From Out of the Past

It's all led this: Chapter 10, prepping the first ‘I Love Lucy’ episode.  And we begin with another perfect storm, this time of logistics.  Where will they shoot in L.A., and HOW with multi-cam on 35mm film, in front of a live audience?  Not to mention in front of the camera had its own issues.  Remember the Pilot didn’t have the Mertzes;  and now they needed to find them.  Rehearsals got under way in the same space construction crews were still building sets.  And Lucille herself?  Coddling her pregnancy (understandably;  after all, it was ten years in the making).  Then we’ll close-out the season, our story, on Saturday, September 8th, 1951;  the first official ‘I Love Lucy’ shoot day.  Would it be a hit?  Maybe.  The conservative estimates in their favor?  Rooting FOR them?  They had a fifty-fifty shot.  Please chime in here with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 9 sees Lucille and Desi get married.  Yep, again!  Lucille will re-sign with Columbia, reuniting her with dear friends Ed Sedgwick and Buster Keaton.  And she and Desi will both make more movies (this on top of Desi’s nightclub touring and serving as Bob Hope’s musical director).  Well, why not make a movie together?  If Hollywood wouldn’t bank on them, they’ll bank on themselves, and form their own company.  But what to name it?  Seems like using the same as their Chatsworth ranch oughta work!  But how to prove Lucille and Desi work as a showbiz team?  Why not go straight to audiences?  Live!  Which is just what they do.  And that’s when a lot happens at the same time.  CBS is interested in turning her hit radio show ‘My Favorite Husband’ into a TV show.  Which leads to making a pilot.  Which leads to Lucille and Desi having to decide if they’re willing to give up everything they have -- her film and radio careers, his radio and nightclub careers -- for the thing ALL the studios are adamantly against:  television.  And the icing on the gamble cake?  Lucille Ball was pregnant.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 8 is live and sees Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz get divorced (kinda).  While Desi’s still in the Army, Lucille makes ‘Easy to Wed,’ a hit, and ‘Two Smart People’ which, unknown at the time, will be her last at MGM.  Then Desi’s out of the Army to find slipping back into life at MGM isn’t as easy as he’d hoped.  Lucille finds success freelancing -- including beginning her run with Bob Hope and one back in live theatre -- while Desi finds success back on the road.  And then, in 1948, with Hollywood in a panic over the Supreme Court vertical integration decree and the onslaught of television, Lucille focuses on a medium for which she’d previously only guested but will now make her a bonafide star:  Radio.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 7 sees Lucille Ball arrive at MGM, 31 years old, acutely aware this is her last shot at stardom.  She’ll become the redhead we all think of including shining in Technicolor.  There’s ‘Du Barry Was a Lady’ which reintroduces her to Red Skelton and introduces her to Gene Kelly.  Then there’s ‘Best Foot Forward,’ a more-than-anything-else fun picture which begins her run of cameos (with the likes of Arthur Freed and Abbott & Costello).  There’s also ‘Meet the People’ with Dick Powell (right before his turn to Noir) and ‘Without Love’ with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  All of this peppered with war bond tours and, a true tragedy outside the scope of World War II, Lucille losing a family member.  And Desi?  He’s in the Army now, stationed at Birmingham Hospital which is close enough to Desilu the ranch he should be coming home nights.  But, well, Desi’s Desi.  To wit, we can’t help but notice his and Lucille’s seemingly unending cycle of passionate fights and makeups.  Until that cycle looks like the end.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 6 begins the second half of our third season and we’re back with our glamorous clown as Lucille meets Desi, twice, as they make the RKO movie version of the hit Broadway show ‘Too Many Girls.’  And they sure do fall for each other but passion is passion so it’s often a bit of love and war.  Party hard and work hard?  Sure again.  And as for work?  This week includes Harold Lloyd, a who’s who of radio stars, Lucille’s first western, then the one she oft called her favorite of all her features, Desi’s B-Movie run, gigs at the Roxy theatre and Versailles nightclub in New York, Lucille and Desi deciding they could never be married … and then Lucille and Desi getting married.  Please chime in here with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 5 has us going back in time to share Desi Arnaz’ road to Hollywood;  which, if you don’t know, is more than a little surprising.  And scary.  And sad.  And then more than a little hopeful as “picking oneself up by the bootstraps” is an understatement.  From growing up in Cuba, surviving the 1933 Revolution, playing in rumba bands including with Xavier Cugat, drinking Bacardi rum with Bing Crosby, introducing the conga to Miami and New York, rubbing elbows with debutantes and Al Capone, to playing THE Latin footballer in Rodgers’ and Hart’s ‘Too Many Girls,’ that Broadway hit becoming an RKO movie, Desi Arnaz proves his precursors to ‘I Love Lucy’ are also well worth chatting about.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 4 spotlights Lucille’s thriving in the wake of her split with RKO Chief Pandro Berman … including dipping her toes in a medium that would prove more than a little seminal:  radio.  In her words?  “It turned out to be one of the smartest things I did.”  Outside of work?  There was her next serious relationship:  director Alexander Hall.  Their relationship is more a mutual understanding including time spent with their group of friends:  George Burns & Gracie Allen, the Fred Allens, and the Charles Ruggles.  Even with her family living with her in Los Angeles, Lucille always embraced found-family and this was an incredibly strong group for her.  Now, one of the movies she’ll make during this period?  ‘Dance, Girl, Dance.’  During which she met her future husband:  Desi Arnaz.  Wearing a wallop of a black eye.  SHE had the black eye.  Kind of.  We’ll get there.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 3 spotlights Ms. Ball’s arrival at RKO, and her family’s arrival in California.  Lucille will befriend Ginger Rogers and, as significantly, Ginger’s mother, Lela, who will prove a great mentor.  And Lucille will need it as she navigates both the studio and studio relationship with chief Pandro Berman.  Sure, he’ll help her with her career, so long as it’s the best decision for Lucille AND RKO.  Because, remember, “Sex whispers but money talks.”  Between 1935 and 1937, Lucille appeared in eleven features plus a handful of shorts, including getting her first fan letter and first press specifically for her comedy.  She also took an RKO leave of absence to appear in a Broadway play.  That’s at work.  At home?  Grandpa Hunt’s health falters and he gets heavily involved with Socialism.  Back in Hollywood from Broadway, Lucille co-starred in her biggest production to date … that looked like it might be her biggest production at all.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 2 spotlights Lucille Ball’s arrival in Hollywood where she’ll make ‘Roman Scandals’ as well as about 20 more projects for Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, and Harry Cohn ... before arriving at RKO. And, in that time, she focused on three things:  sponging info, meeting people, and establishing a good reputation.  Lucille Ball may have not finished High School but she was getting the education of a lifetime.  All the while she’s putting some of her paycheck away each week so she can get her family out west with her:  mother DeDe, grandpa Hunt (who she called Daddy), brother Fred, and cousin-cum-sister Cleo.  An embellished story or not, it’s been told often:  at the same time Lucille called her mother to say she was finally ready for them to come out? She lost her job.  Well, the family should come anyway but “take the bus instead of the train!”  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 1 of ‘Lucille,’ our season celebrating Lucille Ball, begins the road to ‘I Love Lucy.’  (Spoiler!  We end the season with that hit show beginning!)  After all, the 40 years before that?  That’s a road far too less traveled and far too interesting to miss.  We begin with a little girl in west New York state living the poverty-tragedy of Dickens.  Well, that isn’t going to stop our hero who dreams of becoming an actress.  There are struggles in Jamestown and eventually Manhattan where the little girl becomes a young lady but, no matter the struggles, the dreams hold steady.  And running side-by-side with Broadway footlights?  Keeping her family together.  Please share your questions and comments here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening ...