Memories of Lucille Ball - Wanda Clark

Wanda Clark was Lucille Ball's personal secretary for more than 25 years (1963-1989). Did she like the job? Let's put it this way: Wanda said that if the Queen of Comedy were still alive, she'd more than likely still be working for her. "I can't put into words what I miss about her - she was a great force in my life that I appreciated, and miss very much," Wanda noted. Wanda worked with Lucy's cousin Cleo Smith (who Lucy thought of as a sister) at Look magazine. When Lucy needed a secretary, she asked Cleo if she knew anyone, and Cleo recommended Wanda for the job. No interview was necessary; Lucy told Cleo, "If you like her, she's good enough for me." As Wanda reminded me, Lucy liked having her family and people she trusted in her immediate circle.
          Wanda had actually met Lucy once before she went to work for her, at a baby shower the redhead held for Cleo. Her first day on the job happened to include a photo shoot for Look - the photographer and interviewer came to Lucy's house. "I basically sat and listened," Wanda recalls. "I didn't need to do anything, but Lucy thought if I was interested in being there, I should be. So I watched Irma Kusely [Lucy's hair stylist for many years] do her hair. Lucy's home salon consisted of a dryer and shampoo bowl. Lucy could do her own hair color and hair, which she did frequently. But in fact she wore wigs at most appearances, because her own hair was fine and soft, and the hot lights would make it wilt. Putting on a wig is a very specialized thing -- it has to be done right or it won't look good. And hers always looked wonderful. Irma put them on so carefully. Lucy's own hair had to be pin-curled up tight, as close to the scalp as possible, and over that was wrapped some material, and then the wig was attached."
          Wanda's first day at the studio went something like this: "We went to the studio at 780 North Gower - now Paramount; there was just a little fence between Desilu Gower and Paramount. It was a regular office and office duties; it just happened to be for a very wonderful and well-known celebrity" Part of her job was taking phone calls, and preparing the mail for Lucy to look at - "when she had time, she would," Wanda says. Running interference is what any secretary does for the boss, of course. Wanda adds, "I've never had a job I could put a description on, and working for a celebrity like Lucy, the duties are whatever happened to come up: travel, setting up interviews with the publicity department, making doctor's appointments and seeing that she would get to them." And fielding the many, many phone calls: "Some Lucy couldn't possibly take and some she had to - it was a busy job but I had a good time doing it."
          As you might expect, Wanda met many other celebrities during her time with Lucy; as any self-respecting fan already knows, shows during the last few seasons of "The Lucy Show" on into "Here's Lucy" featured an army of guest stars. "Carol Burnett was everyone's favorite," Wanda says, "She was just a joy -and everyone loved it when she would guest star; when Lucy would do her show, I got to go there with her and watch. Ernie Ford, Mel Torme -- all the musical stars were fun. I fell in love with Donny Osmond when he guest-starred on 'Here's Lucy.' He had a crush on Lucie Arnaz at the time, and he was just a darling young man." Bob Hope and Jack Benny were particular favorites of Lucy's, Wanda says, and they were always "so much fun to be around. I enjoyed meeting them all." Lucy "just adored Dean Martin," Wanda adds, "but Dean [guest-starring on "The Lucy Show"] didn't work the way Lucy did -- he tried to get off without any rehearsal and Lucy insisted on a lot of it. Still, they liked and respected each other so much it turned out to be a great show." Wanda's one regret is not collecting all their autographs. "I wish I had. Actually, I have very few pictures of Lucy and me together-just one of those things I didn't think about when it was happening. But I sure wish I did now!"
          Lucy always spoke kindly of those "other stars" she worked with for so many years, you know, her co-stars on that littleshow called "I Love Lucy." "She was so respectful of them all, she appreciated their talents," Wanda says. "She thought Vivian [Vance] was the best script doctor in town; she counted on Vivian to help fix something whenever a script problem came up." She recalls a "heartbroken" Lucy going to visit Vivian just before Vance passed away. "She counted on Desi [Arnaz] for his good advice and ability to recognize good and bad material. She liked [William] Frawley be cause he did his job, did it well, never caused a problem." She adds that if Frawley had a drinking problem, it never impacted his TV job.
          There were many memorable experiences working for Lucille Ball over more than a quarter of a century, but several stick out for Wanda. She actually got to perform on an episode of "Here's Lucy," which she says "was memorable for me because that wasn't my thing - I didn't do well in front of a camera. But it was a wonderful experience." In the second season of "Here's Lucy," episode #38 aired on December 22, 1969, called "Lucy Protects Her Job" [see picture]. Uncle Harry ("Lucy" regular Gale Gordon) thinks Lucy Carter (Ball) needs some help in the office, but she of course fears he is going to replace her. Wanda plays the secretary Lucy interviews in the first scene. She explains how she got the part: "The actress Lucy hired for the part couldn't type, and to Lucy the important part of the character was having someone who could type fast, like a demon. Lucy wouldn't allow her to fake it, she wanted the real rhythm, she thought it was something I could do, because she knew I was a good typist." One thing Lucy hadn't taken into account: Wanda had been typing on an electric for many years, and she "wasn't used to working with the carriage [of an older, non-electric typewriter], and thrusting the carriage return back at the end of a line and all that, so I had to kind of fake it myself, but at least I had the rhythm down."
          Another memorable experience for Wanda happened after Lucy broke her leg, while skiing at her condo in Snowmass (Colorado) up near Aspen in the early 1970s. Lucy asked Wanda to come up and help her close up the apartment so she could come home. Wanda remembers, "Lucy was in a huge, full-leg cast. She was practically helpless in that huge cast, but it was great being there and helping her out. Eventually they shortened the cast, and gave her a walking cast so she could move around, and she ended up doing a dozen 'Here's Lucy' shows with the broken leg written into the show."
          What was "the real" Lucille Ball like? She was warm and wonderful and generous, Wanda says, to all of us that worked with her, and her family, of course. And she was loyal - that's why we were all so loyal to her. While Lucy's writers were an important element of her career, and she always gave them credit for her success, Lucy herself was a funny lady, Wanda says, refuting what Lucy herself often claimed, that she wasn't a particularly funny person. "She didn't go around doing 'I Love Lucy' shtick, but she had a great sense of humor and she loved to have a good laugh." Wanda's favorite moments spent with Lucy included the parties Lucy threw at her Beverly Hills house, "especially when the kids were still at home. They were a lot of fun, planning them, she'd do themes, like a hoedown, with traditional music and costumes. Those were great parties."
          Wanda especially enjoyed the times she got to spend alone with Lucy. Wanda says that every Thursday night after the show taped Lucy and Gary [Morton, her second husband] would head for Palm Springs. "For one reason or another she might want me to come down the next day, to bring her dog to her, or maybe to drive back with Lucy if she was not driving with Gary, and that was always fun. There were a lot of word games; when she couldn't play backgammon, she used to love to play Jotto. It boggled my mind -- and still does -- that she could keep all those letters in her head (while she was driving!), but we played it all the way from Palm Springs to LA.
          I asked Wanda if Lucy ever expressed any regrets about her career or life, and the answer was, not surprisingly, no. "I never heard Lucy say she was sorry she did or didn't do something. She was always sorry she didn't finish school, but she was so well-read, and could spell better than anyone I ever worked for -but as far as her career goes, I can't say she ever discussed any regrets about it with me. I know it hurt her a lot to hear the reviews of 'Life with Lucy' [Lucy's final sitcom, and her only misfire]. She took pride in her work and she worked so hard - she just couldn't find the right material for a character of her age [at the time of the show, Lucy was 75]."
          Wanda last spoke to Lucy the morning she went into the hospital: "We just thought it was another regular day - and Lucy was looking forward to a trip to Jamestown, where she was getting an honorary degree. She had the reservations made, Irma had been alerted - and Fred Williams, her makeup man - they were all set to go. That day she was stricken with a ruptured aorta, and they rushed her to the hospital. They repaired that one and she was on her way to recovery; her children was with her and she knew they were there and was happy they were all right, and then she had a second rupture and was taken instantly." 

         






 Asking Wanda what she misses most about Lucy is probably not a fair question for someone who became a close friend over more than 25 years. Still, when prompted she gives you the answer you expect: "Just everything about her - it was a very long and happy association." I want to thank Wanda from the bottom of my heart for the generous amount of time she gave me during the interview. She's a great lady.

Important people in Lucille Ball's life: Vivian Vance, Henry Fonda and Bob Hope

Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball shared a special and complex friendship that could never be destroyed. When Vivian first went to Desilu studios to meet Lucille, she was so terrified because she was going to be playing second banana to the legendary movie star, Miss Ball. Of course, she wore formal clothes as she thought that Lucille would dress like that, and she wanted to give Lucille a good impression.

Everyone could remember their first meeting. There was sophisticated looking Viv, and there was Lucille, who dressed in her normal oversized blouse and black slacks. Lucille had worn a scarf that covered her red hair, and her face was bare. Basically, she looked like anything but a great movie star.

Lucille looked at Viv up and down and asked, "what part will you be trying out for?"
"For the landlady, honey," Desi said.
"She doesn't look like a landlady. She looks glamorous. Her hair's the same color as mine," Lucy stated.
"I can dye it. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me."
"I don't know. I want a dumpy, peroxide-blonde with curlers in her hair and a terry cloth robe and fuzzy slippers. That's what I want."
"You got her. I look just like that in the morning when I get out of bed."

The next day, Viv came to the studio with her hair in curlers, wearing an old dress and she was wearing fuzzy slippers. When Lucy saw her, she laughed, she had worn her respect. 

When rehearsals officially started, the two girls discovered that they had so much chemistry. That was the start of their enduring friendship. They enjoyed rehearsing so much that they they had a ball. "Lucy and I were just like sisters. We cried together, we laughed together. She and I had so many laughs on 'I love Lucy' that we could hardly get though filming without cracking up. We used to watch out own shows and rock with laughter at we'd done on camera" - (Vivian)
"I'm not going to try alone now what I've done with my partners in the past. My partners (Desi, Vivian and Bill) are in heaven. No one could take the place of Vivian Vance in my life. She was the greatest partner anyone could ever have."(-Lucy) 

Lucy and Henry Fonda

They ones dated back in the 30s, but no romance brewed and they moved on. They met again when they were doing a movie together, The Big Street in 1942, a funny fact is that Desi felt so insecure about leaving the both of them alone together that he often pop by in the movie sets to keep an eye on his lovely wife and a handsome actor, and his paranoid self made the director so exasperated that he finally banned him from being 10 feet near. Henry hinted that there would have been Fondalu and not Desilu if they got married


So Henry and Lucy were very good friends. Jane Fonda even claimed that her father, was deeply in love with Lucy that the two were "very close" during the filming of 'Yours, Mine and Ours' in 1968, but that Lucy wasn't in love with him. 
Shirlee Fonda ( Henry's late wife) said: "She (Lucy) was always calling or coming over to see him when he was ill. And after he died, she was one of the ones who always included me in social gathering. When I gave that first party after Henry's death, I said, " Lucy, you have to be there and help me get though this." And she was there for me, for 100%"



Lucy and Bob Hope

Lucy and Bob Hope were more than occasional co-stars, they were close personal friends. "I first got to know Bob during the War," Lucy recalled during rehearsals for the Birthday special.  "He was such a role model for all of us."  Indeed, Bob's devotion over the years to entertaining the military earned him the title, "Mr. USO," and made him one of the world's most beloved entertainers.

Bob said: "Lucy was really my best friend. whenever I needed female advice, she would gladly offer me some. she was great to work with, she had a soft heart, and it helped that she looked beautiful. I love Lucy." 

"Bob recalled,(about the movie 

Fancy Pants)

  "I played an English butler and she a rich frontier girl.  I got stepped on by a real horse and thrown by a mechanical one, which laid m up with a bad back.  Still, I thought making pictures with Lucy could be a pleasant long- term habit.  Then a little thing called television got in the way."

On set photo with Bob Hope from “Lucy Meets Bob Hope” episode (1956). and "Fancy Pants"

In 1960, Lucy was sent a script for a film entitled "The Facts of Life."   The plot concerned two middle-aged married friends who, bored with their lives, decide to run off together.  Their romantic tryst proves disastrous, however, and both return to their original spouses.  
"Who do you see as the male lead?" Lucy asked.
"Bob Hope," the producer replied.
"Fine.  If you can get him, I'll do it."
Lucy not only  co-starred in the film,  her Desilu company put up part of the financing and provided production facilities.
"As we prepared for a kissing scene," Bob recalled later, "I broke Lucy up by telling her this would be the first time I had ever kissed a studio boss--face to face."

Hope and Ball agreed they had to submerge both their own personalities and their television persona if the serio-comic film was going to succeed.  "I remember how concerned she was lest she slip back into her television character," Bob recalled. "After every take she'd rush over to the director and ask, 'Was I Lucy? Was I Lucy?'" 
As writer William Robert Faith reported, "Almost without exception, the critics found the picture 'a cut above' what either of the two comedians had been doing lately, and it was a box-office winner."

Throughout the following twenty-five years, Lucy and Bob appeared together whenever possible.  Once her weekly series ended in 1974, she made almost annual visits to his specials, and when she did a 90-minute spectacular for NBC of her own  in 1979, Bob was the first star signed.  "It was pure joy working with her," Bob recalled.  "The only problem was getting the audience to quiet down when she appeared on stage.

On March 29, 1989, Lucy and Bob were co-presenters on the 61st Annual Academy Awards.  "We walked out onto the stage," Bob recalled, "and the audience at the Shrine Auditorium rose to its feet.  What an  ovation!  Lucy stood there beside me, beaming in her black and gold gown.  Gently, she squeezed my hand, as if to say, 'Look...we've still got it.'

So Touched

The book "I Loved Lucy, My Friendship with Lucille Ball" by Lee Tannem just arrived today and I've spent the entire day reading it. There's something that I like to share, it's very touching:

"... I [Lee] sifted through the pile of photos and came across a note from a private stationed at Fort Bragg with no picture attached. He said he was sorry for intruding on Lucy's privacy but he was writing on behalf of his mother. She had terminal cancer and she was too weak to leave the house to see Lucy in person in the hotel lobby as so many of her friends had earlier that day. He wrote that his mother worshipped Lucy and for the last thirty years she kept trying, unsuccessfully, to dye her hair the same shape as Lucy's. He gave his mother's address and asked Lucy if when she went back to California she could autograph a color photo of herself and send it on to his mom.

Lucy was visibly moved when I read her the note. "Get her phone number from information, right now," Lucy ordered.

"Aye, aye, sergeant," I said. She didn't laugh. I got the phone number and Lucy dialed.

"God, I hate these damn newfangled Touch-Tone phones," she mumbled.

The private's mother answered and Lucy introduced herself. "This is Lucille Ball... Lucy, and I hope I'm not disturbing you." Evidently, the woman thought that one of her friends was pulling a prank, and it took Lucy a minute or two to convince her that she was the genuine article. Lucy found out that the woman and she were the same age, and that they each had a son and daughter, and that they were both originally from upstate New York. Lucy told her that not only was she going to send her a personalized autograph color shot of herself, but also a year's supply of henna rise. Lucy told her to take care of herself and to get well soon. Then Lucy hung up and went into the other room and cried.

(...)
Lucy was very tired so I started going through the mail, and came across this letter, which I handed to Lucy. She closed her eyes and told me to read it aloud to her.

Dear Miss Ball:

My mother told me that talking to you on the phone was the happiest day of her life. Sadly, I must report it was also the last day of her life. She died peacefully in her sleep in the middle of the night. There are no words for my family and I to adequately express our thanks and deep appreciation for your most kind gesture. We are holding a memorial service next week in Oneida, New York, my mother's hometown. If you could send the colored autographed picture of yourself like you promised my mom, we will proudly display it at the ceremony. My best wishes and God bless you.

It was signed with love by the private first class.

Lucy was stunned but she said nothing. She turned her head away, reclined in her seat, and just stared out the window until the plane landed one hour later."

Lucille Ball was such an awesome lady who appreciated her fans. They don't make Hollywood stars like that today.

I hope you enjoyed this short excerpt from the book. 

About I love Lucy backstage...

Marc Daniels, who all of the first season's 35 episodes, says: "We began I Love Lucy using four cameras because they wanted to do the entire first half of the show without stopping," Daniels continued. "We had four Fearless dollies, four dolly grips, four camera assistants, two booms, two dolly grips for the booms, and a few cable men. You can imagine what that floor looked like."

After the first season, Daniels moved on to direct other shows. William Asher, who would later produce 285 episodes, and direct 200 episodes himself of another television classic, Bewitched, came on board.

William Asher's first day on the set though nearly ended his association with the show. They had begun rehearsal and Asher had to walk away for a bit to attend to some technical matters. When he returned, he discovered that Lucille Ball had been giving directions backstage. Asher was astonished.

"I said, 'Lucy, there's only one director. I'm it. If you would like to direct, then don't pay me and send me home,' " Asher said. "When I said that (I didn't say it in a nice way, by the way), she began to cry and ran off the stage. Everybody disappeared. Desi hadn't been in the scene. I didn't know where to go because I had no office. So, I went to the men's bathroom, sat on the toilet and didn't know what the hell to do. I realized I'd blown my first day of what was really a pretty good job.

"I sat there for a long time and finally got up and went back to the stage," he continued. "Desi was there. He was furious. He was cussing me out in Spanish and I didn't know what he was saying. I settled him down and said, 'Look, Desi, here's what happened.' And he said, 'Well, you're absolutely right, Bill. What you should do is go in to Lucy's dressing room. She's crying. Go talk to her and settle this thing.' So that's what I did. I went in. I said I was sorry I upset her. And she was crying and I started to cry. And after a while we went back to work. But I'll tell you this. I never had trouble from her after that. She had her opinion, and would offer it, but nothing ever behind my back. Everything was just fine. That's the way it was for the next five years."

Asher said there was very little ad libbing because the material was strong and they'd had time to rehearse. "On Monday morning we would read the material, discuss it and make changes. In the afternoon, I would start rehearsing and continue rehearsing Tuesday and Wednesday when the cameras came in. On Thursday, we'd rehearse again with cameras about half the day. Then we would do a dress rehearsal. Later that day, we'd do the show."

(I've read, by the way, many times (also said by Lucy), that the weekly show goes before the cameras at  8 o'clock Friday evenings, (After dinner, company and cast return to the stage, and there follows a general "talk through" of the show. At this time, further suggestions are considered and decisions made on any remaining problems, so that by 8 o'clock the company is ready to film the show.) and is photographed entirely the same evening, the preceding four days are employed by the company in rehearsals, pre-production planning and script revision. the camera crews have but two schedules in the five-day period -- on Thursday and Friday. Just saying, lol) 

Rehearsals were vital because they were shooting film. At the time there were no monitors for the director to see the image. The show's quality depended on his ability to watch the floor and ensure that all cameras and actors hit their marks at the required moments. Precision was crucial, as nobody wanted to halt the performance in front of an audience. They rarely shot pick-ups, Asher said, and when they did it was usually for a guest star who forgot a line. Most shows were filmed in around thirty minutes.

"We had stops for Lucy's big costume changes, but that was all," Asher said. "I had a pretty strict rule on that. We didn't stop for anything. We played it like a Broadway show. If an actor made a mistake or forgot a line or something like that, it was up to the other actor to get him out of it."

The editing of I Love Lucy brought another major innovation to television. Desi said that when he first sat down to watch the film, he found it very confusing to look at only one camera's footage on a Moviola. He asked why he couldn't see the film from all three cameras at the same time. He was told that this was the only way — one camera's film at a time. Desi pushed the issue and asked, "Why can't you just stick three Moviolas together?" So the production team contacted Moviola's president, Mark Serrurier, son of Iwan Serrurier who had created Moviola in 1924.