Vivian Vance appreciation thread

IMO she is the Mother of the House of Datalounge

Was she nice ?

There should have beeen a Pole, because Datalounge has a hard-on for Vivian.

Were her nostrils always flared?

Lol R4

r4 = Bill Frawley

Vivian noir: gaslighting Claudette Colbert.

[quote]There should have beeen a Pole

There should have been an Asian.

STFU r4

What R9? What did I do?

It's a shame she didn't have more dramatic roles r7

Is r4 the nose troll?

Of course, r2, unless your name started in B and ended in ill Frawley.

I hope her memoirs are released someday.

She was a klutz! Forever banging her head on the door, tripping off a ladder, or falling down the stairs. It's a wonder Desilu was able to insure her.

Don't you have a non-career to be attending to, r15?

I have sufficient- of this thread 🧵

[quote]There should have been an Asian.

I think you mean Oriental.

If not for that Burns and Allen contract, you bitches would be discussing me with such reverence. Where's the love for me?

Did Bea ever enter into a lavender marriage?

R20- I don’t know if Bea did but Betty White certainly did.

She was my favorite of the Wednesday Fine Arts League presidents.

Don't tell Lucy.

She had a winning smile and a lovely bustline.

She was nuts! She used to slam her face into my fist!!

I loved when she sang. She wasn't that good, but I loved it.

She wasn't bad, r25

That picture was taken right after she was notified about who would be playing her husband.

Did she ever get Desi dick?

r28 Like this?

Was Desi cut?

R30-Uncut and WELL hung

r29, who is that?

[quote]I hope her memoirs are released someday.

Yeah, what happened with that?

r32 Gay porn star Charan Bangaram.

r33 John Dodds, Viv's last husband, left the memoirs to his partner, an antique dealer in San Fransisco, at the time of his death in the 1980s. I think he's still alive, and still has the memoirs.

She set me on the path to becoming the toast of Broadway. Love her.

I'll never forget the day she came to me and said, "I Love Lucy is a smash hit." Those words alone were enough to make me spontaneously cum. Whatta gal!

I secretly love the Phil Ober troll.

Vivian reminds all us elder gays you can be plain faced- but still a star!

Her face was FABULOUS r39!

I signed for the "First Stop" script when it was messengered to our house from the studio. It's the episode where the Ricardos and Mertzes stop at that roadside inn for the night on the way to Hollywood. At first glance I misread it as "Fist Stop." Instant wood.

I hope Viv is looking down after Gale Gordon. At 116, he can’t be doing too well.

Is anyone from the cast besides Keith Thibadeaux still alive? Anyone among those Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League hens? Even the little boy who played Bruce Ramsey is dead.

[quote] [R32] Gay porn star Charan Bangaram.

Great pron name. Does he Bang and Ram?

This is a great thread of appreciation for someone who, unbeknownst to me, but saved from obscurity as a bit player by Datalounge, is now restored to her rightful place as one of the giants of the motion pictures.

Phil had a huge dick. Viv was DICKMATIZED.

R43- Doris Singleton aka Carolyn Appleby made an appearance on an early episode of All In The Family as a snob Mrs. Stonehurst. She was good in that role.

Our Lucy would not have approved however. Lucille Ball wanted All In The Family taken off the air back in the early 1970's.

Doris Singleton died in 2012 r47

The other women's club members Peggy Rea died in 2011 and Shirley Mitchell died in 2013. The Mayer twins, who played Little Ricky as a baby, are still alive. They turned 70 this past June.

What about Eensy and Weensy?

Yes r4. She’s Judd Nelson’s mother.

I'm still here, bitches!

Dead and dead r50

Jill Jarmyn, one the "bathing beauties" in the Desert Island episode, is still alive. She turns 96 in October.

R53- We need a Teensy and Weensy appreciation thread.

He is a fabulous photo of Maude/Dorothy Arthur with Teensy and Weensy

I have sufficient ... and sufficient, r55.

I don't mean this unkindly or to flame, but I have never understood this phenomenon. How did it start? I have never been able to find out what Gary told Lucy not to do, either, so maybe I am just doomed to wander the earth in this particular ignorance.

R56- When watching the episode with Teensy and Weensy they always resembled - at least to me- two FAT Ethels.

[quote]two FAT Ethels.

Isn't "FAT Ethel" redundant?

[quote]I don't mean this unkindly or to flame, but I have never understood this phenomenon. How did it start?

r57 I have no idea how it started -- Vivian's been a DL staple for as long as I've been on this site. But I always liked Vivian more than Lucille, and she had an interesting life. Plus she did advocacy work for mental health in the 1960s, which included visiting locked wards of state hospitals and interacting with patients. One of the stipulations of her visits, though, was that they not be publicized.

I think the Gary talking her out of it is in reference to Mame, which he didn't talk her out of ... tragically.

I've always been something of a prophet. On the first night of ILL taping, I told Vivian to break a leg. The next day she mysteriously tumbled down the stairs at our Brentwood home and broke BOTH legs.

Don't you have a $5 hooker to rough up r61?

She had nice sweater puppies.

r63 = Mary Wickes

The cynic in me thinks that Lucille really didn't care how Phil treated Vivian, at least on principle. But during the first season she quickly realized how much she (and the success of the show) relied on Viv. She also recognized what Phil was like, and hated him because of the threat he posed to Vivian appearing on the show. She often came to work with bruises.

Interestingly, Vivian was supposed to appear in the Vitameatavegamin episode, but missed filming. And that episode became one of the classics.

I'd let Phil Ober dominate me.

I cum hands-free every time I watch the "black eye" episode. I feel it was Oppenheimer/Pugh's valentine just to me!

So what WAS the “I’ve had sufficient” and “Gary talked her out of it?” Can somebody explain?

Admittedly I’ve never brought myself to watch a full episode of ILL nor was/am I a fan of Lucille Ball or her “brand” of comedy. So have at it.

r67 That's one of my favorite episodes.

r69 It's been explained ad nauseam, but here it is again.

I can’t believe she wanted to direct The Lucy Show, which in part lead to her leaving when Lucille said no. Did she ever direct before or after?

They should have let me direct the lackluster Lucy Show. That series, and especially the Vivian character, needed punching up.

How the fuck did OP not include a poll?

MARY r73!

After the success of I Love Lucy, Lucy was the biggest star in the world and offered first choice of roles for women of her age, throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s, very similar to Meryl Streep today. Unlike Meryl Lucy was far more selective and ran by all her potential rolls with husband Gary Morton, who was very concerned with protecting the 'Lucy' brand. As such, because of Gary we lost the opportunity to see Lucy stretch herself as an actor, as she was offered (off the top of my head): the Angela Lansbury role in The Manchurian Candidate, Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, the Julie Christie role in Don't Look Now, the Angie Dickinson roel in Dressed to Kill, the Lillian Gish role in The Whales of August, the Katharine Hepburn role in On Golden Pond and the Ellen Burstyn role in The Exorcist.

Lucy and Gale Gordon would've killed it as Miss Ellie and Jock Ewing.

A highlight from one of her last episodes as a regular on "The Lucy Show."

I really hope r75 is joking.

She's like Flo from Progressive.

Lucy was a one-trick pony. Viv was easily the most talented and versatile of the four.

r80 Desi was pretty talented as well. Viv had a lot of respect for him.

In her bio, someone said Vivian would have made a great director, because she knew her craft so well.

She was bovine looking but I love her.

I looked spectacular, r82.

She was built like a sack of door knobs.

No ... she just walked into doors. Regularly.

A young Vivian sings around 5:45

She doesn't just sing, r86, she gets the best line in the song.

Viv's bust.

She was a busty gal!

No one could sing "The Chocolate Soldier" quite like Vivian.

Ethel Mae Potter, I always did frot her!

Does her family still get royalties from the medication they named after her?

Anyone else remember scene in the Monte Carlo episode where Fred tosses Ethel to the floor after he learns she didn't inherit all that money, rather it was Lucy's? I used to tape it, and would play that snippet in constant loop and bust a nut.

Don't you have some money of mine to be spending, r93?

R57 If I am not mistaken the Vivian Vance thing started because a LONG time ago, a DLer made a post about who was the most beautiful actress of classic Hollywood. They put, amongst all the other choices “Vivian Vance”. It MAY have been a mistake and they meant to put Vivian Leigh. Either way, a DL tradition was born.

Vivian must have had low self esteem to have put up with r93 for so many years

I'm prouder of being Mrs. Philip Ober than Vivian Vance.

I think I know her appeal. She thought she was something. That's her appeal. She was very every day Jane and plain but she has confidence. Her singing is powerful but not pleasant to listen to but you can tell she likes to do it.

R98 beat me to the punch.

I think Vivian was well aware of her limitations. She knew, for example, she was no great beauty.

She had few illusions about herself.

I disagree. Vivian was quite the knockout.

I real all the Phil Ober posts in the voice of Captain Dana Holmes.

I sort of doubt that OP’s photo is circa 1955.

Vivian looked rather matronly even as a teenager.

Crazy in the head ...

A face for radio!

My aunt's nose is very similar to VIv's. Every time I visit her I think of Ethel Mertz.

R75, Lucy did test for the Angie Dickinson role in Dressed to Kill. I’ve seen the tapes.

The shower scene at the beginning is weird bc she’s chainsmoking through the whole thing.

Why is that weird, r108? It's Lucy.

Unlike her preference for husbands, Vivian liked directors who pulled no punches.

I think these Phil Ober jokes are less funny each time

Smile when you say that r111

I like the gallows humor of the Phil Ober troll

Plus I appreciate that he's only remembered for being a terrible person

New avatar just dropped.

Well done r115

A friend once said, "Vivian thought the oddballs in life are really the most interesting: the odder you were, the more she loved you."

r11 should learn to roll with the punches

Viv has a great moment in Pioneer Women. Somehow a container of yeast falls from the ball of dough onto the counter. Vivian notices it immediately and without missing a beat pushes it out of the way with the pan. Lucille yells, "Wait a minute, there's a yeast!" -- thinking it was still on the counter. Staying perfectly calm and in character, Viv replies, "Yeah, I got it." "Where?!" Lucille replies. "There," Viv points.

It's clear why Lucille came to depend on her so much.

r119 always makes me sad

One of my favorite Viv stories: she was doing summer stock and looked out at the audience before the show started.

"Not a Tampax in the house!" she said.

Why does it make you sad?

Time gone by?

Like that old woman who cried when she saw the old classroom chalkboard from 1919 discovered preserved in Oklahoma. It must have been very surreal to feel the time go by. Then and now.

That's why I think we can pop into other people's experiences after we're dead. I think it's something like physicists say, everything is happening now, simultaneously, everything that ever happened is done. Something like that.

The poor thing was terribly accident prone. Forever walking into doors and falling off ladders.

Oh, go screw a hooker, r124.

The greatest human being who every lived.

These Phil Ober jokes are increasingly pathetic and somewhat nauseating

[quote]nauseating

MARY!

r127 is cruisin' for a bruisin'!

r123 it makes me sad because Vivian clearly wasn't doing well, physically. In fact, her cancer had returned and she didn't know it yet, but had complained of pain in her leg and hip during rehearsals. It had metastasized to her bones, which is what killed her a couple of years later.

r123 this is from Vivian's bio:

[quote]During the week of rehearsals, Vivian again complained of a persistent pain in her leg and hip. Lucy finally convinced Vivian to go see her doctor and take some tests. The lab notified her that it would take them a few days before the results came in. [As it turned out, her cancer had metastasized to her bones.]

[quote]On the night of filming Lucy Calls the President, there were several delays. Vivian didn't feel up to par and when the cast did not break for dinner, she voiced her anger. Paige Mathews Peterson, along with John Dodds, attended the taping that night to help Vivian. "We were sitting in the audience and Viv's mouth started quivering. John said, 'God, she looks really tired, she looks like she's not doing well.' We couldn't figure out whether she had a twitch or what was going on. When they came to a break, Lucy screamed, 'Goddamn it Viv, stop doing that face!' And Viv walked over to us and we suddenly realized that she had Bell's palsy and that her face was falling apart. John said, 'Oh God, I'm taking you to a hospital.' Viv said, 'I'm going to finish the show.' And that woman finished the show and by the end of it her face was completely paralyzed. We quickly packed her things and left for Belvedere. Lucy never called her, never checked in on her, never focused in on her. It was stunning.

When she was dying, Viv told her family she wanted to be cremated. Someone asked her what to do with the ashes.

She replied, "Oh, honey, I don't care. Surprise me!"

Viv had a great gift for understatement when delivering her lines.

Two examples: in the "Lucy gets Ricky on the Radio", when referring to the question about the youngest president, she says dryly, "Ask Fred, he was probably there."

And in the Barbara Eden episode, when the wives are tallying up how many times their husbands danced with Eden, she says, "Thirteen was the grand total for twinkle toes."

It's been said that I had a gift for delivering just the right punchline. Where's my recognition?

The Phil Ober troll is nothing if not indefatigable.

Deposited in the dustbin of history ... where it belongs, r134

Has this been shared yet? LOVE this clip of Vivian going off script and a little blue.

EVERYTHING about Vivian was blue. Her humor. Her mood. My personal favorite was her perennially black and blue left eye.

Our Viv - Mental Health Advocate