Lucille Ball singing

Because she wanted to prove in every way that she was equal to Desi Arnaz. Bea Arthur had to talk her out of pulling out a drum and banging on it while singing "We Need A Little Christmas."

Who would have done the singing voice? Bea Arthur? Kathleen Turner?

They should have asked Lucie Arnaz to do the singing voice

^^^ Didn't mean to list Bea Arthur.

Gary talked her out of it.

Because she thought that's how Mame should sound. Mame was a heavy drinker and smoker, so according to Lucy, making her sound like Julie Andrews didn't make any sense.

She was going for realism. Shame she didn't go all the way and make Mame more gritty and modern day like Cabaret.

I personally hate the fact that her looks got knocked in this movie. She looks sensational. Lucy was a very attractive woman up until the early 1980's when she started overdoing it with the makeup and wigs. But for many years, she was a knockout. She must have had a great health regimen. And that gravely voice was hot. Her post coital moans must have curled Gary's toes.

Like most celebrities of her era, she aged gracefully and dignity.

I'd watch this over 'Auntie Mame' any day.

R7 & R8: You are both psychotic, of course. The film was absolute crap---not camp enough to be funny, not competent enough to be entertaining. She looksed like hell and could never sing---the early "I Love Lucy" epsiodes are good examples. Even as a small child watchibgf ILL reurns , I could tell she couldn't sing.

OP, you left out the question mark. The thread should be "Lucille Ball singing?"

R9 I am psychotic and love it! The film is crap, you're right, but I've loved it since I was a kid.

[quote] Lucy was a very attractive woman up until the early 1980's

True, but only on screen. I know several people who had seen her in person, as early as the 1950's, and all said her face was extremely wrinkled. It was the fine-line type, so it could be covered up for TV and movies.

Lisa Kirk who did considerable dubbing of Rosalind Russell in "Gypsy" (1962) was approached about dubbing for Lucy and it probably would have worked well enough. However, Lucy was insistent that her fans wanted to hear her sing. They're still waiting.

Apparently both Lisa Kirk and Rose Marie were approached to dub Lucy but she said she wanted her own voice on screen. If you listen to the soundtrack and the movie vocals, they definitely pieced together numerous takes so she would sound better. Lucy's not that bad from the title song on. The first half, where she has to act like young Lucy Ricardo, is dreadful.

R9 = Angela Lansbury

[quote] Lisa Kirk who did considerable dubbing of Rosalind Russell in "Gypsy" (1962)

Miss Russell did her own singing, thank you. Lisa Kirk just added in a few high notes in 2 spots.

According to IMDb:" It was originally planned to have Lucille Ball's singing voice dubbed if her vocals were not good enough to use in the film. Alternate vocals were rumored to have been recorded by Lisa Kirk, but at any rate Ball intervened and her vocals (a point of contention for many critics) were ultimately used."

Lucy should have dubbed Streisand's vocals in Hello Dolly.

Angela needs to fucking get over it because she never would have gotten the role. Something for Everyone was her screen test for Mame and she flunked it. That was with Hal Prince directing, Hugh Wheeler script and Florence Klotz costumes. She's quite funny but isn't a Silver Screen leading lady. There is a definite lack of photogenic quality. She also never seems especially warm with kids. A primary point is how Mame gets all warm and fuzzy with Young Patrick and I don't know if Lansbury was ever capable of that onscreen. Her relationship with her daughter in Something is a howl, however.

[quote]True, but only on screen. I know several people who had seen her in person, as early as the 1950's, and all said her face was extremely wrinkled.

You can see it in all of the I Love Lucy episodes. The black and white filming hides how much foundation Lucy is using, but there are plenty of episodes where you can see how wrinkled her face is. And you can begin to hear the damage of her voice from smoking in some scenes, she attempts to put power behind her voice and she sounds very hoarse. The voice isn't as flexible as it used to be.

"Lisa Kirk's only feature film work was done behind-the-scenes, dubbing all of Rosalind Russell's singing in Gypsy (except for ""Mr. Goldstone" and the first half of "Rose's Turn")"

R19: Angela could give a shit at this point. And R20 is right, Lucy had ruined her face in the 50s and certaily whatever voice she ever had.

R22, that's bullshit. Angela still talks about her disappointment with not getting Mame any chance she can.

Question time!

Who would have made a better Mame in 1974?

[quote]Who would have made a better Mame in 1974?

Sandy Duncan

Even if Lucy's face was ruined, even in soft focus, she was better looking on screen than Angie. Sorry but she had a face made for the theater, just like Verdon, Merman, Rivera, LuPone, etc.

Hate me, but I'm tired of these Lucy/Mame threads. Get over it.

I wasn't around back then, but Mame had to have looked so cornball and old-fashioned in 1974. In the era of films like Godfather, Chinatown and the Exorcist, Mame must've seemed like such a relic from another era. Were people in 1974 asking "why the fuck was this even made?"

Would Madeline Kahn have worked as Mame? She was Gooch until Lucy got her fired.

[quote]I personally hate the fact that her looks got knocked in this movie. She looks sensational.

She looked like an old woman who had been drinking and smoking like a motherfucker for 1000 years.

R29 Yes that is a big reason the film didn't work. The era of movie musicals was over, unless it was a film like Cabaret, which are few and far between.

In 1974, even though it would have never happened, Ann Margret as Mame, Madeline Kahn as Vera (not Gooch) and I don't know, Vicki Lawrence as Gooch. Maybe even Rita Moreno as Vera. But making Mame younger adds something new to the idea of a party girl being ennobled by a child. Madeline did something of Vera in At Long Last Love and she might have been marvelous.

Doris Day was a more likely candidate.

R28, that's the reason Mame hasn't aged that badly because it was so old fashioned when it came out.

Whoops I meant to reply to R28 in R31

I like Day's voice, but she was no madcap.

I know Bedknobs and Broomsticks wasn’t a big hit but wasn’t it well reviewed.? Angela didn’t play her because she sucked at the audition? Lucy owned the rights of course she was going to play the part. I love Bea but was she even making guest appearances on All in the Family yet?

[quote] Who would have made a better Mame in 1974?

Paul Lynde.

R35 Maude got her own show in 1972. Bea was a bonafide TV star by 1974.

Angela's screen test for Mame was Bedknobs and Broomsticks as Mary Poppins was Julie Andrew's for Sound of Music. Let's just say it turned out as well as Carol Channing's screen test for Hello Dolly.

Angela on screen has little warmth. She would have been a better Vera.

R36 That would have been wonderful. An Uncle Mame!

Bea's husband, Gene Saks, was the film's director.

What about Ethel Merman as Mame?

R38 It would have been amazing to have Channing and Mathau playing off one another.

I think Bea would have made a great Mame. I also would have liked Ann-Margret or even Julie Andrews.

Or...how about Esther Rolle?

Not Esther Rolle -Teresa Merritt, or Nell Carter.

Diahann Carroll

I think Lucy expected all the fans of her show to come out and support Mame. She even devoted an entire miserable episode to promoting the movie, as much as she could get away with.

Lucy thought that old fashioned musicals would sell on the big screen. There was success with Oliver, Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret, so she just naturally thought Mame would follow suit. However, her TV audience didn't show up at the box office and the younger generation preferred movies like Tommy, which came out the following year. But it wasn't until a few years later that Broadway struck gold with a movie musical when Grease premiered and proved that the right material could produce a blockbuster.

Lucy wanted to play Rizzo, but Gary...

They must've been hauling Vaseline to the set by the barrel to smear on that camera lens

It probably should have been either Doris Day or Debbie Reynolds who played Mame for the movie musical. I think Julie Andrews could have handled it as well. But Lucy had the movie rights.

For the entire movie her close ups were done in soft-focus, which was annoying. None of her movies were any good as far as I was concerned (even as a little boy). To be honest, I was never a fan of hers really. I did really like the character she played in I Love Lucy, she (the character) had warmth and was caring and comical (the actress I understand was none of those things) and I thought her performance was great in that show, but never liked anything she did after that. Mame was my favorite movie as a kid - I still have the DVD and Blue Ray and purchased it on youtube - watch it frequently, so perhaps I'm biased as I already loved Roselyn Russel in the role (which I understand Bea hated). IDK, in general I think she's yet another over rated American actress because she had one big successful role.

Stage Door, the one she was mean to Henry Fonda, she did a classic Marx Brothers movie, couple of good film noirs ( one she plays a secretary turn sleuth, there are fans of The Long Long Trailer and The James Mason one,Dance Girl Dance and even though she is too old for the role zyours Mine and Ours is very entertaining.

[quote]IDK, in general I think she's yet another over rated American actress because she had one big successful role.

Lucille Ball is widely regarded as the greatest comedic actress of the 20th century.

R52: By whom? People who watched reruns of ILL as children? Her movie career wasn't that great and the kind of character she was creating as early as Stage Door was basically what she did in ILL and it was a second rate version of Jean Harlow.

R53, I see Angela has found her way here. So glad dementia hasn't taken your ability to type in Mame in Google.

[quote] the kind of character she was creating as early as Stage Door was basically what she did in ILL

WTF???

We're in Matt Anscher territory now. Just spouting insane declarations aloud does not make them true.

r53 by pretty much every critic and everybody who has ever done comedy. Female comedians always cite Lucille Ball as being inspiring to them.

[quote]Who would have done the singing voice? Bea Arthur? Kathleen Turner?

The only person I can think of who would have been a good vocal match for Lucy was Sen. Everett Dirksen, who did have a brief recording career, but he died in 1969.

[quote]Lisa Kirk who did considerable dubbing of Rosalind Russell in "Gypsy" (1962) // Miss Russell did her own singing, thank you. Lisa Kirk just added in a few high notes in 2 spots.

R16 obviously got his information from Rosalind Russell's autobiography, in which she claimed she did her own singing. Technically, she was right. She did record all the songs, but the results were mostly unusable, and Lisa Kirk was brought in. In the finished movie, Roz does her own singing on "Mr. Goldstone" and on "Rose's Turn," up until "I had a dream . . . " She also did her own singing on "Together Wherever We Go," but that number was cut. There's a story that Ethel Merman got hold of Roz's "Gypsy" recording of the score and played it at parties to amuse her guests. There was a reissue of the soundtrack some years back, with bonus tracks of Roz's versions of the songs, most of which were pretty dire.

[quote]Lucille Ball singing

Oxymoron

She was generally dubbed in movies, of course, but Lucille Ball did sing, post-I Love Lucy, in the Broadway musical "Wildcat," in which she introduced the song "Hey, Look Me Over," which she performs here with Paula Stewart. "Wildcat" was in 1960. By the time she did "Mame," her voice had dropped about an octave.

I think the fact that Will & Grace just did an homage episode to I Love Lucy pretty much proves that Lucille Ball was one of the greatest comedic talents of the 20th Century. I don't know if it's still true, but at one point ILL was playing somewhere in the world 24 hours a day. Lucille Ball was considered the Queen of Comedy by Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore, among others.

She so desperately wanted to be a musical comedy star, but never had the singing voice.

[quote]Who would have done the singing voice? Bea Arthur? Kathleen Turner?

Wilfred Brimley

Pauline Kael said that it sounded like Dick Cavett dubbed Lucy.

[qoute] Who would have made a better Mame in 1974?

Spitballing here but Maggie Smith (though Travels With My Aunt voided that possibility), Shirley Jones (her tv work would work against her as well as her coloratura voice), Samantha Eggar (not a big enough name), Anne Bancroft (no singer but had the verve), Shirley MacLaine (kooky, not madcap), Julie Andrews (uh, no), Lauren Bacall (ditto Bancroft), Geraldine Page (actually...), or — no joke — Jo Anne Worley (would have needed a vey strong director).

Lansbury's not madcap either.

If Lansbury was so wrong for role, why was she such a huge success in it?

Because tastes changed. In the '40s a professional voice was the standard, no matter how little it sounded like the actors. By the '70s realism trumped vocal ability. Dubbing was mostly out of style by then.

The musical Mame premiered in 1966. What do the 40s have to do with it?

Because the smoking honed my voice to perfection.

Gary, light me another Philip Morris will ya?

Answering OP's question, R68.

Lansbury was always a huge success in Mame.

She tried a revival in the '80s which bombed hard.

Lisa Kirk did also all of Roz's singing for GYPSY. The originals are on YouTube.

Susan Hayward would've worked, but Lucy was perfect.

There was nothing wrong with Lucy's portrayal other than some questionable vocals. The problem was that the movie tried to pass itself off as an old fashioned movie musical and it was old fashioned in that era. The movie would have bombed regardless of who was cast in the lead.

It needed a more modern, gritty approach.

For the hundreth time Lucy did not have the rights to "Mame". Warner Bros and ABC did and they paid at the time a whopping $3 million for it.

Lucy put on some funding for it.

I disagree, [R74]. Set aside the vocals and you still have the problem that Lucy was simply too old for the role. She was game, but her performance was stilted and stiff. As a physical comedian she was prepared to DO just about anything, but this role only had one or two bits of physical comedy -It was mostly verbal sparring.

The director has to take a huge part of the blame (I know he had no choice about Lucy) because for all the budget and sets the film looks like a filmed stage play, or something made for television. "It's Today" was so cramped -It couldn't move physically or soar vocally, so it just sat there and laid an egg.

[quote]Lucy put on some funding for it.

She bought the Vaseline.

How much money was spent producing the soundtrack and how many did they sell?

Lucy was totally okay (and that's the word, not good, not bad) when she went to the Plantation, and on. She was able to play closer to her real age after that so she wasn't so out of place as she was in the early portions of the movie. She's actually good in the title number and her scenes where she meets Beau's family and the Upsons are funny.

[quote]Lansbury was always a huge success in Mame. She tried a revival in the '80s which bombed hard.

That's been explained. Lansbury was on a tour of Mame. The producers got greedy and brought it into New York in the middle of Summer without any publicity. So you had a flimsy set designed for tour in a huge Broadway house with no advance sale or publicity. Had they taken the time to properly bring the show in after Labory Day, rebuild the set, get advanced sales and publicity, they may have had more success.

She was awful in all of it. She was too old---her movement was too stiff. She wasn't madcap. Roz Russell seemed a little old, too, but she was able to produce the cross between madcap and patrician upbringing. Lucy was just too common for that. The material was dated, but someone 10-20 years younger could have breathed some life into it. Julie Andrews could have pulled it off. the idea that someone who recommend that non-singing ham Geraldine Page is beyond me.

Yes, R81, so maybe it wasn’t Lansbury who made the new and lavish original by Herman hot off HD a success.

"Angela's screen test for Mame was Bedknobs and Broomsticks as Mary Poppins was Julie Andrew's for Sound of Music."

Not really, r38. Julie was filming SoM before Mary Poppins was even released.

Anyway, here's early Lucy singing...

Broadway 1966 was the last gasp for something like Mame. By 1974 it was not going to be a hit no matter who was cast.

Even if Ball hadn’t been cast it’s unlikely they would’ve gone for Lansbury.

And presumptuous of her to think she owns the role. Ginger Rogers and Susan Hayward both played it before the film was made and had been actual leading ladies with names. There was really more of a chance of one of them being cast than Lansbury. (Well, maybe not Hayward with her illness)

Maggie Smith would’ve made more sense than Lansbury. She could play young and old. Madcap and refined. Did TWMA just before it.

Lansbury would’ve just done her usual routine.

Stop with the Maggie Smith suggestion. She can't sing a ballad like "If He Walked Into My Life."

Nor could Lansbury.

That’s what dubbing’s for.

Forbidden Broadway's take on the 80s Mame revival

Did La Cage steal all our fire

And their queeny choir upstage Anne Francine?

Should I walked out on it all

And let Lucille Ball wreck the show again?

Right, r86, Ginger...

Breezing...

WHET the Punchy Players?

Billy West as an ailing Lucille Ball.

I think the last word on Lucy's singing in "Mame" was provided by Catherine O'Hara on SCTV.

Ginger Rogers was the same age as Lucy and way past any box office prime. And Susan Hayward was no spring chicken as well as almost dead. OTOH, she could reprise that awful tree song from Valley of the Dolls.

Ginger Rogers looked freakish by the time Mame was made, like a real-life Baby Jane.

Ginger put the grease in greasepaint!

On this Carson show she seems to be at the height of her fame (in her own mind). She is bratty, rude and imperious. You can totally believe the war stories guest stars on her shows recounted.

Even as a tot I knew "Here's Lucy" was hackneyed and unfunny. Then Mame was a bomb. Her kids' careers went nowhere.

When I was a kid in the 80s I loved I Love Lucy. It was on in the afternoons and I would be in hysterics. Then I would see 1980s Lucille Ball on some talk show or interview and I could not believe that this hard-boiled, gruff woman with the heavy gravelly smokers' voice was the same person as Lucy Ricardo.

Here she is at the Oscars.

Why didn't Angela do Mame in London? Is this when she brought her kids to Ireland to get away from the Manson family?

I Love Lucy really was a fantastically funny show. Nothing she did after that ever lived up to it.

The early Lucy Show seasons were pretty good, but Lucy just seemed to lose it after a while. Here's Lucy was dreadful, she was just going through the motions and collecting a check because she really had nothing going on at home. She had no interests, she didn't really travel, work was her life. After Here's Lucy ended she was fairly depressed for the rest of her life, holed up in her house playing backgammon and drinking and smoking 24 hours a day.

I Love Lucy hold up beautifully. Vitameatagegamin is still one of the funniest fucking things that's ever been on television.

Lucy's appearance with Bob Hope at the 1989 Academy Awards (photo at R100) was her final public appearance. She died four weeks later.

[quote] Because she thought that's how Mame should sound. Mame was a heavy drinker and smoker, so according to Lucy, making her sound like Julie Andrews didn't make any sense.

Yes, Lucy [italic]could[/italic] have made her Mame sound like Julie Andrews had she wanted to do so. Everyone knew that!

Kristie Alley before she was famous played Password with Lucy and said she was drunk. I think she was also drunk in the above clip on the Carson show.

I have never cared for Lucille Ball. She seemed like a gravel voiced drunk and smoker with a caustic personality, and rather rigid standards. As for her wrinkles. If she is a natural redhead, her skin is probably very delicate and wrinkles easily - not much can be done. She is a pretty woman and kept a slender figure for most of her life. I hated I Love Lucy as a kid.

Lucy was a natural brunette, she dyed her hair red.

Lucy with the love of her life.

No, not Desi. Unfiltered Philip Morris.

Technicolor Tessie was gorgeous...

r110 She only loved them as long as they were sponsoring her show.

Lucy smoked Philip Morrises right till the end, there are pics of her with the pack in her hand.

[quote]Lucy smoked Philip Morrises right till the end, there are pics of her with the pack in her hand.

She was probably given a lifetime supply when Phillip Morris was her sponsor.

Desi said they couldn't name the contest "Lucky Bucks" because of Lucky Strikes so they had to go with "Bonus Bucks".

First Lucy was a great beauty. It helps her comedy so well because you don't think of beautiful girls doing slapstick. The sad story of Lucy's film career is that there is not one film that defines Lucy's great talents. By the time she made " Yours, Mine, and Ours" - a movie that I love to this day-she was already Lucy. But in films like " The Big Street" " The Facts of Life" , and even " Critic's Choice" and the one with William Holden she shows her range but no one was looking. By the time she made " Mame" she was looking for that one film. And it's horrible. Not even Bea can bring up the energy level. When I see Mame Dennis I see Russell. She had the right timing and pathos. Pity she couldn't sing either. Lucy doesn't have the opium den, censored books, bootleg broad quality about her. Carol Channing would have made an excellent Mame!

Well, this is about as close as she got, r116.

Channing might carry off the party scenes but not the rest. Lucy was never a great beauty---she had a cheap sort of glamour but that was about it. Yeah, I know she was a model but that was back when model=whore. She was never a great actress. She settled into being a sitcom actress, even in her later movies. Nothing wrong with that but she wasn't a great actress. Any number of her contemporaries and near contemporaries from the world of Bs were better actors: Ann Sothern (who could actually sing), Eve Arden, Donna Reed, Ann Sheridan. The list goes on......

Liv Ullmann was born to be Mame!!

There was a big push for Judy Garland at one point (for the stage show, she was dead by the time of the film). But if we're exploring what-might-have-beens, Judy in the film would have been fantastic. She didn't have the stamina for a Broadway run, but she could have made one helluva film!

[quote]Any number of her contemporaries and near contemporaries from the world of Bs were better actors:

Nobody was a better comedic actress.

Ann Sheridan could also sing, r118.

[quote] If she is a natural redhead,

She wasn't.

Lucy with her real hair color, and with the golden-apricot dye that became her signature look.

I cannot read this entire thread because life is too short to be wasted on this piece of shit show and movie. However, OP is incorrect that Lucy was always dubbed in her movies. She was dubbed Fancy Pants by Annette Warren. In Dubarry was a Lady, Martha Mears dubbed some of Lucy's singing, but not all of it. Lucy sang part of it. In Dance Girl Dance, Lucy did all of her own singing. And, of course, she start on Broadway in the musical Wildcat.

By the time the movie Mame came along, her vocal cords were undoubtedly caked in tar and nicotine. She obviously couldn't sing the songs well herself. It is equally easy to conclude that no other singer could credibly sound like her while still singing well. So why not just let her sing them badly? Or just not make a movie of this stupid show.

[quote]I cannot read this entire thread because life is too short to be wasted on this piece of shit show and movie.

What a co-incidence, that's how we all feel about your post.

[R126], you're the kind of person who keeps me coming back to this place. :)

And trying to have it both ways. She always sucked as a singer. Her voice, such as it was gave out in Wildcat.

"I Love Lucy really was a fantastically funny show."

If you've ever watched a marathon of them there were a lot of duds.

SO many sitcoms have directly ripped off from I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show over the decades.

Remember the Will and Grace where Grace and Karen get trapped in the shower? Lucy and Viv did that first.

ILL was loaded with recycled gags---the chocolate factory, even Vita-whatever and the same tired husband and wife plots that probably went back to vaudeville. This why nostalgia is a corruption of history by making history your personal history as opposed to what's actually real. Most of the 50s sitcoms recycled the same tired plots. The longer story arcs on ILL were a mixed bag----a lot of the Hollywood stuff often was boring--William Holden's grapefruit? The European tour was full of bad jokes about not understanding local currency. Also very old gags.

TV sitcoms didn't even break out of this kind of drek until The Dick van Dyke Show, which recycled Carl Reiner's backstage experience from 50s tv, but at least Rob and Laura seemed like a contemporary copple and there were some genuinely original shows like the one with Greg Morris and the suspected baby switching and the one with Alan Brady's wigs. And then we had to wait until the Norman Lear and MTM shows for people to real become contemporary and encounter some new situations. Meanwhile, Lucy was recycling the same old crpa and getting nastier and nastier to work with.

Just stopped in to make sure somebody posted the Punchy Players video.

She was old school Hollywood. She was probably bucking for Oscar and knew knew being dubbed would hurt her chances. No one really thought it would be a flop. It opened exclusively as the big Easter show at Radio City Music Hall and the Cinerama Dome in LA. Warner spent a fortune dressing the dome as an Easter bonnet.

The role needs a dancer!

R133, they pushed the release from Christmas (We need a little Christmas, remember) to Easter when they saw what a flop it was going to be. They also realized that the movie nor Lucy had any chance of Oscar nominations, so they just dumped it as best they could.

Oscar? You've got to be kidding. The movie came out in Spring. If they thought there was an Oscar here it would have been released in the fall. They were hoping to capitalize on Lucy's tv fame and the release would have coincided when her show would have started reruns for the season, so presumably there'd be a market fro fresh Lucy.

Sweetie it was 1973. Different times. The "Godfather" was released in March of 1972 and played all the way to the next year where it won Best Picture, there wasn't an "Oscar Season" in those days. I can give a 100 examples, but I won't.

And "Mame" was delayed for only one reason, Lucy's broken leg. Production began in January 1973 and with rehearsals, principal photography then post production, it would not have been finished in time for Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Show which opened before Thanksgiving. And Radio City was already booked with Walt Disney's animated "Robin Hood" anyway. Holiday shows were booked a year in advance. Warner's wouldn't have spent a fortune opening "Mame" in two of the most important theaters in the country if the knew it was a flop, they would have opened it was wide as possible. Don't believe everything you read on IMBD.

Whatever happened to that Lucy/It's Today parody that used to be on Youtube?

Lucy and Bea were nominated for Golden Globes.

Mame did get some good reviews. NY times liked it.

Only because the GGs have separate Music/Comedy categories, r139.

Oscar bait has been realeased in fall, going back decades, "Sweety".

Here's a scene from the Here's Lucy/Mame tie-in show. I don't think they actually say the title "Mame" but they certainly push the movie.

She was so rude in that clip! She didn't even ask Carolyn how little Stevie was!

So subtle and spontaneous! It's almost like there was no promotion of the film at all!

She obviously thought she was at the height of her fame and popularity, but she was at the end. Mame was probably a plot to get a 'career Oscar'.

Her performance of "If He Walked Into My Life" has Oscar written all over it.

Oscar the Grouch.

The aboveCarson clip was her at the time of the Release of Mame and she seemed utterly miserable Desi jr haven’t even seen it yet. I wonder if she had a stronger director who first thing dubbed her voice the film would have been better.

BTW Desi jr was the ultimate twink back then. I but a lot of gays made passes at him.

She seemed utterly miserable in every talk show appearance she ever did for the last 20 years of her life. A hard as nails battleaxe.

When the character of Lucy, an inspired slapstick performer, coincides with that of Auntie Mame, the Big-Town sophisticate, "Mame" is marvelous. I think of Lucy turning a Georgia fox hunt into a gigantic shambles, or of her bringing the curtain down on a New Haven first night, when as a budding actress she falls off a huge cardboard moon. I even treasure her prying loose the fingers of a sloshed Beatrice Arthur who won't give up her martini glass.

Miss Arthur ("Maude") has been dressed up to look like a football player in drag.

Clive Barnes NY Times March 8, 1974

[quote]The aboveCarson clip was her at the time of the Release of Mame and she seemed utterly miserable

[quote]She seemed utterly miserable in every talk show appearance she ever did for the last 20 years of her life. A hard as nails battleaxe.

In Lucy's famous interview words: "I married a loser!" And she wasn't talking about Gary Morton. I think I'd be miserable too if I had to go from hot Cuban pinga to old Jewish wanker.

What the hell did Gary Morton do all day, BTW? Did he just follow Lucy around and light her cigs and freshen her drinks? He seemed like such a lazy do-nothing.

The soft focus on this film makes me feel like I have cataracts when I watch it.

Golf

[quote]What the hell did Gary Morton do all day, BTW? Did he just follow Lucy around and light her cigs and freshen her drinks? He seemed like such a lazy do-nothing.

He used to be a comedian on the Borscht Belt. Then he became Lucy's Executive Producer and boytoy.

[quote]BTW Desi jr was the ultimate twink back then. I but a lot of gays made passes at him.

Hands off, bitches!

There are many stories about Desi Jr. and his... "experimentation" while a young man.

[quote]When the character of Lucy, an inspired slapstick performer, coincides with that of Auntie Mame, the Big-Town sophisticate, "Mame" is marvelous. I think of Lucy turning a Georgia fox hunt into a gigantic shambles, or of her bringing the curtain down on a New Haven first night, when as a budding actress she falls off a huge cardboard moon. I even treasure her prying loose the fingers of a sloshed Beatrice Arthur who won't give up her martini glass.

"I Love Lucy" had a fox-hunting episode too (when the Ricardos and the Mertzes went to England as part of the European tour.) The novel "Auntie Mame" was released in 1955. The fox hunt "ILL" aired in 1956. Coincidence?

The Moon lady sequence was also very similar to the Hollywood headdress sequence.

[quote]There are many stories about Desi Jr. and his... "experimentation" while a young man.

How about sharing a few with us?

Caesar Romero told of visiting young Desi Jr. and his housemate and bandmate, Dean Paul Martin. Desi Sr. had been worried about his son, and asked Caesar to have a talk with him, so he went over to Desi and Dean Paul's place. "Your father tells me that you boys may be getting into trouble, hanging out with the wrong crowd, like...for instance, going to fag bars."

Desi replied, "I dig chicks. I just like a little man-on-man action from time to time. What's wrong with that? Your generation's just uptight." At that point Caesar told the young men that he was gay, and Desi Sr. was one of his best friends and knew all about him, so he couldn't be too uptight. Jr. said, "I wish I knew that last year, when you were on Here's Lucy. We could have had a lot of kicks." Caesar warned him, "You can't trick with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. You have to be cautious, keep it in the family. Just go with friends. Like Dino."

"Oh, we never do each other. He's like a brother to me. Sometimes we share dudes, though. Girls, too...." At that point, according to Caesar, they started to 69. Dean Paul walked in on them and ended up joining in. For Caesar, it was a one-time event, but both Desi and Dean continued to pick up guys from time to time.

Anyway, that's how the story was told to me...

Hard to believe. Caesar Romero, Desi jr and Dean Paul ( was he called Dino also and killed in a army plane crash?)

Cesar Romero was geriatric by then, a twentysomething like Desi Jr. would have been very unlikely to have any interest.

Uh huh.

And Lucy thought Patty Duke spelled trouble...

Patty turned out to be a very nice lady who died too soon. Lucy not so much.