An Old Timey Podcast - 12: Lucy Goes Home (Part 7)

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

As Lucille Ball grew older, she struggled to keep her career going. She got back into movies. She started another sitcom. But critics were cruel. In addition to critiquing her work, they critiqued her – for looking her age. By the mid-80s, she found herself on the receiving end of countless accolades and lifetime achievement awards. But Lucy wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from:“Love, Lucy,” by Lucille Ball“The Plot Thickens” podcast from Turner Classic Movies“The Life of Lucille Ball,” by Kathleen BradyThe documentary “Lucy and Desi”“Ball of Fire,” by Stefan KanferAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes for Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm her delightfully devilish husband, Norman Caruso. What will he get into next? On this episode, everyone grows old. Are we talking about Lucille Ball or just an aging population in general? Okay, yeah, that'd be a real exciting episode.

Today's episode. We all got old. Our impending dune. I'll just have saltines. Thank you. Hold the cottage cheese and jam. Don't bash saltines. I wouldn't dare.

My husband loves them. Man, we are wrapping up today, people. Yeah, is this it? This is it, baby. This is it. The end of Lucy. We hope you've enjoyed this cereal. If you did not, please complain loudly.

It'll make me cry and feel real sad. They want me to sing. That's what they've asked. No one asked you to sing. Literally no one. Everyone is always asking me to sing and dance. Tell you what, folks. If you do not want Kristen to sing and dance, please give us five stars on whatever platform you listen to this podcast.

Wow. I thought you were going to ask them to join our Patreon. trion at the $10 level so they could see videos of me singing and dancing everyone if you can believe it this choreography I'm making it up as I go I know you're thinking did she hire someone to do that no your energy is throwing me off right now what's wrong I'm excited I've I had a lot of sugar about an hour ago okay so we're on a journey right now I had an entire chip which meant to have half had the whole thing Oops a daisy. Now I've got a full iced coffee, full iced tea, and a water, you know, for balance. Yeah.

Everyone, Norm looks terrified. Sir, are you going to plug our Patreon like a business cat should? Yeah, this is a great start to our podcast. Folks, if you're enjoying what you're listening to, and you may not be, actually. But if you are, please, why don't you consider supporting this independent podcast at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast? Yeah. We are an independent podcast.

about that. Yeah. So support us for that reason. Even if you hate the podcast, there, was that a good plug? Not really. Okay. If you just want to, you know, kind of dabble in an old-timey podcast, the $5 level is perfect for you because you get monthly bonus episodes.

You get access to our Discord to chitty chat the day away. This month's bonus episode is real spicy. So why don't you hippity hoppity on over and subscribe at the $5 level? But if you want a little more goodness in your life, maybe get on that $7 level. History ho. Are you just yelling that or is that the name of that tier? That's the name of the tier. Oh, okay, okay.

Thank you card, stickers. You get to join our watch parties. This month we're watching bad movie trailers. I've got my three picked out. I hope you do, Kristen. No, I will do it last minute. Yep, procrastination. Classic Kristen.

And then $10 level, if you are ready to get rich and become your own boss, you've got to get on that $10 tier. Pig butter investor. That's right. You get everything in the previous tiers, early ad-free episodes. Full video of every episode of Old Timey Podcasts. It is the tier to be on because you're going to make a lot of money. I don't think you can, I'm worried about being sued.

What if somebody gets on that $10 level? This is clearly satire. Okay. Is that really all you're going to say about this month's bonus episode? Just that you have to hippity hoppy over to it, you're not going to tell them, Hey, maybe you'll want a carrot stick as you listen to that one. I would not be eating any food while you listen to that episode. It's disgusting.

Why don't you start expecting to be disgusted, huh? Pretty good. Okay. Yeah, if you're intrigued, go ahead and hop on over to the Patreon. Yeah. Okay. Well, Kristen, before you wrap up this Lucille Ball series, do you have any mistakes you'd like to share with us?

No, I've made no mistakes. Why? Have you made some? How embarrassing? I haven't been presenting any episodes, so I cannot make mistakes. Okay, well. Actually, I did make that one mistake about calling Nala Naya, and I was reacting. So the Disney history hose really tore me apart for that one. That was really embarrassing for all of us. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, your asshole's still not quite the same, but it'll get there. What's wrong with my butthole? They tore you a new one. Is that what that means? tear you a new one? Yeah, it means tear you a new asshole. Is that what it means? That's what it means.

I had no idea about tear you a new one then. I didn't know how to anything to do your butthole. I, you know, I wondered why you seemed so shocked. I mean, obviously, it's not very late. Like, I need to mention torn buttholes, and yet here we are. Anyway, okay, no mistakes. Well, hey, let's get into it. All right.

Here we go. Can you believe that this series is coming to an end? I've learned so much I've had so much fun I was telling you this the other day on one of our long funk removing walks We call them

Well when you're in a funk You go on a walk and it removes the funk It's a funk remover Slam down the funk we say Slam dunk the funk Oh You don't slam down Anyhow we were on a walk

Anyway we were on a walk and I was telling Kristen I said look Gotta be honest Really didn't have to have any interest in Lucille Ball when you said you're going to cover Lucille Ball. And you said, so this past month and a half has been pure torture for me. No, I told you that, like, I've been fascinated by it and I'm learning a ton. And here's what I love most about deep dive stuff.

It gives you, like, a new appreciation for things. Yeah. So, like, when I watched an I Love Lucy clip, I was like, oh, I know who this is. I knew who this is. I know why they did this. Yeah. You just like understand more about it. Yeah. Or if I watched an episode of the Twilight Zone, I'm like, oh my gosh, like, that's thanks to

Desi Lou. Yeah. The show exists. So that's what I love about it. It gives you a new appreciation for things. It really does. Yeah, it's fun. For me, it's just an excuse to do the deep dive that I think I've wanted to do since I was a little

kid and to be able to like just dive into her life and I don't know get emotional about it. I mean, it has been, it has been wild the number of times I have cried while researching Lucio Ball. You're going to cry today? I hope not. Well, actually, I've already cried multiple times today. Oh, excellent. This is a, you know.

We got more coming, folks. Here we go. Okay, are we ready? I'm ready. All right. on an old-timey podcast. You're smiling at me. Do you like how much I love that voice?

You really get into it. Oh, damnity podcast. Oh, I'm sorry. Lucy and Desi got divorced. A year later, Lucy married a struggling stand-up comedian named Gary Morton. Lucy and Desi continued running Desi Lou together, but Desi's drinking was out of control. So, in 1962, Lucy bought him out of the business. As a result, she made history as the first woman to run a major Hollywood studio.

Lucy is the reason we have Mission Impossible. She's the reason we have Star Trek. She ran Desi Lou while continuing to star in The Lucy Show, and in 1967, her efforts won her the Emmy for Best Comedy Actress. That same year, she sold Desi Lou. By that point, she'd spent years as a movie show. executive, but she'd always considered herself a performer first, and she was ready to see where the next chapter would take her. In this final installment of our Lucille Ball series, Lucy gets

rejections and accolades. Yes. Here we go. Oh, okay. Now, I definitely don't know anything about her late life. Most people don't. Oh. You're just like all the other ignorant hoes out there, Ready to learn. I may be an ignorant ho, but I'm also a curious ho. That's a great thing to be, Norm. Yeah. Picture it. It's 1967.

Lucy just sold Desi Lou. She had plenty of money. And best of all, she had time. Time of walking. Oh, my God. Time wasting. Time. You ain't no friend of mine.

Speaking of time a waste in. Wow. Hooty and the blowfish. Is that hooty? Yeah. And I don't believe in time. Boy, that one didn't make the top 40, did it. Okay, all you his trio is out there.

Yeah, okay, I know that one. Yeah, okay. My militia was about to bust your ass. I'm terrified of your militia. Do you know the name of my militia? What is it? Someone just came up with this, and I love it. Kristen's Nightguards.

That's pretty good, actually. Yeah, and sounds a lot more terrifying than Norm's Militia. Well, we don't have a name yet. We're still workshopping it. Yeah, exactly. You Disney loving adults will be workshopping it at your local Denny's for the next three years. Meanwhile, Kristen's Night Guard, we're going to be kicking ass judging everyone. It's very on brand for me to not pick a name for the Masha because I'm so wishy-washy.

Anyway, sorry to interrupt, please continue. She had time to focus on her TV show and time to focus on her kids. And that was really important because Desi Jr. and Little Lucy were teenagers. And I have to pause and apologize. It feels very weird to call a grown woman, well, in this case, a teenager, but eventually a grown woman, Little Lucy. I'm just doing that for clarity's sake. But I do acknowledge that that's a weird thing to do.

Thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate it. You're welcome. The kids were doing what all teenagers do. They were trying to figure out who they were, figure out where they fit in the world. But they were unlike most teenagers in that they were super famous because of their parents, which is, I mean, that has to be so weird. I wouldn't know. Well, like none of us would.

That's so weird to be famous, not for anything you've done, but because of who your parents are. I had plenty of friends who would brag about how much money their parents made. Really? Yeah. Are you serious? Well, like the douchebags, yeah. No kidding. You know those types of kids. Norm, I grew up in the Midwest. You grew up in Johnson County.

I know where I grew up, but you weren't supposed to talk about money. My dad was the only one in a 500-mile radius talking about money, and it was all he talked about, and it was very taboo. It was how to save money. Oh, yeah, it wasn't look at all my money. It was like, well, you know, if you order a soda at a restaurant. That's just all profit for the restaurant. That's what they want you to do is order the soda. You know how much that soda syrup cost them? Right, two cents. Oh my God. Thanks for giving me that flashback. Appreciate it very much. You're welcome. Maybe that is why I surround myself with a buffet of beverages every day now as an adult. No, that's just your ADD. Well, that could

also be it. But also, I think, you know, I like to pretend like I'm in the land of plenty. Okay. Anyway, back to Desi Jr. Desi Jr. in particular, struggled. When he was 11 years old, he'd started drinking in secret. 11? Yeah. Holy moly. Yeah. That's really sad. Desi Sr. at some point discovered that he was drinking, and of course, Desi flipped out, but that didn't really stop the drinking. Later, when Desi Jr. was 13, he started a band with his little friends. Ooh. Dean Martin Jr. and Billy Hinch. He was the son of a real estate developer, so that's a less exciting name.

But still, Dean Martin Jr., that's a big deal, right? So Dean Martin's son? Is that who we're saying? No, it was actually some dude named Fred, but he was like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to give this kid a leg up in the world and name him Dean Martin Jr. That's actually a really good idea. Not a bad idea. It's not.

It really is not. If my parents had named me David Caruso Jr., maybe I'd be a little better off right now, you know, from CSI Miami, David Caruso. See, I think the whole point is to nothing against David Caruso, but don't you want to go for someone with more name recognition if you're going to make something up? Find me a more famous Caruso, and I'll do it. No, I'm saying do the full fake name. Oh, you're a fake last name too. Like completely fake, yeah. No, that's no fun.

Okay, well. Stick within the guidelines, okay? Speaking of fun, let me tell you more about this band. Are you ready? Yeah. They called themselves Dino, Desi, and Billy. That was their band name. Not bad for a bunch of teenage kids.

That's fine. Oh, you think they're not going places? Probably not. How dare you? How fucking dare you? First of all, let me remind you, they were very well connected, okay? So their first audition ever was for a man named Frank Sinatra, okay? Yeah, but Frank and Desi didn't really get along, right?

Because of that untouchable show, and Frank Sinatra was like, hey, whoa. Sure, but Frank Sinatra founded Dean Martin's recording label, and Frank wanted to keep Dean happy. So yada, yada, yada, Dino, Desi, and Billy became like the 1960s version of Justin Bieber, except picture three of Justin Bieber. Baby, baby, baby, oh. Well, so did they have a hit? Yeah, they had hits. What was it called?

Slow down, sir. You got so excited about these three teenage boys. I'm looking it up on Spotify right now. They were three baby-faced boys singing cute little songs. And yes, they did become pretty popular. They had a few top 40 hits and pretty soon. Oh, what's that? opportunity came knocking norm they had an opportunity to go on tour oh okay man they did way better than

my high school band maybe that's because you were not desi arnaz junior or dean martin junior or billy whatever the fuck who had i'm assuming a dad who sold a lot of real estate our band name was woodchuck how'd you settle on that honestly can't remember wow that's a great story woodchuck uh-huh well i was You know. No, it's better than Dino, Desi, and Billy. Not really. I, okay. Well, anyway, I'm trying to impress the pants off of you, sir.

Okay, guess. Jokes on you, not wearing any. Get on that $10 level, folks. C norm, fully nude. No one wants to see that. Oh, wow. The low self-esteem set in so fast. There was a band.

One of these three little fresh-faced cutie pies to open for them. Who do you think it was? It's the 1960s, Norm. The Beach Boys. Yes. Yes. Got it. By the way, I did watch some of Dino, Desi, and Billy's performances.

What instrument did Desi Jr. play? What do you fucking think? Guitar? No, the drums. Oh. Or at least he did in the video I saw. Oh, yeah. They had kind of that, like, generic 1960s boyish sound.

Honestly, like little wannabe beach. boys, which makes sense. Yeah, like, gonna take my sweetheart to the ice cream corral. Yeah. Yeah, da da, yeah da, yeah da. That's not at all how they sounded. That's the Antiques Road Show theme song, actually. They invented the Antiques Road Show theme song, and boy, are we learning some fun facts. So they had this opportunity, but Desi Sr. didn't like the idea of them going on tour. He felt like Desi Jr. was too young for it. It wouldn't be good for him. Yeah. So Lucy totally disagreed. She'd been about that same age when she'd gone off to New York City to try to become an actress. And she was really proud of her son. She thought he was super

talented. Why not encourage him? Maybe it would give him some direction, some purpose. Who was she to stand in the way of someone's dreams? Okay, thoughts. Well, actually, let me let you finish. What did Desi say? Just that he was too young and that going out on the road, like there would be too much, too many unknowns, I think, and Desi Jr. was too young for that. Well, and he had been drinking, right? Yeah, he'd already been drinking, been caught drinking. So I'm with Desi on this one. Absolutely, yeah. Probably a bad idea. I honestly, and I don't know what to do with this, but like, I don't like the idea of anyone

under 18 going into showbiz. Really? I really don't. What? Maybe it's because I've only heard the horror stories of it, but I think especially when a lot of money gets involved, I feel like the child's best interests aren't always being served. I guess I'm a little suspicious of anyone who pushes their kid into fame.

And of course, they always say the same thing. They always say, this is what the kid wanted. Okay, calm down. Every high school has its own theater program. Do you know what I mean, though? Like, I just would, if I were a parent, I feel like I would really want to limit the number of random-ass adults who are in my child's life. Yeah, because you've heard all the horror stories. Right.

Yeah. Okay, anyway. I think if a kid wants to pursue acting or music or whatever, you support them without putting pressure on them. That's all. Okay. Well, Dino, Desi, and Billy did go on tour. And yeah, that turned out to be a really bad thing. Mm-hmm.

Going on tour exposed Desi Jr. to not just another level of drinking, but all kinds of drugs. When Desi Jr. got back from that tour, Lucy realized that she'd made a mistake. Her little boy was using drugs. He was super defiant. And to make things so much more complicated, he was a pop star now. He didn't have to listen to her. he had his own money, a lot of it.

He didn't need to play by mom's rules. And that was kind of because Lucy had always been pretty strict with her children when it came to money. She didn't give them big allowances. They couldn't have whatever they wanted. She kind of wanted them to have a more normal upbringing. But now Desi Jr. was, frankly, kind of rich. So he could do whatever he wanted. Yeah.

Did you have an allowance growing up? Yeah, yeah. Lucky. I do think that was really lucky. Yeah, I didn't have an allowance. Yeah, you got ripped off by your mom. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, I sure do.

I want to shout it to the world. Yeah, my mom would do stuff like spend all day raking the yard, bagging the leaves and all that, and I would earn $1. You were ripped off. Yeah, well, at the time, I was like sweet a dollar. Because I was like, we're going to go to dollar tree and I get to pick something out. Yeah.

And only until I was older did I realize, wow, that was a ton of work for a dollar. Actually, no, I realized that when I became like a teenager and my neighbor was like, hey, will you mow my yard this summer? We're going to be out of town. And I was like, okay, how much will you pay me per mow? And she was like, I'll pay you $20 per mow. And I was just like, what? And it took me like 10 minutes to mow her life.

And you were like, rake your own. yard, mom. Yeah. Yeah. Damn you, mom. Damn you. I love my mom. No, I'm really grateful that I had an allowance growing up. Yeah. I bet Daryl didn't talk to you at all about how to save it or what to do with it or anything. We joke about my dad in all of his money lectures, but I think that was one of the better things they did was like we had a weekly allowance. We got a lot of instruction on what might be a good way to handle that money, but ultimately it was ours to spend. And the understanding was like, yeah, if you run out, you can come and ask us for more money. At an interest? Oh, yeah, at a very high interest rate with big penalties.

Hmm. Sounds familiar. I never asked. You should have said, I'll show you and you should have gone to a payday loan. A payday loan place. I'll get a loan from someone else. So this led to a lot of fights between Desi Jr. and Lucy. To try to stop him from using drugs, she made it so that he was almost never unsupervised. She put him in different schools. She tried a lot of different methods to get him back on track. Shockingly, that led to even more arguments.

Yeah, kind of trying to control him, basically. I mean, I do feel like it would be tough. once a kid gets to a certain age, yeah. It's like how do you reel that back in? Especially if they've become a pop star. Yeah. How do you reel that back in? I honestly don't know if I can even comment on this because I just have no earthly clue how to even...

No, I don't either. I think most people wouldn't. Yeah. I think it'd be a really tough position to be in as a parent. Mm-hmm. Because of all that, Desi Jr. spent a lot of time with his dad. So Lucy was back to her old problem. People who've been listening to this series for a while know where I'm going with this. It was the problem that had plagued her for

decades. She had a family she loved, but she wasn't spending much time with them. She wanted more time with her kids, not just so that she could, you know, have quality time with them, but also so that she could monitor them. So she dusted off an old idea that she'd used when she'd wanted to spend more time with and monitor Desi Senior. What's the idea, Norm? Start a business or start a show with the whole family. Yep. Start a TV show.

Oh, boy. CBS had actually wanted a seventh season of the Lucy show. It was a hit, and of course CBS wanted more of that. But Lucy was like, no, I want to do a new show, and I want my actual children to play my TV children. And, of course, she wanted her husband, Gary Morton, to serve as the executive producer. Norm, why are you smiling so hard? You seem like you really love this idea.

You wish you could get in on it, but you're too late by several decades. No, it just feels cringe to me. Why? I'm cringing. I think it's because, okay, what year is it now? Oh, gosh. I want to say 67? Yeah, and it's like, okay, you're getting up there, Lucy.

Mm-hmm. Feels like nepotism. Yeah, I want my kids in here. And here's my husband, Gary Morton, who has done. pretty much nothing. Ouch. He once opened for Tony Bennett, Norman. Well, I take it all back.

What did CBS say? What do you think they said? Sure. Hell yeah. Yeah, okay. Lucy had never steered them wrong before. Everything she'd ever done for them had been ratings gold. Well, you know, I'm going to take back a few of my statements because this was,

she had just won like two Emmys, right, for the Lucy show? Yeah, she won multiple Emmys, of course, over the course of her life. But yeah, she'd just gotten that Emmy for Best Actress. Didn't she win it back to back? Yeah, I think she did. Yeah, so, okay, yeah, a network would trust. If you're like, I want to make a new show. Okay, I take it all back.

Mistakes of Shame. Wow, cut that one in real time. Shame. Wow. I felt the shame on that one. By this point, Lucy was a rare legend. The I Love Lucy show was in reruns, plus the Lucy show had been a hit in its own right. So multiple generations loved Lucio Ball.

They loved her in black and white. They loved her in color. This new show would hopefully be no different. It'd be called Here's Lucy. In it, she'd play a widow named Lucy Carter. 17-year-old Lucy Arnaz would play her daughter, Kim, and 15-year-old Desi Arnaz Jr. would play her son, Craig. Man, he was only 15 and he went on tour with his band.

He went on tour when he was 13. Oh, my God. Yeah. Here's Lucy aired in 1968, and just like all her other TV shows, Lucy filmed in front of a live studio audience, and every night her mom, Didi, was in the crowd. Desi and his new wife, Edie, were also in the crowd. Wait, how old is Dee Dee at this point? Oh, she's getting up there.

Oh, my God. She's getting up there. But she, I mean, she was at every single Lucy taping. she ever did. The show did well, but there were aspects of that show that were, you know, kind of tough. Lucy Arnaz actually really enjoyed being on the show. She enjoyed acting. She stayed on the show for the entire run. Desi Jr., not nearly as into it. He stayed for three seasons. And, you know, Lucy's plan had been to keep an eye on him, but it didn't really work. He was still drinking and doing drugs. He just got better at hiding it.

Okay. Here's Lucy did well in the ratings. And thank God it did because by this point, Lucy didn't have a huge studio to run. She just had her career, and her career was everything. But showbiz can be fickle, Norman. Fickle as a pickle. She worried about getting older and getting pushed out of Hollywood. She worried about public perception of her, and she had a good reason to be worried.

This was the tabloid era And with Lucy's children growing older The family had a lot to offer Get ready for this You're gonna want to strap in Lucy doesn't want to compete with the bat boy Remember the bat boy? What?

In the tabloids No, what are you talking about? Yeah, don't you remember in those like Bullshit tabloids? Oh, like National Inquirer Like we found alien bones Yeah and they're like Bat Boy discovered in cave

Batboy was like on the front page every time I think it was bat boy. You have some weird knowledge on this. So, for example, when she was 18 years old, little Lucy moved out of the house. And even though that sounds pretty normal to me, Lucy was just like so upset that little Lucy had moved out. And then little Lucy was like, I'm dating this guy. And guess what? I'm going to marry him.

And Lucy was like, oh, you are way too young to do that. And little Lucy did it anyway. and later divorced that guy. And then she started dating a guy named Jim Bailey who had a career impersonating Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand, and Phyllis Diller. He impersonated them? Mm-hmm. And Lucy was like, okay, is he gay?

I don't get it. He's gay, right? I don't get it. Is he like a drag queen? Okay. I looked him up because I was so curious. I was reading a pretty dated source, So that source referred to him as a female impersonator.

And I thought the same thing. I was like, drag queen, right? And I went, I did a little digging. I don't think he ever referred to himself as a drag queen. But like, he was incredible. He was a very talented singer. And I mean, that guy could look exactly like a person. He was amazing.

Okay. Lucy was, you know, a little confused by that whole deal. But the real tabloid staple was Desi Jr. When he was 17, he started dating Patty Duke, who was 23. Patty Duke, that name sounds familiar. Yeah, it should. So she was an Academy Award-winning actress. She won an Academy Award?

Yeah, when she was a kid. She'd been a child star. It's one of those horrible stories where she was horrifically abused by her managers. Oh, okay. But Desi and Patty started dating. and in 1971 Patty gave birth to a baby boy and she said that Desi Jr. was the father.

So Lucy shows up to hold her grandson and she's like, cute kid, but the math isn't mathin. Oh. And she was actually right. The biological father of that child was believed to be the actor John Aston, aka the dad from the Adams family.

Oh. And that was a bit of a skin. because John was about 15 years older than Patty and married. Mm, yep. Eventually, John Aston and Patty Duke got married. And by the way, that child was Sean Aston. What? Who later played the Goonies.

Mikey in the Goonies. Lord of the Rings. And starred in those very, very long Lord of the Rings movies. And Encino Man, starring Brendan Fraser. I'm so glad you mentioned it. And Ki-Wei Kuan. Are you a little blown away? I am actually.

Holy shit. Yeah, that's blowing my mind right now. In 2001, Sean did a DNA test and discovered that his biological father was actually a guy named Michael Tell, to whom his mother had been married for like 13 days. But Norm, this has been a giant tangent that you have insisted we go on, and we just don't have time for any more of it. Hey, I love a tangent where we get to talk about Encino Man and the Goonies. and Lord of the Rings. Is that not wild? That is wild.

Oh, and Rudy. He was Rudy. Yeah. Yeah. Sean Astin's great. After all that with Patty Duke, Desi Jr. then started dating Liza Manelli, and then they got engaged.

Are you not- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Desi Jr. dated Liza Manelli. Yes. Judy Garland's daughter. Yes. What's the age gap there? Liza was a little older than him.

Yeah, I was going to say, I always think of her in arrested development. I know. You're picturing her at that age and you're like, get that woman away from that kid. Exactly. Start dating Liza Minnelli. Then they got engaged. But then Liza called it off to be with some other dude.

Who? I don't know. I could. You are not the curious ho I thought you were. I just took you down that, you know, Sean Astin tangent. What more do you want? Okay, you want a Liza Minerner. Nelly tangent. I get it. We all get it. It's fine. All right. Obviously, this was in all the papers.

Lucy got a ton of flack from people who were like, this is a mess. What kind of mother is she? Oh my gosh. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. By the way. Oh, gosh. Everyone, I wear false eyelashes since we record these videos for Patreon. And I did not do an expert job applying my lashes today. I got one that's about to take me a tweet escape. This might be a shock, but I do not wear false eyelashes. And yet the people say, you're beautiful without them. But they tell me, Kristen, do it up. They comment, maybe Norm's born with it.

Shut up. Anyway, are you ready for a fun fact? Yes. Okay. Later in life, Desi Jr. married the actress Linda Pearl. Linda Pearl. That sounds familiar too. Linda Pearl played Pam's mom in the office. Oh.

Now, Pam had a couple different actresses as her mom. I'm talking about the one who dated Michael Scott. Yes, that's the Pam's mom I remember. Yes. So the marriage only lasted for like five seconds. And Lucy was bummed when they got divorced because she thought Linda was very organized and she always admired that in a person. What if Lucille Ball met Marie Condo? Oh, she'd love her.

Lose her mind. So Lucy's life was tabloid fodder, and her show Here's Lucy was a hit, but, you know, toward the end of the show's run, its popularity started to slip. Mm-hmm. A new kind of comedy was taking over. Laugh-in was the new thing. Yeah, so it was like a sketch comedy show. Oh. Oh, yes.

Yeah, and it was very topical. It was political. It featured sexual innuendos. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. I'm about to bust. Just like this show. Mm-hmm.

We have that here on old-timey podcast. Very topical. We're always talking about Liza Minnelli. And we've got sexual innuendos, thanks to Hank Hill, who pops in from time to time. Sniff my butthole. And we're always learning new things, like what it really means when someone rips you a new one. Yeah. Norm, until today, what did you think people were ripping a new?

I didn't really think about it. I mean, just the phrase, tear you a new one, sounds extreme and violent. Yes, so you've got the idea. I was like, okay. You were like, I don't want them. You know, I'll keep my old one. I don't want to know what you're going to tear, but like, I don't know. Hey, you know what?

We learn something every day recording this podcast. For example, I learned that Sean Aston's mother is Patty Duke. Of Duke's mayonnaise. Patty Duke's mayonnaise, Doug's girlfriend. It all circles back to Doug. The unfortunate thing is that Lucy really didn't want to be seen as dated or old-fashioned, right? But... How do you do, fellow kids?

She's going to get hip and cool? She's going to start doing the monkey? I appreciate... I appreciate where you're going with that. What's another way to get this wrong? Instead of trying to pretend you're one of the kids, what's another way to prove that you are uncool and old-fashioned? What's another way to prove? It'd be like back in my day, blah, blah, blah.

This is not how it used to be. Yes. You are down the right track, sir. Around this time, she started complaining publicly and constantly that there was way too much sex in TV and movies these days. It was all filthy. Just sex, sex, sex. It was confusing the children, Norm.

Well, somebody, please think of the children. This may shock you, but that's... That actually made Lucy seem even more uncool and old-fashioned. That's why I, in an effort to stay hip and cool, say more sex on TV, please. Really? I'm constantly saying that. Would you put some Carmex on those lips? You're chewing them like they're...

Okay, okay. Little pieces of jerky. All right. You know, if you keep them nice and loop like that, people are going to have a real hard time tearing you a new one. That's enough. Once at an industry party, a guy was talking about old comedians versus new comedians. And he said, people like Jack Benny and Lucille Ball should be put away.

Put away? That seems a little harsh. Yeah. Lucy was standing right there. He either hadn't noticed her or hadn't recognized her. That guy happened to be the new president of CBS. Lucy had always been tough. But it really seemed like after she sold Desi Lou, she became hard.

She drank more. And Gary was VP of Lucille Ball Productions, but he didn't do a lot of work. There are stories about her from this time frame that are pretty rough. So Herb Kenwith was this writer, director, slash producer, and he'd worked with Lucy for a really long time, and Lucy had always liked him because he stood up to her. but the truth was that she didn't always like being stood up to. He worked with her until 1972 when this character actress named Ruth McDivitt missed her marks during rehearsals.

Just to pause here, Lucy had always been very intense about rehearsals. In fact, she once given a role to Joan Crawford for the Lucy show, and after that week was over, Joan Crawford famously said, And people say I'm a bitch I'm a bitch I'm a child I'm a mother sinner innocent I do not feel ashamed

Another time Lucy got a small part on the TV show The Untouchables And she started telling the lead actor Robert Stack how he should play his part Do not talk to Robert Stack About anything He is a legend

You know what he says? said, he put on his trench coat, walked down an alleyway, and was like, perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery, a mystery about why you are telling me how to do my job. And that didn't exactly happen. That's more of a joke about him later hosting unsolved mysteries, but still. Well, and he says like, perhaps you. You know what? I think I would have done a better job if you hadn't taken all the wind out of my sales by knowing who Robert Stack was. I wish you were more like me,

where you had no idea what anybody's name was. And so there's like a real jump I did every time I Googled somebody. One of my favorite Robert Stack roles is in the Beavisand Butthead movie. He was in that? Yeah. He is the AT. He's leading the ATF to track down Beavisand Butthead. Yeah, that sounds about right.

He's hilarious. Because he's a real stickler for ending sentences with a preposition. So, like, he has his agents, like, repeat lines because he's like, never end your sentence with a preposition. I would be with some bud to do America. I was hoping that would come up. Yeah? Yeah. Did you know that that was a Desi Lou thing?

Shut up. Yeah, I made that up. I was just trying to bring it back to the topic at hand. You know, I'm just trying to be a professional. Desi Lou is gone. Wow. Now it's Paramount CBS. Yes.

Point is, Lucy could be pushy during rehearsals. So Lucy had been like that for a while, and some people took it better than others. And it's tough because she knew what she was talking about. And it's hard to know how much was sexism when people would bristle at her giving feedback and stuff. Can I sing my song? What? Let's talk about sexism. Let's talk about patriarchy.

Let's talk about all. the bad boys doing bad things to the ladies. Let's talk about sexism. That was beautiful, Norm. Thank you. And you're just the boy to sing the song. That's right. This time with the actress Ruth McDavitt, Lucy went too far. Just set the scene. Ruth was in her late 70s. She missed a mark. And Lucy, instead of just telling her, hey, you missed your mark. Yeah. Lucy kicked the elderly woman's foot. Put into place. Yes.

Okay. Calm down. And then Ruth started crying. Yeah. So by this point, Herb Kenwith had had enough. Later that day when things kind of calmed down, he went to Lucy's dressing room and he told her that he was quitting. And Lucy went nuts. She hit him.

Oh, boy. And he hit her back. Oh, B. What? Good Lord. She said, I love you. And he said, Lucy, you don't know how to show. love. I'm leaving.

Seems like a full house sad music moment right there. Where a woman hits a man and a man hits her back. I don't know what kind of full house you were watching. I guess Danny Tanner never did that. Just seems like one of those moments where, you know, the sad music plays and it cuts to commercial. Yeah. Yeah. We've all learned a lesson, I think. So Lucy wasn't being very nice. She was feeling. insecure, but she was pretty sure she knew what she wanted to do next.

Oh? She wanted to revive her movie career so that when her TV show ended, she'd, you know, springboard into a bunch of movie roles. Okay. She did a movie called Yours, Mine, and Hours. Oh, I'm familiar with that movie. Yeah, yeah. She did it with her old pal, Henry Fonda, and critics did not love it.

Henry Fonda. He was a... He was a douche. Whoopey butt-butthead. He's the guy where I was like Henry Fondell D's nuts, right? Yeah. Boom, roasting. Got him.

Courtesy of Norm. Yeah. So critics didn't love the movie, but it was a big commercial success. I was going to say they remade that movie, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. The only problem was, hmm, Lucy had gone and done this strange thing that women do sometimes, Norm. She'd...

Aged. She was in her... late 50s now, which we can all agree is a disgusting thing to be. You're basically useless now. Oh yeah, please go away. Hide forever. Meanwhile, the men, come on out, boys. They aged like a fine wine.

While she was on a promotional tour for that movie, a little girl came up to her and said, Lucy, what happened to your face? and Lucy was so upset that she didn't speak for the rest of the day. Yeah, it's a little kid, though. Yeah. They have no filter. It's supposed to be like a cute thing. Like, oh, ha ha, ha, that's funny.

Well, no, it's not really fun when a little kid says something very true and rude. I see what you mean, though. Yeah, but they're not, like, trying to be mean. No, of course not. Of course not. And I included that story because it's a pretty famous story. But you're right in that the real. real hurtful thing is what the critics are going to say. Okay. Because those are the grown adults.

Yes. Full-ass adults. And they know better. But will they do better? Find out. Hollywood critics? No. I don't think so. She was in this weird position where there were constant reruns of her playing on TV every day. But those reruns featured the Lucy from 20 years ago. And sometimes when people saw her now, they were shocked. Sometimes they were unkind. Lucy really thought about getting a facelift, but she wasn't a good candidate for the procedure because her skin didn't heal well. You know, I talked about, I think it was in last week's episode where she was on that movie set. She hit her face really hard. She had all these scars. Yeah, and they hadn't healed well at all.

At some point, she was rumored to have had some cosmetic work done on her eyes. And apparently that had taken a full year to heal. Yeah, that's ridiculously slow and not even remotely compatible with her career. She was still on TV every week for Here's Lucy. She wanted to do movies on the side. She didn't have time to sit on the couch bandaged up. So her makeup artist began using a heavier hand. They began taping her skin back.

It was painful and time-consuming, but worth it. That would be uncomfortable. Yeah. Taping skin. Oh, it's super common. Is it? Well, in Hollywood, sure. Yeah.

Yeah, so you take the skin tape and you tape up and then you put your hair over it or a wig over to hide it. I remember this from Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams was trying on outfits to, you know, become a woman. Yes, the montage, yes. Yeah, his. His brother taped his face back to, like, get rid of wrinkles. And he looked great. Yeah. So she's in this kind of transitional phase.

And then she figured out what she was going to do next. Okay, you ready? She did that one movie now. She's got to find her new movie. And she found it. I thought you said she was going to launch a singing career or something. Oh, dear God. Well, close.

There was this Broadway musical called MAME, and it was huge. It had been on Broadway for a few years, and its stars were Angela Lansbury and B. Arthur. Oh, B. Arthur is my queen. I love B. Arthur so much. You do love B. Arthur. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this musical was huge. Tony Awards for everyone.

Everyone was just so great. And B. Arthur can fucking sing. Yeah. She was so talented. Yeah. The play was about this. eccentric woman named Mame Dennis

and it followed her life from the Great Depression through World War II. Are you happy? This is a response to when I brought up Wildcat in last week's episode and you wanted to know the whole plot.

Great. You actually looked up what it was about. Yeah, yeah. Very good. You're welcome. Here I am. Burr-down. Burr-naw.

Govily maim. Oh, wow. Doing basic research. God damn. This is a seven-part series, sir. The play had done so well that now they were turning it into a movie. What a great idea. Don't you agree?

Yeah, sure. And Lucille Ball could star in it. Yeah. Lucy wanted to play Mamie so badly, so badly. I want to be in this movie so bad. She was certain that if she got that role, it would be a commercial and critical success. And it opened up just a slew of other movies. movie roles. She and Desi had been divorced for almost 15 years at this point, but they still

talked on the phone regularly, and they still turned to each other for advice. So Lucy sent Desi the script and asked him what he thought of it, and he said, uh, don't do it. He kind of said the same thing that he'd said when she did the musical Wildcat. Yeah, he has good instincts. He has excellent instincts, and he was just kind of like, you know, this role, really isn't going to showcase your strengths. The role would require a lot of singing, a lot of dancing, and she wasn't a singer, and she wasn't a dancer. Yeah, she wasn't great at any of those things.

It's so funny. So her daughter was interviewed, obviously, about this, and Lucy Arnaz said, I don't know what she was thinking. Actually, she said that about Wildcat, but I'm going to apply that to this, too. What was she thinking? But, you know, Lucy thought that Desi was wrong. She got the role. She actually beat out Angela Lansbury for this role.

Wow. Which is a real slap in the face. Lucy was thrilled. But in 1972, right before they started filming, she was skiing in Colorado and she got hit by another skier. And she broke her right leg in four places. Oh, ouch. Yeah, that accident completely.

changed Lucy. Well, and at that age, that's going to heal. It's going to take a long time to heal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Broken in four places. That's ridiculous. She was 60 years old when it happened. And people who knew her said that until that point, she'd been just as adventurous as she'd always been. But the accident scared her. It messed with her head as much as it did with her body. It made her feel fragile and vulnerable. She had to be in a wheelchair for a while, which was a bit of a challenge for the TV show, but they made that work somehow. And they delayed shooting the movie until after she recovered. But Lucy never truly recovered.

She was a little unsure of herself. And that wasn't great because the character, Maim was supposed to be a woman in her 40s. And again, Lucy was 60. I know. Okay. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Why?

Why? I can't answer that. that. I don't know, Kristen. The movie came out in 1974, and critics were brutal. They didn't like her singing. They didn't like her dancing. And they wondered who the hell she thought she was fooling playing a woman in her 40s. Okay. So what comes to my mind instantly is a lot of these shows from the 90s and even 2000s that take place in high school. And the high schoolers look like they're 30 years old. Yes, it's bizarre.

Yeah. I was watching a clip of Breaking Bad the other day. And, you know, Walter White teaches chemistry in high school. And there was a kid in the front row. He looked like he was 38 years old. He probably was. It's just wild that Hollywood is just like, yes, this is definitely a high schooler. And there's plenty of actors and actresses that are in high school that could play the role of, going to sit here and pretend to take a test, you know?

Well, see, it's funny because in light of how we started this episode, I am way more okay with like, yeah, just get some older actors in for that role. That way you don't have actual kids on set. A 17-year-old? Even an 18-year-old. An 18-year-old can pass as a high schooler? Well, yes, because 18-year-olds are high schoolers. Some are, some aren't.

But this, this feels different. Anytime the camera was on Lucy, it looked like they'd smeared the lens with Vaseline. It's weird to watch. There are clips on YouTube. And at first I was like, I don't know what people mean because, you know, it's showing all these different shots and it looks fine. And then, yeah, the camera goes for Lucy. And all of a sudden it's a little fuzzy. So that's to kind of hide her age a little bit?

Yeah. A reporter for Newsweek wrote, there she stands. Her aging face practically a blur in the protective gauze of softer than soft focus. Her eyes misting. Her remarkably well-kept figure gift-wrapped in the fashions of the 20s, looking alternately like any one of the seven deadly sins and a decorator wing chair. Jesus. It's brutal. Brutal. Yeah. You know, it's funny today with the text.

We have Hollywood can deage faces. So, like, Martin Scorsese did it in the Irishman. So we had, like, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. And, of course, all those guys are super old. Yeah. But, like, the movie takes place over many years. So he used this de-aging process. It's kind of cool looking.

Sure. But one thing that's hilarious with it is they didn't use, like, a, stunt body. And so there's one scene where like Robert De Niro like beats this guy up. Uh-huh. And it's supposed to be when he's young. Uh-huh. It looks like an 80-year-old man trying to beat somebody up.

Yeah. It's really weird looking. Okay. Well, what did we watch? I feel like we watched some Sex in the City movie or something. We watched some sex in the city something. Sex in the City, the movie. Okay.

The first movie. And you were like, does the camera seem weird to you? And it was like around their neckline. And under their eyes. And under their eyes. It was like there was a blur, like a very slight blur, which I think if you watched it when it came out, you probably wouldn't notice it because TVs weren't that high-deaf. Right. But now that we have high-deaf TVs and they upscale all this stuff, that stuff really stands out.

Yes. Yeah. It honestly made me feel like. Oh, stars are just like us. They look way better than us. But still, even they need a little touch-up. They also age. Yes.

None of us gets out of it. Father time is undefeated, Kristen. The focus on her age really wore Lucy down. During what I'm sure was supposed to be like a fluffy little interview with Gene Siskel, she just broke down in tears. She said, with tears rolling down her face. So I look my age. What's wrong with that?

These stories make me feel wrong and old. I feel like I'm going to have a tough time with aging. Really? Yeah. Why do you say that? I don't know, just like existential dread. Yes. Of like, oh shit.

So not so much the vanity aspect. Yeah, I'm not a vain person at all. But it's just like thinking about how much time do I have left. Oh, God, I was thinking about that the other day. Oh, God. Now I'm falling down the rabbit hole. But it was like, I know. It's like, have I done enough with my life?

And like, well, how much more do I have? And oh, God, it's a terrible rabbit hole to go down. It is. Let's explore more, shall we? Okay. No, let's not. Let's go back to Lucille Ball. Okay.

That movie was supposed to be the thing that would, like, relaunch her movie career. I'm guessing it didn't. No, it marked the downfall of her career. Oh, gosh. That year, for the first time ever, her TV show fell out of the top 20. And CBS, which had always been her go-to network, you know, the place where she had been adored for 23 years, didn't really want her anymore. The executives had a super awkward conversation with her where they basically told her, hey, we don't want to pick up here. Lucy for another season, but we would love to have you back for some specials.

You're an icon. You're great, but we want less of you, a lot less of you. See, that would be another very tough thing to deal with. Yeah. Because so you're not only dealing with time and aging, but now you're dealing with, like, you're past your prime. Yeah. We're phasing you out.

Yes. So they let her go With the promise of having her back to do specials every now and again As a result Lucy found herself on the receiving end of Super Respectful Salutes She got a bunch of pats on the back Look at all you've done Your shows have aired all over the world

You're a comedy icon goodbye now Bye you did great Oh gosh You're really feeling this aren't you Okay, because I'm a big Simpsons fan, there's an episode where a guy at the Springfield power plant retires. And, you know, they throw him in this huge party. He's retiring. Yeah.

And they throw, you know, song and dance, blah, blah, blah. And the guy's like, please don't make me retire. This is the only thing I have going for me in my life. And it's like, yeah, that's instantly what I thought of. work gives people agency. Yeah. It like gives you a purpose. Yeah.

And I feel like it really gave Lucille Ball a purpose. And so when they're like, yeah, good job. Now go away. That's hard to handle. I think a lot of people in all lines of work, it's like they get their meaning from work. Or, you know, and especially in American society, what are you? What do you do? Like that's the question.

I'm an actress. Well, if you're not an actress anymore, I'm a small business center. I'm a single mother. What? I am a pig butter investor. So you're suggesting that if anyone is struggling to find meaning in their life, they just sign up for our Patreon.

$10 tier. That'll give you all the meaning you need. Existential crisis. solved. Mm-hmm. You can commiserate with other Big Butter investors on the Discord. Commiserate. No, everyone's thrilled.

They're all, they all have their purpose. Oh, yeah, you're right. Lucy didn't want to be told about what a great job she'd done. Past tense. Mm-hmm. She wanted to keep doing a great job. Present tense.

But that just wasn't in the cards. So she did those specials that CBS promised her. She did guest appearances. In 1977, her mom, Didi, died from a stroke, and Lucy took it really hard. A few weeks after Didi passed away, Lucy did a special called Lucy calls the president. And before she went on stage, Lucy broke down in front of the audience. And she said, I'm so sorry, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first taping I've ever done where my mother was not in the audience. Oh, yeah, she went to every taping.

Yeah. Didy had a long life. She did. That is. She really did. Because she was, what year did she die? 77. Gosh, so she was probably late 80s, early 90s when she died.

Yeah. Incredible. That's a long life. Yeah, it is. And man, talk about a wild life too. Mm-hmm. A lot of struggle. And then all of a sudden you get to be about 40 and your daughter becomes

an actress who's doing well enough to bring you out to California and put you in a house that she pays for. Yeah, and you get to go to all the shoots. Vivian Vance actually guest starred on that special, but she just had a stroke, so she had to be shot just from one side. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I mean, it's sad. Everybody's getting old. Hence the title of this episode. That's right.

Of an old-timey podcast. During rehearsals for that special, Vivian just seemed. kind of off to Lucy. And Lucy was like, hey, I want you to go see my doctor. I'm really worried about you. And of course, Lucy was very pushy because that's who she was. So Vivian was like, okay, okay, okay. And when Vivian came back from the doctor, she said,

your fucking doctor says I have cancer. Did she? She did. And she died two years later. Lucy was devastated by those losses. Her friends were dying. People she'd known and loved for years were no longer. around and Lucy was becoming more embarrassed by her appearance, so she became more private and more

closed off. In 1976, Desi published his memoir titled A Book. A Book. Okay, I do know that. Did you know he was planning to write a second book titled Another Book? That's so good. That's a great title for a book. I think it is so arrogant. It is, but that's him. Yeah, it is. It's fitting. Yeah. Wait, now, how do you know about this? Because you made me a curious history ho, and I started watching late-night interviews of Desi Arness.

Did you really? Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, he did one with, I think maybe it was Johnny Carson. Yeah. And he talked about his book. What did you think of him in those interviews? Good. Yeah.

It was good interview, yeah. But, man, his breathing. Yeah. Very labored breathing. So guessing he was kind of near in the end. So as you just pointed out, he went on the talk show circuit. And, you know, maybe some old stuff came up for Lucy because obviously Desi was asked about their marriage and he wrote about it. And the following year in 1977, Lucy agreed to be interviewed by Barbara Walters.

Oh. Have I talked about that interview before on the podcast? I don't think I have. that interview, I watched it a long time ago, and it just stuck in my brain because it's unlike hardly any other celebrity interview you would see. It's incredibly uncomfortable. Why? Oh, I'm going to read you a transcript. So just to set the scene, the interview took place at Lucy's home.

She was sitting outside with her husband, Gary, by her side, and Barbara Walters on the other side of the table. Okay, so you're picturing the three of them. Yep. And when Barbara brought up Desi, Lucy did what she always did. She gave credit where credit was due. She said that Desi had built their empire, never gotten enough credit for it. And that was because he was Cuban and he'd started out as a bongo player. And people didn't want to give him credit for being the genius that he was.

Yeah. Now I'm going to read you the part that has stuck in my head for years. Okay. You had the success. The marriage looked perfect. It was everything, and then it fell apart. That was his problem. And I heard you had devastated.

I couldn't understand it any more than, you know, for the same reason you're asking the question. It seemed like we had everything. I think people still don't understand it. I don't either. Oh, I think that's past. It's certainly passed. I think it's passed.

But we certainly did have everything and worked very hard to get it and two beautiful children, and what else can you ask for? And I think if Desi were here right now, he would agree that it was... But when we're talking about the marriage, you would say, I didn't make the same marriage mistake twice. This marriage is very different. This man is very different.

I'm cute. He's not a loser. I married a loser before. He could win, win high, high stakes. He could work very hard. He was brilliant. But he had to lose. This man's sweet.

I like getting up in the morning. So was the other man sweet, generous, overly generous. But he had to lose. He had to fail at everything that he built up. Everything he built, he had to break down. And he still claims he's the same way. And is this marriage itself very different? Yes, very different.

We have a home that is lived in. We had many houses before, but we didn't have a home. So that's a portion of that interview, and I'd like to get your reaction to that. I don't know. I don't like that they're, like, prodding so much into her marriage. and then Gary's sitting right there. And they're like, what about this guy? How's your marriage with this guy right here?

And he's like just sitting there. To me, it's so uncomfortable because it's real. You know, Lucy's not giving a canned PR answer. She's clearly very pained by it still. Oh, yeah. And that's, she can tell she's still very hurt by how her marriage with Desi fell apart. Yeah. and it's funny because, yeah, that's real, but also Gary's right there.

Exactly. And Barbara's not even like using his name. They're talking like he's not even there. They're interrupting him. I mean, he is just, he's nothing. Why is he even there? I don't know. I bet it was very weird and awkward.

Yeah, yeah. The thing I always think when I see that clip is, you know, obviously you can hear Lucy's anger toward Desi. And I just think like they'd been divorced for so long at that point. And I always think of that saying the opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference. And she's not the least bit indifferent toward Desi. Yeah.

Do you think she loved Gary Morton? Not like Desi. Yeah. She really loved Desi. Yeah. Gary feels like a safety net. I was about to say a safe bet. Yeah.

Safe bet safety net. Yeah. No, I think you're exactly right. Like he's not going to hurt her the way Desi hurt her. But part of that is like she's not going to let him in the way she let Desi in. Yes. And apparently he's got a dripping hog. So that's great.

That's just your say. I want to believe. A few years after this interview in 1982, Desi Jr. entered rehab. And this is the weirdest thing. There were family therapy sessions, which is obviously great. But it sounds like it was a group family therapy thing. So Lucy and everyone went and participated. And while they were there, other participants asked for her autograph. Oh, dear God. Time in place, dude. Time in place. Time and place, but also, how can you be vulnerable and do the work you need to do when you know that people, I mean, are just hanging on your every word for the wrong reasons, you know? So Lucy was in this new phase of her life. She was a grandmother now, thanks to her daughter, but being a grandma didn't come naturally to Lucy. She didn't seem to enjoy it.

Lucy missed working, but she kind of felt like she'd stayed on too long. that part of being a good performer is knowing when to get off the stage. And, you know, she felt like she'd screwed it up. So she tried to stay busy. She played a lot of backgammon, a lot of Scrabble. Oh, yeah, I hate Scrabble. I know you do. I fucking hate Scrabble.

I hate that game. She wore jogging suits everywhere. Oh, yeah. Because she felt like, you know, she'd spend her whole life in uncomfortable, glamorous clothes. Yeah. Yeah, at this point. Let's get comfy cozy. Exactly.

I'm all about it. Yes. You should see some of the weird shit I wear around here, folks. This was around the time when the accolades and Lifetime Achievement Awards started coming in. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it's one of those things. Yeah, great. Thank you very much.

This book, Ball of Fire, The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball. Singular Ball. Oh, yes. Yeah, one ball of fire, not two. Thank you. The writer described her reaction this way. He said, Grateful as Lucy was for such tributes,

they gave her the feeling that she was being eulogized rather than saluted. Yeah, like you're dead. Yeah. You're actually still alive. Yeah, we know you're on your way out. That would be a really... It wouldn't feel good. No, it's funny.

I think it wouldn't feel all the way bad, but it wouldn't feel all the way good either. It's a nice honor. Thank you very much. But yeah, I think just like... You're doing this before I croak. That's how it feels. As a human being, you would definitely feel like, yeah, it's like an ending and you don't want it to end.

You said that as if you were secretly an alien in a human body. As a human being, which I definitely am. I am definitely a human. People kept congratulating her on all she'd achieved. But, you know, she wanted to achieve more. And if we've learned anything from this series on Lucy O'Ball, it's that Lucy never gave up. So in the mid-80s, when everyone had counted her out,

Lucy took a risk. At 73 years old, she took a role that would challenge the way the public saw her. Oh? It was the lead role in a made-for-TV movie called Stone Pillow. Stone Pillow. Sounds uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. In it, Lucille Ball would play an unhoused woman living in New York City struggling.

It'd be a tearjerker. It'd be hard to watch. Lucille Ball? Yeah. This doesn't seem like a role for her at all. Yeah. How did she do? First off, you should know that it was not a thrill to make this movie.

They filmed for six weeks in New York City. And even though they filmed in the spring, it was weirdly hot that spring. and Lucy had to wear a ton of clothes. It was really hard on her body. And over the course of those six weeks, she lost 23 pounds. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But, you know, again, she figured it'd be worth it.

She figured that even if her audience didn't love seeing her in that role, surely the critics would. Lucy turned out to be dead wrong. When Stone Pillow aired, it did great in the ratings. People, you know, she was a big. name. People wanted to see this movie. Yeah. But wow, critics were brutal.

I mean, it's a made for TV movie. That is like Made for TV movie 101. They get a lot of ratings. But critics don't like made for TV movies. That's why it was made for TV. It was not good enough to go to theaters. Wow. Brutal.

I'm just saying, I mean, not. No, you're right. There are some made for TV movies that are fantastic. Yeah. Like Smart House. What? Great made for TV movie. What is Smart House?

Kristen. Norman, is this like Cats Don't Dance? Okay. Disney Channel original movie. Oh my God. About a house. It's about the dangers of AI, Kristen. That's what it's about.

What year did this come out? Like 1999, okay? They tried to warn us. Yes, they did. The house turns against the family. The house gets too smart. I get it. It does.

Uh-huh. And it tries to become their mom, because their mom, like, died or something. Oh, God. And she, like, takes the form of, um, Kathy Seagall. Okay. Plays, like, the human form of the house. And she tries to become their mom.

And it's, it's a stark warning. That's what that movie is. Okay. Your house is listening to you. Wake up, Sheeple. That's right. Well, that sounds like a really great movie. Stone Pillow wasn't.

A critic for the Boston Globe wrote, At a recent press conference, Ball said she gave up on television comedy because it was all filth. Sex, sex, sex, sex. But there aren't many situation comedies as obscene as a television movie that would exploit the plight of the homeless for the sake of the ratings envisioned from resurrecting a faded comedian's career. Oh! Oh! Oh, my goodness. Talk about ripping you a new one.

They ripped me three new ones. Three buttholes gone. In the blink of an eye. Good Lord. That is tough. Lucy wasn't sure what to do. I wish she could just, I know she wants to work. And that's where she like finds her meaning or whatever.

But part of me is like, man, I wish she could find new meaning in something else. Yeah. That's like, I don't know, a little less. judgmental. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's that thing. There's nothing more judgmental than Hollywood probably.

Right. Right. You know, the thing people always said was that she was surprisingly insecure, so talented, and yet insecure. And gosh, I do think she got very swept up in what other people thought of her and whether they approved and, you know, what are the ratings on this show. And do people like me? Oh, now people hate me. And that's just really dangerous when how you see yourself is completely dependent on how other people see you. Yes.

Rather than let other people down, you let yourself down. And it's detrimental, Kristen. Believe me. Yeah. Speaking from experience. Yeah. I mean, do you want to speak more about that? Not really.

That's a big, oh, okay. Very good, that's it. You know, it's like even if you keep acting and, you know, people are mean, but you still love acting, so you keep trying, you keep going for it, sure. But it's that sad thing of not having any love for yourself. Yeah. And I know that's something she worked on. You got to be your own number one fan. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Well, you know what's funny? is that was something she said a lot. I can't remember the exact phrasing, but she talked about how, and I think this is an example of maybe giving the advice that you wish you could really take yourself. Sure. She talked about like, you've got to try to think of yourself first and kind of dare to be selfish in some ways. Yeah. She's not sure what to do next. She talked it over with her husband, Gary, who was that random dude who wandered into that Barbara Walters interview. You know, no one knows. who that was. I guess they're married. Yeah, who knows. He's got a huge dick, apparently. She told him she felt like she was in the Lucy Ricardo trap. People only saw her as Lucy

Ricardo. She had to escape that. But Gary disagreed. He thought she should do another sitcom. Lean in to what had propelled her to stardom in the first place. Yeah, sure. I mean, she did other successful sitcoms. Try another one. So Lee Tannen, who was Gary's cousin, who offered that hilarious quote for last week's episode. We love him. He says that Gary was just chasing money with this idea. Two things can be true. What do you mean? What I mean is he can offer Lucy good advice, good practical advice, but at the same time also be chasing money, right? Well, but I think gosh, I feel bad because now I'm comparing to Desi again, but I think, you know, Desi was good at, like, yeah, let's get the money.

But the way we're going to get the money is if we do it the right way. And so that means all these other factors have to fall into place. It seems like Gary wasn't so worried about the other factors. It was, here's a guaranteed way to make some money. Okay. So he, like, talked first, asked questions later kind of guy. Yeah, maybe. So it's like, okay, here's an idea.

So Desi would have been like, here's an idea, but here's what we need to do to get there. And Gary Morton's more like, here's an idea. Yeah, let's go do that idea. Sure. Yeah. His heart's in the right place, but he just doesn't have that experience as he has. No, I'm saying his heart maybe isn't in the right place because it's only about what's going to bring in money. It's not necessarily what's a way that we can really rebuild, not rebuild your career, but we can figure out what's next for you, make it really successful.

And yeah, of course, that'll bring in money. Yeah, I see. They got to work making another sitcom. And this is in the 80s? Yeah. This is like a golden era of sitcoms. Uh-oh, what do you mean? Well, there were a lot of winners, but there are also a whole lot of losers in the sitcom world.

There were a ton of sitcoms. Okay, so I don't know anything about the sitcom, so I'm guessing it was a loser. Wow, very rude. Okay. So they started working on another sitcom. Not that they had to work too hard. Stone Pillow had drawn in a huge office. audience. So Lucy clearly still had her star power. Plus, this guy named Aaron Spelling had been

talking to them for years about doing a sitcom. Aaron Spelling? Okay, fun fact, Aaron Spelling was actually in an episode of I Love Lucy when he was a young actor, like before he went, yeah, to the other side of the camera. By the mid-80s, Aaron Spelling was an accomplished TV producer. He'd done Charlie's Angels, the loveboat, dynasty. It was perfect. With Aaron Spelling leading the way, how could they go wrong, Norman? Lucy O' Ball, Stars in Melrose Place. She, they grease up the camera lens. She's another 20-something.

What's those? Lucy began assembling a team of people whose work had helped make her who she was. She hired Mark Daniels, the guy who'd directed the first season of I Love Lucy. She hired Madeline Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr., the writing team that his... had seen her through, I love Lucy, the Lucy Desi Comedy Hour, the Lucy Show, and here's Lucy. This new show would be called Life with Lucy. Ring any bells? Yeah, that's appropriate.

Life with Lucy, okay. In it, she'd play a widowed grandmother who inherited 50% ownership of a hardware store when her husband died. Okay, you know how I had said that Jenny Lewis had a role in a Lucy show? Oh, this was Jenny Lewis. Yeah, because she would be a child actor during this time, yeah. Do you want to explain who Jenny Lewis is for, in case anyone else listens to this? Jenny Lewis was an accomplished child actress and then grew up to be an extremely successful musician with Riloh Kiley. And she did the Postal Service and, of course, her own solo career as Jenny Lewis.

And she's great. Norm's a huge fan. I am a big fan of Jenny Lewis, yeah. of her songs on my Spotify. Unlike all of Lucy's previous TV shows, Life with Lucy would not air on CBS. It would air on ABC.

Oh, no. What do you mean? Oh, no. I don't know. ABC was my least favorite of the... Oh, yeah. So, yeah, CBS, NBC, ABC. ABC, I felt like didn't have the good shows.

ABC had some rough, rough years for a long time. They did. They also ruined. Doug. Well, how do you ruin your shit? Disney bought Doug from Nickelodeon and then relaunched it on one Saturday morning. Okay. And it was called Disney's Doug. Right.

And it was fucking terrible. It is not canonical in any way. I don't accept it in the Doug universe. What happened? Did Doug get really whiny and anxious? Okay. No. He's always been that way, first of all.

So in the original Doug, Doug had a classmate named Connie, and she was a little bigger than the other girls in the class. Okay. But, you know, it was cool. It was like there was a lot of representation in the original Doug. Okay. And then in Disney's Doug, in literally the first episode, they reintroduced Connie, but now she's fucking super skinny.

And they're like, oh, Connie, you look great. And she's like, yeah, I just got back from Fat Camp. Oh. Yeah. That is a weird change. I hated Disney's Doug. Hated it, Kristen. I don't think you need to use past tense.

I think you still hate Disney's Doug. Yeah, I did try to rewatch it. That is a weird change. Like, we can't have a fat cartoon character? No, I tried to rewatch Disney's Doug recently and I just couldn't. Norm, yeah, because you're a grown man. Anyway, so back to ABC. Which famously ruined Doug.

I will say this about Disney's Doug. Please. The theme song's really fucking good. Possibly better than the original Doug. That's a very controversial take, but anyway. I'm mad just hearing it. You've offended me greatly. You don't give a shit.

All I do is listen to the original Doug soundtrack on a loop. It's a really good soundtrack, actually. I have it on my computer. You do? Yeah, I have the Doug soundtrack. Dear God. It's a really unique soundtrack because it's like a lot of like mouth noises. Are you fucking serious?

What do you mean? It's a lot of mouth noises. Like, bing, when do you listen to this? Like what's the occasion? I don't know. Every now and then I get curious about it. Okay.

So it's not like you're, I'm going to work out. So I'm going to get pumped up to the beepoo, beepoo, beep, bo. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to like, all right, got to get my pump on. This is more like, you know, I've got to do some deep thinking. Sure. People, beep, bo, people. Sure.

Okay, very good. Anyhow, ABC. ABC. Was so excited to land this show. Oh, they were pumped. They paid for 22 episodes, didn't even ask to see a pilot. That's a bad idea. No, because they knew it would be a hit, Norm.

And frankly, they needed a hit because NBC was kicking their asses. NBC had the coffee. Cosby show. Golden girls. That was huge. Well, hold on. Then the following year NBC launched the Golden Girls. Mm-hmm.

The executives at ABC were sweating in their little business suits because they had no idea that people would want to watch a TV show about a bunch of sassy, sarcastic women of a certain age. So they scheduled life with Lucy to run on the same night and same time slot as the Golden Girls. Soon enough, everyone would be like, what Golden Girls? I only watch Life with Lucy. Am I right? This is fascinating because Golden Girls was very unique in that it was about older women, like going out, dating dudes, having sex. And then you have Lucille Ball who is very, very against sex on TV.

Oh, that's funny. So it's like these two competing shows, which I'm sure. Life with Lucy was very different than the Golden Girls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Life with Lucy was a family show. Yeah, well, yeah, it's on ABC. It has Lucille Ball, who is, I guess, anti-sex on television. Sure.

So, but yeah, it's just funny to think about the Golden Girls, which was, like, very, like, open about all that stuff with older women. I love the Golden Girls. Yes. Yeah, it was a great show. And so was Life with Lucy, right? I don't think so. And that's why. These two shows battled it out in the ratings.

And I bet Golden Girls won. No. So, yeah, they got to work on the show. But as soon as they really dug in, Lucy got nervous. At the first table read, something didn't feel right. You know, Gary was the executive producer of the show. So she tried to talk to him about her concerns. She pointed out a few problems with the script.

And Gary, again, the show's executive producer said, Oh, wait a minute, I better read it. Oh, well, he sucks. Yeah. You shouldn't be an executive producer. No, he got that job because of his wife. Yeah. And, you know, it's one thing to get the job because of your wife.

It's so much worse to not even do the job. You're the executive producer and you're not even reading the scripts. I'd be embarrassed. You're not doing your wife any favors. She's doing you a huge favor and you're not doing her any. You got a support. your wife, and that means reading those damn scripts.

Gary. Gary. Everyone, that was a callback to teen mom. Teen mom, too, I believe. Yes, yes. We all know. Do you want to marry me? That's like one of my favorite scenes from teen mom. When Gary proposes to,

Amber, yeah. When Gary proposes to Amber, that's one of my favorite scenes. And he asks, do you want to marry me? Do you want to marry me? Very romantic. Yeah. Like 12 people are going to be losing their minds over this reference. And then there's the rest of them.

No, I bet the history hose are teen mom fans. Sure. Who wouldn't be? Yeah. Lucy needed someone whose judgment she could trust. Desi? Yeah. She talked to Desi.

And did he say this show is awful? Well, hang on. So, you know, by this point, they're friends. They talked a few times a week. the phone. And the thing that's kind of funny was everyone still always associated the two of them as a married couple, but by this point, both of their second marriages had lasted longer than their marriage to each other. Yeah. So, you know, they'd gotten to this point where they had this friendship and this connection. And I imagine a big part of that was they're getting older.

Friends were dying. They were changing as people. Desi's second wife, Edie had died of cancer. in 1985, and the following year, Desi Jr. had convinced Desi Sr. to go to rehab. Wow. Yeah, that was huge. And how old was Desi at this point? He was probably in his early 70s? No, late 60s. Late 60s. Yeah. All of his life, Desi had denied that he had a problem. All of his life, he'd said that he was in control. All of his life, he'd refused to air his dirty laundry. But now, in his late 60s, Desi Arnaz admitted to himself and to everyone that he had a problem. He started going to AA meetings. Later, their daughter, Lucy, said that the proudest moment of her entire life was when she went to an AA meeting with her dad

and watched him stand up in front of a group of people and say, My name is Desi, and I'm an alcoholic. Do you imagine going to an AA meeting and Desi Arnaz is sitting there? No. It'd be wild. It would be. Yeah. Well, and like I think it takes a lot of courage for someone like Desi Arnaz to go to an AA meeting like that.

For so many reasons. You have to be very vulnerable. You have to be more vulnerable than just like the average person. Absolutely. Because you're a huge celebrity. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be tough.

Yeah, and not to mention just like who he was as a person. Yeah, he was, you know, famously. stubborn. Sure. He didn't want to admit to any faults. I mean, very few people want to indulge in their mistakes of shame and share them everywhere. Interesting. So Desi was working on himself, and then he got some really bad news. He was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was dying. Yeah, well, he smoked, like his whole life, right? Oh, yeah. He decided not to do chemo. His diagnosis was hard on Desi Jr. and Little Lucy and the grandkids, and it was also hard on Lucy. Every night after rehearsals for life with Lucy, she and Desi talked on the phone. As his health deteriorated,

their daughter moved in with him to take care of him as he died. After a while, one of the nurses warned Lucy Arnaz that her dad didn't have much longer. So Lucy called her mom, and Lucy agreed, okay, I'm going to come see him. The thing I think that is kind of cute about this is, you know, Desi had been seen by his family. He'd been seen by some friends. But when he found out that Lucy was going to come see him, he was like, oh, Lucy can't see me like this.

You know, he wanted to kind of get a little spruced up. Yeah. Yeah, because after all those years, see, it was still Lucy, you know, still had to look good for Lucy. She drove the two hours to his home. And of course, you know, Desi wasn't doing well. He couldn't do much. Yeah.

But she came and sat by his bed, and little Lucy kept trying to bring them something to eat or drink, and they kept saying, no, we're fine, honey, we're fine. And so she kind of glanced at the TV and said, well, let me put something on. And she put on old episodes of the I Love Lucy show. And she left her parents in that room watching some of their favorite episodes from that TV show that had changed so much, not just for them, but for the world. that TV show that no company had wanted to sponsor, that TV show that no network had wanted to air, that TV show that had brought so much joy to so many people in so many countries

across so many generations, and in Desi's dying days, it brought them joy. Their daughter stood on the other side of that door and listened as her parents, watched their old show, and laughed. Finally, when it was time for her to leave, Desi asked Lucy, where are you going? And she said, I'm going home. And he said, you are home.

You're getting a little emotional. Yeah. You feel like you've been on a journey with Lucy. I do. Yeah. And Desi. Yeah. Sorry, Desi. God, story of his life. Yeah. Yeah, she cried the whole two hours home. Looking back on that moment When she decided to have her parents Watch those old reruns Said Corny as it gets

I'm sorry, yes, I thought it was right And it was because they laughed Around this same time period In the fall of 1986 Lucy's final sitcom Life with Lucy premiered And it bombed Doe

That first episode was just plain bad. Oh my God. Did you try to watch it? I did. I don't even know where to start. What was wrong with it, Kristen? It looks unpolished right from the start.

And it's not funny. So that's, I guess those are two things. But you know, okay, it's an unsettling thing to watch because, like, and I believe I started with the first episode because I wanted to know, okay, that pilot that just immediately Rightly bombed. What do we got? And they do the very 90s sitcom credits, but again, not really well done credits, just the credits. Then they cut to the inside of a house and the actor holds for too long before he delivers a line. And I know that doesn't sound like anything, but it's one of those things where it's like, It's like when you're watching a public speaker and they look nervous. Yeah. And you just feel like, nope, I'm not in good hands. Oh, God, I'm so uncomfortable. Yeah, when you're watching a TV show and it holds too long in one place and you're just very aware that no one's comfortable here.

Being not funny is also a very big problem for a sitcom. Well, and I didn't watch much. Do you know if it was filmed in front of a live studio audience? Yeah, all of her shows were. Okay. Lucy watched the premiere in her living room with Gary, and as soon as the show ended, she got up, went into her bedroom, and didn't come out for three days.

Oh, no. She was watching Kitchen Nightmares. Guess she wishes. And laying in bed. What was really hard for Lucy was that the critics, once again, were very cruel. The show sucked, and they knew it, and Lucy knew that, too. I mean, she really, there was no denying that. You can't deny it.

What she had an issue with was so many of them saying that she shouldn't be working at all. A critic for channels magazine, which I'm sure was a big thing at the time, but I'm never. Channels. It's about channels, okay? We can't be more clear. They wrote, that wasn't Lucy up on the screen. It was some elderly imposter, caked with makeup. She looked mummified.

Good. Okay. That's fucked up. That is a fucked up thing to say. Yeah. Calling a woman mummified is pretty cruel. Yeah. Because you know they wouldn't say that about a dude.

No. There's these old-ass dudes on TV all the time. No one's like, well, that guy looks like a mummy. I'm the only one saying that. Yeah. ABC canceled the show after eight episodes. It was a shock. to Lucy's system.

She'd never been canceled before. She was devastated by it. Yeah, you're right. Never been canceled. She'd never been canceled. How many TV stars can say that they've never been canceled? Not many. Yeah.

You always have a stinker or two every now. Well, yeah. I mean, I feel like that's just part of it. Part of TV, yeah. She hadn't experienced that. She gave a pep talk to the rest of the cast, particularly the young actors. telling them that, you know, this is just the start of your career. There are good things to come.

Jenny Lewis. And that's why Jenny Lewis is who she is today. And she was on the Golden Girls, too. Was she really? She was on one episode, yeah. Okay. She played a little shithead Girl Scout that, like, threatened Blanche. And that is why the Golden Girls was better than life with Lucy.

Yes. Real drama. Real Girl Scouts. Real assholes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Three weeks after the show was canceled on November 30th, 1986, little Lucy called her mom. They needed to talk about Desi.

Lucy said, I don't think he's going to be awake much longer. So if you want to say anything to him, now's a good time. She was right. Desi was closing in on the end of his life. He could barely speak. But Lucy Arnaz held the phone up to her dad's ear so that her parents could have one last talk. and she overheard her mom say something that in retrospect, she could now understand was what her mother had been mouthing to her father

in all of their silent home movies from the 50s. She was saying, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. And Desi mustered up all of his strength, and he said, I love you too, honey. Not long after that conversation, Desi slipped into a coma. Two days later, on December 2nd, 1986, he died. He was 69 years old. It wasn't until a while later that Lucy Arnaz realized that the last time her parents spoke to one another was on November 30th, their wedding anniversary.

Yeah. Fate. It would have been their 46th wedding anniversary. Lucy struggled with Desi's death. She attended his funeral, of course, but a lot of people didn't. While he was dying, Desi told his nurses that the fact that people weren't visiting him as he was dying meant that they'd all show up to his funeral. But that wasn't the case.

Hollywood didn't show up for him. It was just the people closest to him. The day after the funeral, Lucy received a Kennedy Center honor in Washington, D.C. And, you know, she was, of course, glad to receive the honor, but she was also deeply upset that Desi hadn't gotten the award with her. Because they did have a tradition of giving that out to couples sometimes. Yeah, and she had always said that, like, he played a big part in her success. Yeah, she felt that what they'd accomplished with I Love Lucy had been a joint effort. They should both be honored for it.

And yet, here she was getting all the credit. and she just thought that was wrong. That evening, she sat in the crowd, hearing kind things about all the work she'd done. And then the actor Robert Stack, who had been the lead in the untouchables, took the stage. He talked a little about Lucy, but he also talked about Desi. He said that Desi was the one who'd gotten him to take that role in the untouchables and had said, you know, we're going to make this TV show great. And then Robert said about Desi.

It wanted to be here tonight. I'd like to read something that he wrote. I love Lucy at just one mission to make people laugh. Lucy gave it a rare quality. She can perform the wildest, even the messiest physical comedy without losing her feminine appeal. The New York Times asked me to divide the credit for its success between the writers, the directors, and the cast.

I told them, give Lucy 90% of the credit and divide the other 10% among the rest of us. Desi concluded, Lucy was the show. Viv and Fred and I were just props. Damn good props, but props nevertheless. P.S., I Love Lucy, was never just a title. That's sweet. Yeah.

Yeah. It's really beautiful. As he read that speech, the camera cut to Lucy and you could see her getting choked up. I bet. Yeah, especially the part about give her 90%. A few years later, in 1988, Lucy had a stroke. She became more isolated. In March of 1989, her old friend Bob Hope asked her to go to the Oscars with him.

He was going to do a presentation on Oscar Winners of the Future, which sounds so stupid. But anyway, he wanted Lucy to be up there with him. And Lucy didn't want to go, but she was also like, well, how can I say no to Bob? Okay. Also, it was on the Golden Girls. Was he really? Bob Hope, he did a guest guest star. Did everyone do a guest spot on the Golden Girls?

A lot of people did. Except for Lucille Ball. No Lucille Ball. Bert Reynolds. George Clooney was one of my favorite. Quentin Tarantino. Mario Lopez, too, right? Mario Lopez.

All right. So Lucy was 77 years old, and it seemed like any time she tried to do anything publicly for the last several decades, she'd been just so criticized for being an old woman who looked old. Yeah. There was some kind of funny quote that I didn't write down, but it sounds like something that we would say to each other. Okay. It was like she was trying to, you know, figure out what to wear, and it was like a public appearance. It wasn't this one, but she was just like, God, I don't. I just hate myself.

Yeah, that sounds like something you would say to each other. But, you know, she figured, okay, I'll go. She put on a beautiful gown. She got all done up, and that night she and Bob Hope hit the stage, and the crowd went wild, and Lucy hammed it up. Yeah. It was so exciting. And that evening turned out to be her last hurrah.

For a few weeks after the Oscars, she felt kind of off, but then she started to feel real pain. And so she went to the hospital, and they discovered that she'd ruptured an aorta. Later, when she came out of surgery, her first words to her daughter were, wouldn't you know, this was the day I was going to get my hair done, which is such an old lady thing to say. It is. It sounds like something your grandma always says. Yes, yeah, those hair appointments. You don't miss them. There is a huge winter storm in Kansas City a couple years ago.

Well, more than a couple years ago. It was a long time ago. And, yeah, your grandma got in her little red Chevy. No, she tried to shovel her driveway. She tried to shovel her driveway. But didn't she get there? I think the story is that she, yeah, my grandmother. She got there and they were closed.

Yeah, because no one got out that. day. It was a huge snowstorm, but Florence had an emergency hair appointment. And she got there, and of course, of course, no one was there. Yeah. I miss Florence. She was wonderful. And her hair was always on point because you know what? It always looked good. Rain or shine, snowstorm or not, she was going to that hair appointment. When word got out that Lucille Ball was in the hospital, people went nuts. You know, the hospital was just inundated with flowers and letters and phone calls. The Hard Rock Cafe was visible from Lucy's hospital window.

The Hard Rock Cafe. Yeah, and so they put up a big sign that said, we love you, Lucy. Oh, that's cool. Man, I remember when I was a kid, my mom made it seem like Hard Rock Cafe was like the coolest fucking place in the world. What? Are you serious? We were in, I think we were in London. And my mom was like, we're going to the Hard Rock Cafe.

cafe today. And we were like, holy shit. Okay. It was like the coolest fucking restaurant in the world, apparently. Okay. That is so weird that you say that. It makes me wonder if for a certain generation of people, although your mom's not in my grandparents' generation, but like, so my grandparents, I went to London with them.

Yeah. And they insisted we go eat at the hard rock cafe. What the hell? Okay, well, here's what I bet. I bet my mom got that idea from her parents. Okay. Because my grandparents loved the hard rock cafe and always went to it. I still have one of my grandfather's hard rock cafe t-shirts.

Yes, your grandmother did not get rid of that. She sent that to you, a precious family heirloom, the hard rock cafe shirt. I don't know what it was about the hard rock cafe, but it was very popular. Because the food was never great, right? No. Very average. When I was like 19, I went to Washington, D.C. with some buddies for a Magic the Gathering tournament. And there was a hard rock cafe.

And I was like, oh, my God, let's go to the Hard Rock Cafe. And so we went, and yeah, it was not good at all. And it was super expensive. Okay, folks, let us know. Is this a generational thing? History wholework. Yeah. Was the Hard Rock Cafe a thing in your family?

I mean, I think for certain people it was. I guess so. Not for us. The most I went from the Hard Rock Cafe is a lovely sign that I can see from my hospital window. Don't send food. Just make a sign. It's super sweet they wrote, We Love You Lucy on the sign then. Yeah.

Yeah. Eventually everyone realized that Lucy needed an alias so that the people who really needed to reach her could do so. She chose the name Diane Belmont. Oh. Isn't that cool? That was her name she tried out in New York City. It didn't really work out. But Lucy stayed in the hospital for several days. She was getting better. I mean, certainly feeling better. But early on the morning of April 26, 1989, Lucy woke up, clutched her heart, and died. She was 77 years old. Her death was national news, international news really. Flags in L.A. were flown at half staff. People mourned all over the world for the legendary comedian. Lucy hadn't wanted a funeral, so her children had three memorials

for her instead. One in Santa Monica, one in Chicago, and one in New York. I think the kind of cool thing is, obviously, locations are different, but they held each one of those memorials on a Monday night at 9 p.m. When I Love Lucy aired. Yeah. Lucy's ashes were eventually taken, along with her mothers, to Lakeview Cemetery in Jamestown, New York.

James Town. Yeah. Where we started. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's where everyone was buried. Lucy Arnaz talked about how initially D.D. and Lucy had been in an L.A. cemetery. I think it was Forest Lawn.

And she went there to pay her respects one day. And she was just like, I feel nothing. I feel nothing here. It doesn't feel special. So she talked to her family and she was like, hey, how would everyone feel if I took mom and grandma to New York? back to Jamestown. And everyone was like, hell yeah. And Lucy's little brother, Fred, who obviously was not a little boy anymore, was like, yeah, save me a spot.

So it's kind of cool. It's kind of cool. It was the whole family kind of back together again. And of course, Jamestown loves Lucy. Oh, I bet. I bet. She's the hero of Jamestown. Lucille Ball was a comedy legend, a trailblazer.

and a gifted actress. Her success was a testament to the power of persistence and hard work, and her insistence that Desi get the credit he deserved was a testament not just to her class, but to her allergy to bullshit. Her timeless physical comedy won her fans all over the world across multiple generations. And that is the story of Lucille Ball. Is it bad that I broke down crying twice in this episode? No, you had me tearing up. Really? Okay. Incredible job, Kristen.

Thanks. Yeah, that was fantastic. Oh, I tell you what, I loved researching her. Somebody mentioned they were like re-listening to Let's Go to Court. Yeah. And they were like, man, Kristen brings up Lucille Ball a lot in this podcast. I had no idea. That's so funny to me that I had mentioned.

I mentioned her before. I thought my obsession with Lucille Ball was not something that I said at all. It was in your subconscious. You've always been obsessed with Lucille Ball. So like when you had to pick your next topic for an old-timey podcast, you could think of no one better. And I'm so glad you did it. I'm so glad to, I think, I don't know, I think certain people pop into your mind for a reason. And I think especially at this point in my life, they're about. been aspects of her story that have just like come to me at the right time. There's so much in her story about, you know, transitioning and finding your new thing and forgiveness and also how not to behave, too, frankly. But, you know, to me, that's what makes it interesting, is that she was complicated, as we all are. Yes. And, you know, and that. And I think that's what's been great about this series is, yeah, Lucille Ball was not just the star of I Love Lucy.

Right, right. She was so much more. Yeah. Well, and her relationship with Desi was so complicated. Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's just so interesting to explore that and see where they started and where they ended here. Yeah.

I love Lucy. Like I said earlier in the episode, I didn't think I would have any interest in Lucille Ball. You thought you were going to fall asleep every episode. You were like, how many times can I bring up Doug to spice this thing up? Hey, I bring up Doug in many conversations, okay? Not just to spice things up. Sometimes to tone them down. Sometimes to kill the move.

I'm not having sex tonight. Hey, let's talk about Doug. Let's talk about what Disney did to Doug. That's right. Yeah, like I said, it just gives me a new appreciation for everything that she was involved in. Yeah. Everything Desi did, too. Despite all of his flaws, the dude was business cat.

Well, it's interesting. He talked about how, oh gosh, I forgot to, I didn't write this down, but he said something about, you know, moderation is one of the great virtues. and I never had it. He was just like, when I worked, I worked too hard. When I played, I played too hard. When I drank, I drank too much. You know, he just, it wasn't until much, much, much later in his life that he started to try to get a handle on that. Yeah.

Yeah. What's wrong? My drinking bird is leaking. Huh. There's a puddle of water over here, folks. Oh no. It looks like your drinking bird pissed all over the place. It does like he pissed everywhere.

What a mess. You're here to entertain drinking bird, not make a mess. Folks on the $10 level can see this drinking bird pissing all over my shelf. Wow. That came from IKEA, sir. That's quality particle board. Yeah, I'm going to have to kind of...

Make some repairs. I think I will. Put a diaper on it. Yeah, he's... Well, he was squeaking her. earlier too. Did you hear that squeak? I did. He was crying for help, I think, because he's pissing everywhere. Anyway, anything else you want to add? God, I don't think so. I feel like I've said everything I can say. I think so. Someone asked, what's your favorite fun fact that you haven't

included? And I was like, wow, bolded someone to assume I haven't included anything. No, actually, you want to know something I didn't include? What's that? Okay, I talked about, in an earlier episode about Carol Lombard who died in the plane crash. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Her mother had always told Lucy that the combination of the letters, AR, right next to each other, was lucky. Lucy definitely believed that every character she played, Lucy Ricardo, Lucy Carmichael, Lucy Carter always had the AR. And someone asked her once like, well, Lucille Ball has done pretty well for you.

That doesn't have an AR in it. And she said, no, no, no. I became a big success when my name was Lucy Arnaz. Arnaz, yeah. I always thought that was kind of cool. And I was like, Kristen Caruso. Wow. Wow.

It's all about that name. Yep, yep. And it's because my father is David Caruso, star of C. Yes, I, Miami. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe I can get my dad on the podcast. Your dad would be a very interesting edition. My actual dad or David Caruso?

Well, you don't know David Caruso. So, yeah, I was thinking maybe we'd have your actual dad. And we'd have to turn off the cameras, obviously, because then people would know for sure we were full of shit. Yeah. Everyone, thank you so much. You know, for those of you who have been with us from the beginning of this series, thank you. Thanks for sticking around. Yeah.

Yeah, it's been fun. And, hey, new topic next week. Ooh. It's Normie's turn. And boy, oh, boy, is it very different from Lucille Ball. It sure is. Think of kind of the polar opposite, folks, and that's what you're going to get. Kristen, I have a question for you.

Okay. So we have our history hosts. Yeah. And they love an old-timey podcast. Who doesn't? But what if they want to know about the people behind the microphone? phones. What if they want to know more about you, Kristen? What's the best way to follow you? Oh, that's very sweet. I'm on Instagram at Kristen Pitts-Keruso. Norm's on Instagram at Gaming

Historian. I'm thinking now that I actually have some more free time, I might try to go and post some of these clips from I Love Lucy that I've talked about in the series, just because they're really cool to see. And if you don't want to like pay for a subscription or whatever, uh-oh, I guess I'm admitting to wrongdoing. Don't worry. Don't ask any questions. Somehow we'll get... I don't need Paramount suing an old-timey podcast.

Be careful. Mm, yes, money. We've already had Major League Baseball try to sue us. That's true. That was many years ago, though, and I'm ready to hurt again. That's when I should have learned the meaning of Terry a new one. Yeah. And Major League Baseball threatened to sue us.

That was scary as shit. It's a fun story. I was like, yes, sir, whatever you need, sir, I'll do whatever you want. Everyone, that was for a gaming historian episode that Norm did. I'll tell the story in my tell-all episode of an old-timey podcast. You've promised a lot to the people. Someone needs to make a checklist of everything I promised, you know. Kristen, you know what they say about history hoes.

We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the book, Love Lucy. by Lucio Ball, the Plot Thicken's podcast from Turner Classic Movies, the documentary Lucy and Desi, the book The Life of Lucille Ball by Kathleen Brady, and the book Ball of Fire by Stefan Canfer. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an out-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at

old-timey podcast and follow us individually on Instagram at Kristen Pitts Caruso and gaming historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio!