did see where my father go down to
the Debbie Reynolds at some point? I mean, it's the
absolutely zero degrees of separation when you get into Hollywood.
It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I loved working at MG and my dad's office. They
gave Dad Louis B. Mayer's office before they built the
Thalberg building and moved the executives in there. Their offices
are on the lot and it was this gigantic office
right at the front and it was looking the air head,
that office, and they gave that to Dad.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
And it was very impressive that beach Seed trying to
write things on a manual typewriter in his car, which
is the stories in this book. The stories in this book, laughs,
Luck and LUCYO. It came the great, the most popular
secome of all time, accurate title that the whole radio
play of the thing that we did and crazy and
(12:54):
Fanny Brice. It was go totally insane, the stories of
this young dog I trying could go make it in
Hollywood and going to you know, Hollywood, and let's go
to Hollywood and vine like that out of the movies.
And he luckily had a couple of friends there, but
they were hustling trying to find jobs and just more
acculously finding out they need someone over here while I
can get over there now, and can you write a
(13:16):
spec script? And then realizing that he didn't have any
house home to go to, I'll go home and write it,
except I'm not staying anywhere, And imagining someone hell laptop,
a manual typewriter in their car, banging something out to
take to a meeting. It's just like unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
He was writing a packer hour in a packer, in
a pack I.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Wrote a script for the packet. I literally in my packer,
just with the running jokes. He had that one sketch,
that one joke that never got used to keep using
the suspect and they go, that's great, we're not using that.
But it's like, I hope no one ever uses it,
because they need it for my next audition.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He was had a charmed path to success. He and
then the amazing thing is, oh he was pretty successful.
I mean, he made a good living as a comedy
writer in Hollywood. But and then, but then when Isla
Lucy happened, all of a sudden, you know, he said,
(14:21):
I've been doing the same thing for years, and all
of a sudden, everybody the world goes absolutely crazy. Uh,
you know. And it's not like he hadn't been working
for talented people before. I mean, her, Fanny Brice was
no slouch, right.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
He was with Fanny Brice for quite something. How long
was he wreading for Fanny Brice shit the huge radio show?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Six years?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah? Yeah, And then it was with Fanny brace was
a contractual thing. She wanted more money, so it was
just like, oh, you don't have a job anymore, which
is welcome Dollywood.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah. Actually, they because TV was coming in that they
cut all the radio budgets and they told Fanny you're
gonna have to take a salary.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Cut, and she said, yeah, no, and she walked.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
She was, you know, a pretty strong personality, she was.
She and Lucy both. But my mom said she'd call
it three in the morning if she thought of something.
She'd call it. My mom would say hello, you know,
barely awaken, and she'd just say, put jess on no
not sorry, bother I thing.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You know, Now, this was Fanny that pulled this stuff,
or Lucy as well. Fanny Danny, that's very Fanny. I
mean when you see all the movies and the stories
about Fanny Brice, it's like that just you know, this powerhouse.
But yeah, at that time, and for a woman at
that time, just be I'm doing my show and this
is how we're doing my show, and this is how
you're all going to be doing my show must have
(15:41):
been just startling and terrifying for someone.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
She was just such an amazing challenge. I mean, she's
been doing the Baby Snooks character since nineteen twelve. Dad
started wrighting doing in nine forty two. I think you
started working out and he well, he wasn't supposed to
be doing it because he was in the Coast Guard.
It was during World War two and you're not allowed
to moonlight.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
That was a section I liked very much explain this
to people. He'd got managed. You know, everyone it was
world War two. Everybody was you know, everybody's going in
what do you do. But it's like, okay, we'll do
the coast Guard. That's great, it can work. And you know,
I'll still be here. I'll be in an office doing things.
But you're you're in the military. You are not supposed
to be off doing other things, right, But your dad
had different ideas about that.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Well, he got assigned to a small desk in a
large room with hundreds of desks in and there was
a sailor at the next desk. He introduced himself, and
it was Ray Stark, who later became a big producer.
But and he asked him what he did. He says, well,
on the outside, I'm an agent. In here, you know,
I just do pr And he said, what do you
(16:51):
mean on the outside. I thought, we're not allowed to moonlight.
And he said, well, what they don't know won't hurt me.
And he said, well, I don't. I don't have an
agent at the moment. Due how would you like another client?
And he said, you sure. My mother in law needs
needs a writer. And he says, what is your mother
(17:12):
in law? Fanny Brice? And and so you know, he
happened to be assigned to the desk next to Fanny
Brice's son, in law who was an agent, and so
he became his agent, and my dad worked for Fanny
right for the next six years.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
So this would probably why when you talk about that
so much of his career was luck, because seriously, what
are the odds of going to the Coast Guard and
getting a desk job next to Fanny Bryce's son in law.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I mean it started from the moment he got
to Hollywood. He went to gets the needed a w
Rexall drug store and turned to his right, and the
guy on the next stool is one of the two
people that he knew in Hollywood except somebody who had
left San Francisco six months earlier that he'd known as
San Francisco an actor, and he gave him a tip
and said, hey, they need writers across the street. And
(18:03):
so he walked across the street and went upstairs with
this exploor and got a job. It was just amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Did he get caught? Did the Coast Guard have any
issues with the fact that he'd actually turned around on
his spare time become the head writer for Fanny Bryce.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
After about a year, they he got a wire from
the commandant of the Coast Guard. It said they knew
that he was moonlighting writing for the Baby Snook Show,
and I think because his.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Name was on it, Yeah, you kind of noticed after
a while.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, and they said, he said, I'm going to have
to dock your entire salary if this continues. Well, he
was getting seventy five dollars an hour from the Coast
Guard and more.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Than that from Fanny from paying more.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, he stopped. So he was a volunteer in the
Coast Guard.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
From then on, Like Doc My Bay getting Dwight, it's
just the whole book. It's hilarious. These these endless scenarios
are just these things. And with Lucy, I mean, now,
she had already been a huge star in movies and
she was so beautiful. And it's funny because people my
age we grew up with like, well, I love Lucy
and the Lucy Show, thought, oh, she's comedian, and for
(19:13):
people of my generation younger to realize, no, before that,
she was a movie star and she was the pretty girl.
She wasn't the goofy redhead. She even blonde in some
of these pictures, and she was this stunningly gorgeous. But
for her, she didn't want to do that because it
was a trap because it was boring because Okay, then
you played the girlfriend and and then what and she
(19:33):
wanted more.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
She was actually the star of a lot of movies,
but there were low budget movies. They were called b
movies and Wyna the Beast, So she wasn't a major
star because of that. She's starting a bunch of low
budget comedies and dramas and she did quite well, and
she was in some major movies too with some major stars,
(19:55):
like Stage Door with Catherine Hepburn and The Big Street
with Henry Fonda. Right, but she just couldn't catch a break.
I mean, they just thought of her as a pretty face,
and so she she thought maybe.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Radio will do it, and so they weren't using her
talent or her comedic abilities because oh she's pretty, and
it was a trap really and she saw and so
going right, But it was fascinating and it was talked
about in the show that we did that the show
that she had when your Dad showed up. It was
to be a comedy about this couple, but it was
(20:30):
kind of weird. They were this very wealthy couple and
no one, we would even nobody would try to do
a show like this. Now they're certain they're talking about
oh yes, and then the maid this, and you're kind
of yeah, I'm not sure people would have been that
thrilled to listen into this show, like the problems. These
people have more money than everybody in the audience. It's like, really, really,
they don't really stud up like they have problems. You know,
(20:53):
there's nothing there.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The vibe they were going forward was the Finnman Nick
and Nora Charles, you knowd banter between two rich people,
and it just didn't My dad didn't think it had
that much appeal. And so when they asked him to
write an episode for it, because the people who were
writing the show had been were were the writers for
Ozzie and Harriet in summer vacation, and so they were
(21:18):
writing this during the summer. They had to go back
to Ozzie and Harriet, so they were looking for someone
to write in the fall. And Dad listened to the
show and read the scripts and said, this isn't this
doesn't work, and so he changed He changed the character,
basically changed her into baby Snooks.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, yeah, he changed it so dramatically that it was
and it strict from what I read there, I said, yeah,
I don't see that that show as the way they
had it could have really worked because times were changing,
and I think people the atmosphere was starting to gradually
become more more egalitarian. People were more concerned with people
in the middle class and the working folk, and the
idea of listening to this terribly wealthy couple. I mean,
(21:56):
she literally had a woman she was paying to give
her a bath. That the sketch is about the maid bathing,
and I think the average person liferator, like, seriously, got
someone giving you a bath? Why am I listening to this?
But when then suddenly changed it and she became absolutely
bonkers and wants to be in show business and wants
to do the play and goes to these outlandish extremes
(22:17):
and is just far more hysterical and drastic about everything. Well,
suddenly it had a whole new life. It was she
She was a whole different personality, and yeah, it was
about eight million times funnier.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And the thing that struck me is when I discovered
the transcription of that show. I was listening to these
transcriptions of my favorite husband show, and I was listening
to the first few shows, and I wasn't to that one,
which was the first when my dad wrote and I realized,
oh my god, he just created Lucy Ricardo right here,
and this is.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
That was completely in the thing we did in the
sketch we did that first show, and the first one
where she's this paulsh lady talking about her maid, than
the next one she suddenly turns into Lucy. Suddenly she's
Lucy Lucy and you're just waiting for Daisy to show up.
It's like, wait, what is this is absolutely the I
Love Lucy show. Now she's completely bonkers and trying to
we weasel her way into show business behind her husband's back.
(23:09):
And it's all those premises and your description of how
she absolutely saw what had happened, whether anybody else saw
him in the audience loving she immediately went to your
father and said she knew that this had changed everything.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, And they hired him the next day to be
head writer, and then within a couple of days they
made him producer and director as well.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And then how did this transition to TV? Because now
we does radio? But he said, at this point TV's happening,
they're starting to cut the pay. Now, how do we
get this this? Did this get this show on GV?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Well? The thing that was interesting, and you never think
this about about Lucy was she she really didn't play
to an audience. And so she was reading the script
and she she was doing really good job reading the script,
but my dad couldn't get her to uh open up
and play in, dramatize and act things out as opposed
(24:08):
to just reading the words.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
On the pape, right, because it's a it's a totally
different medium having that, having done the spurback shows, it's
a totally different thing doing the read as opposed to
the acting, and trying to even incorporate those two. And well,
when we did it with the audience, we're like, okay,
we're also going to act a little more out. But
it's your good. Yeah, how do you transition that? How
do you trans that an actor? And is the writing different?
(24:30):
And when they said okay, great, now it's going to
TV and we're keeping use the word, what the hell
does he do?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So the reason he went to TV is because my
dad would say, you know, acted out, loosen up a
little bit, you know, don't keep your eyes glued to
the page, you know, play it to the audience. And
and and she said, what difference does it make? Nobody.
It was for radio. Nobody at home is going to
be able to tell. And my dad said, the people
in the in this, in the studio audience are going
(24:57):
to be able to tell, and the people at home
will feel that they're diference.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
He'll feel the difference. So feel the difference because the
studio audience will know.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yes, she didn't believe him, and so he gave her tickets.
He hands her a couple of tickets to Jack Benny
and oh my god, what are these four? And he says,
I want you to go to school, and.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Well, Jack Benny would take you to school. That is
going to school watchingd Jack Benny perform.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Benny got more laughs between the punchlines than as a
result of them, because he would stare at the audience
and he would just turn move his.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Three fingers.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah yeah, And the longer he looked at him at
more they laughed. And she came back to the next
rehearsal and she said, oh my gosh, yess, I didn't realize.
And from then on he said it was sometimes he
thought they'd have to use a butterfly net to get
her back to the.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Right, because clearly what she was free there was no
stopping her. That she was absolutely all I mean, guy said,
literally just watching her the other day. Yeah, clearly she
was not have to nail her feet to the floor
to keep her on the stage.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
So as soon as that happened, all of a sudden,
my favorite husband became the hottest ticket in Hollywood to
get into the studio audience and and people kept the
reviews started saying, you know, it's a shame, shame that
the audienses at home can't see Lucy's antics.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
If only this were on TV.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So they said, we want to move it to TV,
and she said, fine, but my husband's got a co
star with me, and they said, we don't think so much.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
They must have had a fit because when they think
about the time period, a there's this woman is making demand.
She's a woman at this time, she's asking for her
husband to be in the show. And her husband is
not your classic wealthy American dude who was playing the
husband before. He's the Cuban And badly, it's like, wait,
what it did, Desier. They had to have just said,
(27:00):
I'm sorry, your husband who is whom? What?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah? No, they said, they thought she should have all
nobody would believe her she should with this one likes
her husband and she said, what are you talking about?
He is my husband.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, it really happened.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
What and they said that you need you need an
all American guy to be your husband.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Right, I mean technically and this time this is technically
a mixed race couple. Exactly in what year nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Nineteen fifty one was nineteen fifty one?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
It started, fact, they have just just said, we can't
do this where we're we're absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot.
There's no way this show is ever going to make
the air.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
So they Desie was doing touring with his band, and
he was a successful band leader and singer, and he said,
you know, why don't you come with me when we
tour and we'll do you know, an act, a vaudivill act.
(28:05):
Vaudeville is still around, and so they would there would
be you know, movie theaters that it would they have
a double bill. But before the double bill, you'd you'd
have a vaudeville act. And then Lucian Desi toured Chicago,
New York, et cetera. And the legend is uh and
(28:27):
some of the movies and people say, well that turned
them around. The CBS said, oh, yes, well.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
We see now that wait, because you say okay, they
started doing it on stage, they saw it. Discord.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
No, that didn't change. Uh. You know, they didn't care
whether Desi was good with her. They just they didn't
think he was the right type of person for for her.
Uh to use a phrase, uh. And so but what
turned him around was, uh, they they got an offer
(28:58):
from NBC, and they didn't want to lose Lucy. They
knew that Lucy was a big talent and one of
the biggest stars on her radio network, and so they
had no choice but to accept Desie, and so they
to keep her happy, to keep him happy, they they
(29:18):
put him. They gave him a job to keep her
in town. Which one of the reasons she wanted to
do a show with him was because she didn't like
him being on tour all the time with the band.
You don't wanted him in Hollywood where she could keep
an eye on him. And so they offered Desie a
job on a radio show. They had a radio show
called Earn Your Vacation.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And they turned your Vacation.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Earn Your Vacation. It was a quiz show, a game
show and those were real big at the time, and
they had the idea of putting him in as a host.
Harry Ackerman had the idea of putting him in. He
was a CBS executive and he said to William Paley,
head of the CBS, and we'll put Desi in his host.
And they said, is a game shows. No, we will
(30:03):
change the name to earn your Caribbean trip and with
the whole yes, and and all the all the prizes
will be trips to the Caribbean, and uh, and this
we have. Don't we have a host that's going on
a couple of weeks. Don't we have a having your
(30:23):
hired a host for that? And he says, yeah, it
was just but it's just a staff announcer at CBS
Radio here in l A. He said, okay, well we can,
we can. You know, what's he going to do? Boycott
the CBS radio airword and barely said he can do
that if if he wants, if it will save Lucy.
(30:46):
If I let's just keep Lucy, I don't care if you.
Then some crime announcer goes to the NBC. What's his
name is, Johnny Carson?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh my god. So it's like, no, we have fire
Johnny Carson because he's just some dude to bring a
Desi on it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Oh dear, so that Desi was hosting your Tropical Trip.
And then they got the.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Word that the pilot sold, and so Johnny got another
job by here he did.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Okay, after that, I actually stayed with CBS for well,
he didn't.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That's hysterically, I didn't. I didn't know Johnny Carster was
that that was? That's well, so yeah, it just and
then your your father continued to write the show for
for how long?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Five years?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Five years?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Last five of the six years he had a five
contract in. After five years, he was of the opinion
that they should end the show well really on a
high note, you know, before they run out of ideas
but to do and he starts getting stale before it
jumps the shark as.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
A later term lad true True, and.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Lucy and Dosi wanted to do it too, but CBS
didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Uh it was it was going too well, don't kill
the the fifth season.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Uh it was when they return home from Europe, when
they take the plane home from Europe and she sneaks
the cheese onto the plane and pretending it's a baby,
and that show really feels like a series finale because
that's what they meant. But then then so and meanwhile
he had been courted by Pat Weaver, who was president
(32:23):
of NBC, who he'd worked with in radio, and finally
he went to NBC at the end of five years
and they decided, Okay, well we need to do something different.
So what's age little Ricky by two and a half years,
and that'll give us some other plot ideas, and then
we'll move them to the country in Connecticut in a
(32:45):
country house out of New York.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I always thought that was weird. The whole thing when
they moved to the house in Connecticut's like, what are
we doing now? What is happening?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Ideas for plot ideas? Because my dad has said to him,
you know, what are we going to We already took
them to Holly, We already took him to Europe. Where
are they going to go next?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
The Moon, which would have been at that time interesting,
But yeah, the country I never bought, like, why would
they live in that house? They would live in that house?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, they Well, a lot of a lot of America
was moving to the suburbs at the.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Time, so it was a theme there. But yeah, it
that was a pretty big house. It was, and they
had many famous people visit them and perform in the
living room. But yeah, I did feel yeah that last season,
I was kind of like, all right, this is not
one of these things, not like the other.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
And my dad so when he announced, he announced a
year ahead of time that he was leaving and so
and then he hired Bob Schuler and Bob Weiskopf to
add to the writing staff because up to then they
had just been him and Bob Carroll and Madeline Pew
writing it. And by the way, the setup of my
dad is head writer uh and Bob and Madeline the
(33:57):
man woman team writing team with him. That was the
basis for the Dick Van Dyke show. Son Carl Reiner
told me that he based that Rob and but Wow
on my dad and Bob Madel not that not that
he based Rob on my dad. Rob was based on
Carl okay was writing for your show of shows for
(34:21):
Sid Caesar. But but just his idea of having UH
and actually they did a thing. They had the history
of the on Tick Van Dyke, he had the history
of when Bob was Rob was hired and but in
Sally were already writers on this show. And that was
true my favorite husband too, because during the time that
the the people from Bozzie and Harriett were writing Lucy's
(34:45):
radio show, Bob and Madeline were writing some of these
scripts too, and so they brought Dad in as head writer,
and Bob Madeline were already there. Uh so you know,
they did the same.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So the concept of the trio that that they was
the basis fordicula.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Okay, so in a way, I mean, he became a
character in a TV show. Technically he is legend.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
But I finally, I finally got a chance. In this
last play that I'm doing, it just wrote to make
my mother a character.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yes, that's kind of hilarious. Yes, I got to play
the mom. Yes, the mother where no matter what you
call her with it's going to be a problem, no
matter what you call it.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Well, you played my grandmother.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Oh that's why I played Grandma, the mother character she
was right, So yeah, yeah, yeah, but we got got
to get the mom in there. And that that's the
other thing too, And reading about it, they're they're in
their new home and they've just had a baby, and
then oh, you don't have a job anymore, and he
has to figure out now how he's going to pay
the rent. And he's not in the car with the
typewriter anymore. He now has a wife and a kid
and has to scramble, and yet again gets lucky.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, he gets a phone call out of it, out
of the blue from CBS saying, you know, we've got
this show for Lucille Paul and we need a writer.
Would you like to write one for us? But that
was the start of his life. I know, he was
working on the Freda Steers radio show and then in
(36:19):
nineteen thirty six it was the first job he got
and then that went off the air, and then he
worked for a variety show that replaced it from the
same sponsor. Back in the thirties, shows were done produced
by the advertising agencies. The networks were just broadcasting facilities.
(36:41):
They really had not much to do with production of
a show. They didn't Their attitude was, yes, you can
use our facilities, but don't make us talk to the actors.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Don't make it well. And that's why we had so
many shows. I remember early in television. In fact, my
father then perform My parents actors did things. There was
the Alcoa Aluminum Hour, the Craft Hour. It was all
these company selling things and and even yeah shows going
(37:13):
into the more modern era, well into the sixties. It
was so and so present. I remember even as a
child ge Lightbulbs presents Rudolph the Redness, Right, It's just
everything was a People complained about product placement. Now you kidding.
The whole show was about selling the tires of the
aluminum foil or what have you.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Well, that's why, Lucy, that's why they smoke so much cigarettes.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
The back of it. They presented the whole show. The Flintstones.
I mean, people have a fit now, younger people when
they see the ads because they wasn't The Flintstones wasn't
for children people with it was a cartoon. It was
not for children. And indeed the Flintstones was sponsored by
tobacco company. And Fred and Varney are going, it's so
smooth and lighting up and this sends young people nowadays
into absolutely seizures that f and Barner smoke it away.
(38:02):
But this is how it was. It was and the
Freda Stair I love we talked about in the show
Fred Astaire. He did a show about dancing and tap
danced on the radio. Yes, he danced on the radio
radio and got away with this and no, but did
people not question the insanity that we are listening to
(38:23):
this person dance?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, the one saving grace was that he usually sing
and dance and thank you. And people don't know this,
but I think Fred Astaire probably introduced more hit songs
than anybody else in the thirties and for he just
you know, all the Gershwin stuff that he did, you know,
(38:48):
being hits, and it was introduced by Fred Astaire, and
in fact might one of the stories in the book
that I like. I don't know how many people still remember.
There was a song called so Rare Mary. It was
a Jimmy Dorsey hit, but it started it was originally
hit in the in the in the thirties. It was
a big hit that anyway, it was. It's a standard
(39:14):
of from American songbook. And but it was written by
a friend of my dad's in San Francisco who was
trying to make it as a as a songwriter. And
he heard that you found out Dad's working on the
Freda Stairshaw. My god, if Freda Stair sang our song,
that would make our career and Johnny Green, who who
(39:38):
is he did? He got oscars for all sorts of
things as a musical director, and he wrote Night and Day,
I think uh.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And he.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Dad showed Johnny Green their friend's song and he's said, oh,
this isn't bad to a surprise.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
And and he said okay. And then they said we'll
do it next week. So they get to do it
and Fredis starts to sing it, and he there's a
countermelody in the song that is played by the trumpet,
and the trumpeter stands up opposite fred and starts to
(40:24):
play the counter melody. And it's really hard to sing
against that countermelody. And the whole thing breaks down and
we'll have to get another song. And and and my
dad's friend had and his partner had hawked everything. They
had to send telegrams to every music publisher. You know,
(40:45):
Fredis stare is going to sing our song on this
Tuesday night. So Dad he said no. He jumps up
on the stage he says no, and everybody's staring at him,
and he said, there must be some some way we
can solve this, but he can't think of anything to do.
But suddenly he hears himself talking. He didn't know where
(41:06):
it came from. He just said, what what if can't
we isolate the the trumpet player in a booth and
put a mic on him and Fred won't hear him
at all, but you know, it'll just broadcast and everybody
hear it together. And they said, oh, we can try that,
and they tried it and it worked beautifully, and it
was snapped up the next day and became a huge hit.
(41:31):
Then thirty six, and then again in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Two for so again the luck going the other way here,
for father had not been there, this song wouldn't have
made the air. But it's also like, okay, so he's
writing comedy and he's also doing engineering and musical directions.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well he was an inventor. Yeah, he had eighteen patents.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
D eighteen patents on.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
What only made money off of one of them?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
What did invent?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
What? He invented the in the lens teleprompter, which they
still I mean that little you see when the president
or any politicians give a speech and you see a
little piece of glass that's at an angle.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Any reasons, read a few myself. The number of news
programs on and they turn and that there it is.
It's it's the ye.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
My dad invented that in nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
That's your dad. Yeah, I've been reading those things for
years and sitting in on news programs. So the newscasters
stared at that screen and said it now Alison Aringham
from Yet.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
The first people to ever use the in the lens
teleprompter on TV were Lucy and Desire doing in Philip
Morris commercial.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Again't so he invented the teleprompter. I'm like that. That's
what were some of his other patents that we don't
know about. It's not a hit.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Nothing that ball casters for furniture and all sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
He's like, weird things you don't even think about.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, he had a thing for blind people to know
when the when they're pouring money of water into a
running hot hot water into a coffee cup, when it's
when it's high enough that they should stop pouring.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So he think this is the kind of stuff he
thought about all day.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, when he was when he was like seven, I
think he hooked up something so that that he could
not without leaving his bed, he could get the record player.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
To try to create the remote control, move it so
it would start over again. He's trying to create a
remote control for the stereo.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
We had. I have it right here. That a nine
fifty three Fleetwood TV twenty one inch and it had
a remote control. And it's a it's a piece of
furniture and it was an end table for our sofa.
It's got a cable. It's you know, like this stick.
(43:59):
It ran around, you know, the floorboards, but you could
sit there at the couch and change the channels. And
that was a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah. Yeah, no, the inventions, that's absolutely crazy. I didn't
realize that now having written this, having written this book,
or we'll put it together with his memoir and all
the research you did and everything. What did you think
of the films that have been made about Lucy and
I Love Lucy? Any accuracy do you think they were
on it? Not on it?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
No, not very accurate. I mean that's one of the
reasons I wrote the book, and particularly the reason they
wrote the play, because you know, every few every decade
or so, they do another they make another attempt, and
they're all so grim.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
That's what I heard from everyone who worked with you.
They all said about the movie a nice movie. But no,
that's not what she was like her, that what they
were like her. That's not what happened.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yeah, if everybody's other's throats, you can't make a good
comedy show. I mean. The thing that struck me most
about the Aaron Sarkins, besides the inanthuracy about all the
personalities and their relationships, is none of these people seem
to have various sense of humor.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
And I have noticed this that for some reason, comedy
in the making of comedy is really hard to portray
in a film. I don't know why it should be,
because there are films that are funny, and they have
factors who are hilarious and writers are hilarious. Whenever they
do a film about stand up I think maybe like
Lenny was like good. I've seen a few, but almost
(45:37):
all the time, and drives me crazy as a stand up.
When I see a film about stand up comedy about
a stand up comedian, the stand up comedian is never funny.
It's always a train wreck. There's always something horribly missing,
and I watch it and I go, Okay, this is
about their life and the other scenes with the rest
of their life and the romantic pursuers. Okay, that's all
very good. But whenever it gets to the part where
(45:58):
they're supposed to be funny, when it's a show about
the person is supposed to be hilarious, instead there's it
says it's somehow all collapses. And I don't understand why
people making a movie can't seem to write a stand
up act or portray comedians, because it happens a lot.
It happens a lot where the part where's supposed to
be funny is like the least funny part of the movie.
And and that seems to be what happened again again here.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Comedy dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Comic dying is easy comedy.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
So there's a movie called My Favorite Year, which had
been the atmosphere was right on that one. It was
it looked like a lot of fun and and but
but I I I wanted to write something that showed
that they were having a ball doing this. Everybody, nobody
(46:45):
could wait to get to the typewriter or the set.
Everybody just loved it.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
And they different even shows that are hard to do,
even shows where there are performers and people in production
who don't like each other, or have creative differences in fight.
Generally they're still having a good enough time that otherwise
they quit, they go get another job. The fact that
they're staying is you'll see shows even when years later
(47:10):
people say, oh, yes, well I could never stand so
and so, and we always had it out. But generally
they had a good time eighty percent of the time
or better, they had a really good time making the
show that they could stand being there, even if they
did have somebody they didn't like, right, and.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
They were working six days a week. When they started,
they would work Mondays or Friday, and then rehears and
Saturday where they would film the show. And then my
dad changed that because he decided people needed to have
a home life. That was an interesting thing. You know
what was the show Everybody Loves Raymond?
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
They The thing about that show that was so brilliant
was they the writers went all went home at six o'clock.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Now I see, now you're talking Michael Land and little
house stuff. They had a because he'd s fived Bonanza,
he knew he knew how to do things quickly, and
he had the same crew from Bonanza. So they were
like a well oiled machine. They could do stuff very fast.
He said, we need to go home.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Say summer hiatus was short, right, But they went home
every night because he realized I got this, this writer's
room full of people, and if they don't have a
home life, I got no horse for stories.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Yeah, what are they gonna write about?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Michael, he'd gone through Banana, said, look, I know how
this can be done. But we're all older now, now
we've all gotten married and had kids. This whole gang
him the cur He said, we're all have families. What
if we just start we did all we start insanely
early in the morning. He said, what if we say
so really on the morning, and then we all get
home reasonably for dinner the majority of the time. And
we did. He said, look, the show has to be
more than half the cast as kids got a knock
(48:48):
off after nine hours. Anyway, why don't we schedule this
so we all get out of here so that majority
of the time we can be seen at our homes
in the evening eating dinner. And they didn't, and they
talked about it. Everybody went home for dinner from a
little house. You didn't stay there all night. No, it
just didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I went to a seminar that they gave it the
Writer's Guilt for the Everybody Loves Raymond Staff and they
actually explained all this and all that stuff came from
from real life. I remember. And when they started the thing,
it was the day Arthur Miller died, and and side
Jacobs introduced the seminar and he said, you may have
(49:27):
heard Arthur Miller just died. He says, I guess we
all now we all move up one.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
All right, I cannot believe I'm running up time. People
have to get your book to have to Are you
producing another show anywhere, perferably that I can be in?
Are you producing another event?
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Not? No, I'm going to work on getting that the
play that the prequel to the Isle of Lucy if
anything happened on the way to the sitcom prequel?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Oh no, that's what we were just you were, I
know that was that's that's yeah, the prequel and that
goes pretty far back. So are we trying to get
that up.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
I'm going to get that if I can produce next
year sometimes, but right now you can get is Love Lucy?
If anything happened on the way of the sitcom? On
Audible or Amazon, uh and and and the audiobook which
you are in as maybe Yeah is available on Amazon
uh and uh. On the side, I write, I write lyrics,
(50:32):
so and I've got a recording session from your first
album in October.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Really you're recording your first album? Wait are you singing?
Speaker 2 (50:38):
No? Recording it? But I part I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Nice? Okay? Well, who's doing it?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Uh? One of the best uh jazz uh saxophonist in
the world, Harry Allen wow uh and and a fantastic
piano piano player named Rossano Sportillo. Two vocalists are going
to be Stephanie Occasion and Hillary Gardner, and they're doing
(51:07):
It's gonna be in New Jersey in October, and I'm
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Okay, Well, I hope I hope that when they go
to play it on the radio, someone like your dad
hasn't doesn't have to step in and like move the
trumpet player to a book and it gets on, Where
can people find the book? Where can people find you?
Where can we read more about and hear more about
all the things that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I have a website lucynet dot com, lucnet dot com, Kevin,
It's easy to remember, or you can look me up
on Amazon, all right, so that that's the best place
to find me. I'm also Facebook a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
He is on Facebook a lot. And if you go
on Amazon, remember to chape in Greg Oppenheimer, not just
top Onheimer, or you'll get all the stuff about the
bomb and you want the Lucy Oppenheimer, not the large
atomic bomb up on Heeimer. To make sure to Greg
Gigi's oppen iram, well, thank you for coming on my show.
A font of history and knowledge, A font.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Well, it's been a pleasure. My dad. Once they pulled
the wrong when J. Robert Oppenheimer was declared a security risk,
which people Oppenheimer know about. H there was a headline
news in the paper and they pulled the wrong photo
and they pulled my photo and it is Oppenheimer read
or whatever, and they had the picture of my dad
(52:34):
and oh my god. They apologized and offered to you know,
they fixed it in the late edition, but they offered
to printed retraction and he said no, it's okay. A
less publosition for me the better. And he said he
figured out how many people are going to believe that
the same person invented the atomic bomb? And Lucy Ricardo.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yeah, I would hope I would help people look think
at that, but nowadays, you know, you don't know nowadays
people so well, I'm gonna have to have you on again.
This is good. Keep me posted and I'm always happy
to come and and be Gracie or or or baby
Snooks or whoever else you need me to be at
a moment's notice. And uh, thank you for coming on.
And yes, this is the Alice at Argham Show and
(53:16):
I'm Alison
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com