I love Lucy, but what ever happened to Lucille Ball?

https://bitly.com/jbrookins

Here I am back in Hollywood with practical experience under my belt. Working with seasoned character actors this past summer has given me a newly discovered confidence. I’m beginning to get parts in little theaters around Hollywood, a good showcase for agents, producers and directors to scout for new talent. One morning, I get a call from my agent who tells me that last week, Lucille Ball sent someone to check me out in a play I’m in called Blue Denim. Apparently, she wants me to join the new repertory company she’s assembling at Desilu Studios. What a break! Just imagine. Lucille Ball wants to meet me.
On the day of my appointment, I’m more than a little nervous about meeting her as I vividly recall the Lucy of my childhood. A week never passed that I didn’t watch I love Lucy on our newly acquired television set Uncle Zack won in a poker game. I remember spending the first week just trying to figure out how people could move and talk inside that little box. Meeting a memory in the flesh is no small thing. Waiting here, my thoughts retrogress to the time when Joan Crawford, Aunt Lowee’s pet red hen, sat on Uncle Zack’s shoulder and never missed an episode of I Love Lucy. That hen was Lucille Ball’s biggest fan. I’d love to tell her about Joan Crawford but she’d think I’m stupid, that I’m making up such a crazy story.
I’m so nervous waiting here outside her dressing room for my interview, hives are starting to break out on my face. I try reading Daily Variety to calm my nerves. It’s hard to believe I’m about to meet Lucille Ball … my Lucy. Suddenly, I hear a loud, strident voice coming from her dressing room. I’ve no idea what my expectations are but this couldn’t be Lucy screaming. I’m trying hard to convince myself that no way is this shrill voice coming from the Lucy of my childhood. I’m startled to hear a rough voice scream, “Well, don’t stand there like a bump on a log. Get in here!”
Is she talking to me? She must be, there’s no one here but me. I cautiously walk into her dressing room and stare, not knowing what to say or what not to say. I didn’t ask to be here; she invited me. I begin to go back and forth with myself, thinking that surely this voice belongs to someone wearing a Lucy mask. No such luck. She cuts right to the chase, beginning her pitch in a hard voice, that if I sign the contract with Desilu, I’ll get more theatre experience. The carrot she’s dangling is the promise of putting her repertory actors in the many sitcoms she and Desi are grinding out at Desilu. This is no big turn on for me, even though she’s already hand picked and signed up quite a few actors. I’m loyal to my heroines but this one is going down fast. My trusting nature, or whatever naivety is left in me, has its heels put to the fire with this encounter. I watch her ultra red lips moving against a mop of freshly dyed fire red hair, eye lashes I could trip on, and realize she isn’t the wonderful Lucy I remember and loved.
Once reality sets in, clearly her offer will knock out future opportunities that might come my way. Fact of the matter, binding myself to a long term contract, for an iffy project that only pays scale, doesn’t make sense. She is promising the moon but does she think I just got off a banana boat? Truth is, I don’t like her. Sensing my hesitation, she begins to rant about my agent who either was, or, I suspect, still is her agent. She looks directly in my eyes and screams, “You’re so damn stupid, you don’t understand he doesn’t want you involved in our project because his commission would be shit! I know him like the back of my hand.”
I’m stunned she talks like this to someone she doesn’t even know. The Lucy I loved would never say “shit.” After this tirade, she dismisses me stating with utmost confidence, “Think about it and get back to me!” To insure her word is the last spoken, she screams, “Soon!
I leave her office fast as my legs will take me, thinking all the while that it will be a cold day in hell when I ever get back to her, as I take deep breaths of fresh air, and chew seven throat lozenges at once; I’m trying hard to overcome my devastation at losing the Lucy of my childhood. It’s hard facing the truth when a dream is shattered, the realization that someone I thought one way is quite the opposite. I call my agent from a pay phone to let him know I’d rather have my hooters shot out of cannon than sign a contract with someone I don’t trust! If I sign with Desilu, I’ll be stuck there forever. I’m startled to hear a rough voice scream, “Well, don’t stand there like a bump on a log. Get in here!”
Is she talking to me? She must be, there’s no one here but me. I cautiously walk into her dressing room and stare, not knowing what to say or what not to say. I didn’t ask to be here; she invited me. I begin to go back and forth with myself, thinking that surely this voice belongs to someone wearing a Lucy mask. No such luck. She cuts right to the chase, beginning her pitch in a hard voice, that if I sign the contract with Desilu, I’ll get more theatre experience. The carrot she’s dangling is the promise of putting her repertory actors in the many sitcoms she and Desi are grinding out at Desilu. This is no big turn on for me, even though she’s already hand picked and signed up quite a few actors. I’m loyal to my heroines but this one is going down fast. My trusting nature, or whatever naivety is left in me, has its heels put to the fire with this encounter. I watch her ultra red lips moving against a mop of freshly dyed fire red hair, eye lashes I could trip on, and realize she isn’t the wonderful Lucy I remember and loved.
Once reality sets in, clearly her offer will knock out future opportunities that might come my way. Fact of the matter, binding myself to a long term contract, for an iffy project that only pays scale, doesn’t make sense. She is promising the moon but does she think I just got off a banana boat? Truth is, I don’t like her. Sensing my hesitation, she begins to rant about my agent who either was, or, I suspect, still is her agent. She looks directly in my eyes and screams, “You’re so damn stupid, you don’t understand he doesn’t want you involved in our project because his commission would be shit! I know him like the back of my hand.”
I’m stunned she talks like this to someone she doesn’t even know. The Lucy I loved would never say “shit.” After this tirade, she dismisses me stating with utmost confidence, “Think about it and get back to me!” To insure her word is the last spoken, she screams, “Soon!
I leave her office fast as my legs will take me, thinking all the while that it will be a cold day in hell when I ever get back to her, as I take deep breaths of fresh air, and chew seven throat lozenges at once; I’m trying hard to overcome my devastation at losing the Lucy of my childhood. It’s hard facing the truth when a dream is shattered, the realization that someone I thought one way is quite the opposite. I call my agent from a pay phone to let him know I’d rather have my hooters shot out of cannon than sign a contract with someone I don’t trust! If I sign with Desilu, I’ll be stuck there forever. Lucille Ball is a great comedienne. I’ll give her that. I love Lucy ran from 1951 – 1957, one of the most watched shows on television. This afternoon, she spoke to me at length about how hard she worked getting to the top, how she saved her money from every paycheck, and how she never stopped trying to better herself. I take my hat off to her for that. I admire her grit because she’s married to someone who can’t keep his pants up. Maybe loving him made her so hard.
Once I recover from the shock of losing my childhood sweetheart, I drive straight home, crawl into bed with my clothes on, pull the covers up over my head and cry.

An excerpt from Tharon Ann

Show Biz Here I Come

Jennifer Brookins author

An excerpt from Tharon Ann

The telephone rings. It’s my agent. I have an interview at 1:00 this afternoon with Jerry Wald, an important producer at Twentieth Century Fox. This is a huge break, and hard to believe it’s happening to me. I put on my best outfit and drive to Twentieth. When I enter his suite two other men are present who right away get down to business, and check me out like I’m the lox and bagels they just ordered from Cantors. They dissect me from head to toe as though I’m not here. Slowly, the conversation segues onto the subject of my name, that it doesn’t meet the standards of other great show business names. Jerry W. says in a thick accent, “Tharon Ann? It’s got no pizzazz!” Who ever heard of a name like that? You listening? I named Jennifer Jones … see the rhythm? You gotta have a three syllable first name and a one syllable last name.” I’m standing here, a cadaver in the midst of an autopsy, watching my birth name fly out the window. The only sound that comes out of my mouth is, “Yes sir, that’s fine.” The young girl once named Tharon Ann, someone I began life with, is dead. I’m suddenly frightened. I want to resurrect her … why did I cave in? … why did I allow him to change my name? Tharon was my father’s name; it’s all I have left of him. Then again, what’s in a name? So what if my ambition caved to a loudmouth star maker. So what. I’ll bury Tharon Ann once and for all. I’m not her anymore. Don’t I have my foot in the door of a major movie studio? This is what counts. I sign a contract with Jerry Wald for his upcoming film, Mardi Gras, starring Pat Boone, Tommy Sands, Christine Carrere, Gary Crosby, Dick Sergeant, Sherrie North, Fred Clark, Barry Chase and me. From this point forward, everyday I drive to Twentieth for wardrobe, hair, makeup, schedules, meeting with various cast members, and rehearsing the musical sequences with a choreographer. Jerry Wald parades me around Twentieth and introduces me like I’m his new toy poodle. Who minds being a poodle? I don’t. Woof! Woof! I’m in heaven.


I have an important interview today. Jerry W. makes a point of telling me to wear the yellow dress from Mardi Gras. He urges me to be very polite to one of the two most influential women in Holly-wood, Hedda Hopper. Louella Parsons and Hedda have gossip columns. They make and break careers with a word, wielding their long, vengeful, sword-like tongues. In 1958, they own this town. People around here treat them like the second coming. We walk over to the set where Hedda, as famous for the hats she wears as her scathing tongue, holds court. Jerry W. bows low and kisses up to her,
“Hedda, love of my life, I’d like you to meet another little lady who loves hats.”


The only hat I like is my old baseball cap, but today I’m wearing a pale yellow cloche style to match my dress. He continues,
“She’s going to be in Mardi Gras. This one has the makings of a star.” Unimpressed, Hedda gives me a quick glance, just enough for me to look into her unyielding steel-blue eyes. For a brief moment, if ever a pissant froze to death inside a popsicle, it’s me standing here right now. She hates me. In an attempt to salvage the moment, I grab hold of my composure, and strain to harness enough sunshine to send a Kodak smile to this powerful woman wearing a hat reminiscent of a rooster chasing a barnyard hen. In a calculated move, Hedda slowly turns her head in my direction, and gives me an icy look that clearly represents her instant opinion of me, which is: “Drop dead you little bitch!”


In silence, I recite the alphabet ten times in wait for sound to come out of her draconian lips. She whispers in the vicinity of where I’m standing, “How nice.” Her head does a three quarter turn, as she summarily dismisses me with a flip of her hand.
Someone once told me I’m too direct with people, that it makes them uneasy. After my lackluster introduction to the Queen of Hollywood I pretend to be dead, and stand there like someone waiting at a red light who dies two seconds before it turns green. Jerry and Hedda continue to plot about exclusive dirt he’ll give her, only if she will not print something he doesn’t want made public. This town specializes in the game of tit for tat. It’s easy pretending to like a person when they pretend to like me, but hard even being cordial to someone who hates me right off the bat. When he’s finished his arm-twisting, brown-nosing chat with Hedda, on we go to our next stop which is the makeup department. As we walk along he tells me how many stars he’s made, pausing long enough for me to acknowledge the double entendre. Once there, he introduces me to a well known man who is polite and eager to please – rare in this town. Everyone has an agenda. What you see ain’t necessarily so. No one around here can point fingers if they’re completely honest.


He takes one look at me and says, “Now little lady, wait here for a moment. I’ll whip up a custom eye shadow that will be perfect for you.”


After his last remark, my introspective, philosophical thoughts
jump headfirst out the window. I need the wait for my ego to orbit back to earth. I’m just being honest when I say, “I’m so in awe when I think of me.”
When anyone in Hollywood uses the expression, “I’m just being honest,” it’s usually right after they’ve insulted the crap out of someone and I’m just being honest.