50 Years Ago: "I Love Lucy" Ended Its Run

From 1951-57, I Love Lucy was a popular and critical hit. It was the #1 rated network show during most of its run and won Emmys for Best Sitcom and Acting Awards for Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz continued the Lucy format in a series of hour-long specials in the late 1950s, but the weekly production ceased with the airing, on May 6, 1957, of episode #180, "The Ricardos Dedicate A Statue."

The Archive of American Television interviewed several significant talents behind the series. Many of these interviews are currently available online, as follows:

Dann Cahn: editor
Bob Carroll & Madelyn Pugh Davis: writers
Barbara Eden: guest star
Jay Sandrich: assistant director
Bob Schiller & Bob Weiskopf: writers
Doris Singleton: recurring character "Carolyn Appleby"

Everyone has a favorite "I Love Lucy" episode. What is yours?
Is it one of the following classic shows?

"Lucy Does A TV Commercial"
"Job Switching"
"L. A. at Last"
"Harpo Marx"
"Lucy's Italian Movie"
"Lucy Does the Tango"

Voice your opinion by clicking on "comments" below.

Producer-director Garry Simpson's Interview Is Now Online

Garry Simpson worked on some of American television's earliest productions in the pre-World War II era, and then continued following the war. He directed the 1946 Joe Louis-Billy Conn World Championship boxing match, episodes of American television's first sitcom: Mary Kay and Johnny, and the famed 1949 production of Macbeth by "The Players."


In Part 5 of his interview Garry Simpson talks about All Star Revue and working with such stars as Jimmy Durante. Click on the arrow above to watch.

Click here to view the entire 8-part interview. Some sound bites from the interview:

On demonstrating television to the public (from Part 1):
RCA was hiring a crew to go out in the field and demonstrate television to the general public. So they hired about eight or nine people, and all of us had had some theatrical backgrounds. And we comprised some demonstration units, and we would go to various department stores in different cities and demonstrate television. Some of the sets at that time were only eight or nine inches wide, the television screen. The following year they brought out a screen that was eight-by-twelve inches in size. And they would take these sets to a department store and put them in one end of the department store and then at another end of the department store they’d set up a studio, and we’d hire local talent, and we’d put on comedians and musicians and little sketches. And people would see us with the bright lights in the studio and then they would walk around to the other end of the store and go in a darkened room and watch the television on the screen. And that was our job, to travel to the larger cities in the east, and we went as far west as Chicago, and we did these demonstrations.

On NBC’s television studios in the early years (from Part 2):
3-H was the only studio that NBC had for television. It was an old radio studio. And they took over 3-H. And 3-G, the studio next to it, was a vacant studio, so we made that our prop room, and we put furniture and draperies and effects that we needed in there and props. The third floor and the eighth floor of NBC were occupied at that time with radio studios, but the floors in between were not. They hadn’t been finished yet. Radio City was built in the late 30s. And they hadn’t expanded radio to use up all that space, so television came in and took over that empty space and [NBC] installed television studios in those empty areas. So, the sixth floor became a very active studio floor for television, and eventually we took over the eighth floor as all television. Then we outgrew the building and we had to go outside and start renting space, and we started renting empty theaters around New York City. And the first theater we rented was the International Theater, Columbus Circle, and that’s where Show of Shows came from, and the [Ford Festival] with James Melton, and many other variety shows came from there. Later we took over the Ziegfeld Theater. And each theater became sort of one show’s possession— The Tonight Show came from one theater that we rented.

On NBC’s post-World War II schedule and the stars he worked with (from Part 2):
Well, in the beginning remote programs filled up most of our schedule, because we didn’t have to build those shows. So we took advantage of all of the sporting events and special events. [When] we started building shows, the Chevrolet Tele-Theater [1948-50] was one of our first dramatic series, half-hour dramas. And those were weekly programs with stars. We started using well-known actors who hadn’t appeared on television before — most of them. And we spent the money to get those stars. I enjoyed working on those programs, and they were well received. [I worked with] Paul Lukas, Luise Rainer, Tallulah Bankhead, Brian Donlevy. Edward Everett Horton, Charlie Ruggles, Jackie Cooper. There’s a whole list of several hundred names. We started using actors then that were not known, who were beginning their careers, who [later became] big stars. I used Jack Lemmon when he first got out of college. I used Grace Kelly, giving her some of the first shows that she did. And I became very friendly with Grace, and she invited me up to her apartment in New York, and I intended to use her some more but Hollywood picked her up in 1950. She went out and made High Noon. We discovered James Dean and gave him a chance to appear on television. And he was a fascinating personality. Sort of an offbeat character. But I enjoyed working with him and had planned to use him more but Hollywood picked him up too, and you know the rest.

On covering the Joe Louis-Billy Conn World Championship boxing match [in 1946] at Yankee Stadium (from Part 3):
That was a big event for television. First of all, it was difficult for us to get the rights to televise, because the promoters were afraid we’d cut into the gate. But they finally came through and said we could do it. Yankee Stadium was just abuzz - it was so crowded, jammed, and the excitement was very high. And people had never seen television cameras at ringside like we had it. And those type of things really brought in an audience to television in those early days.

On the early documentary series Eye Witness [1947-48] (from Part 3):
This was to inform the public about television and how television had been developed scientifically. And we had on our team, RCA, Vladimir Zworykin, who was the inventor of the iconoscope, which was the first tube to turn a picture into electronics. And RCA had a laboratory in Princeton, and at that time Zworykin was working out of the Princeton labs. So I got the idea for this program, and I went down to see Zworykin, and we talked. He gave me the history of television as he knew it. I asked to see some of the early equipment that he’d developed. And he couldn’t put his hands on them, those early things that he had made. But after a few hours search he went out to a shed in back of the main building and there were some of these early tubes that he had worked, he had many prototypes before he finally developed a tube that would please him. He pulled out some of these old pieces of equipment and we brought them back into the main building, and we arranged the stuff all together, and it was quite an impressive set of pieces. And he brought in some of his assistants who’d worked with him. And we put on this program and afterwards all these pieces of equipment were displayed in cases.... And Zworykin was the main narrator of this whole thing. And at the end of the program we brought on General Sarnoff, Chairman of the Board of RCA. [In other shows] we would take people to the transmitter and explain the transmitter and show what it does. And we were in the studio and showing how you put on the makeup and rehearsing a show and the camera movements.

On directing the 1949 NBC production of Macbeth (from Part 4):
The Player’s Club cooperated with NBC to put on a special show. The Player’s Club is a club for actors in New York. Actors of renown. You’re invited to join the Player’s if you’re a very important actor.... and every part in the play, even the ladies-in-waiting and the servants were great Broadway stars. And Walter Hampden played the part of Macbeth. He, of course, had played the part all over the world for many, many years. And I was chosen to be the television director on it. I didn’t tell Mr. Hampden how to read his lines because he knew more than any of us about that.... It’s a very compact drama. And with the miracle of television and theatrics you can do great things with the witch’s scene in the castle and the murder scenes and it came off very well. And it was fun. All of the Player’s lit into it with great glee. They loved doing it, and for many of them, it was their first appearance on television.... It received a great deal of publicity. And it was sort of the first of its kind. It was the first Shakespeare play on television, American television. And it brought a lot of the curious art lovers to television who had not been regular viewers. So, “[television] spectacular” is a [term] that was developed after that.

On Jimmy Durante who Simpson worked with on All-Star Revue [1950-53] (from Part 5):
Jimmy was always hit up for money. He’d go out on the street and down-and-out actors and singers would go up to him, Jimmy, you know, can you help me out. And he’d pass out money to them. I observed his manager, after a show was over, the manager would go to Jimmy’s dressing room and say, "Jimmy, let me see your roll of money." And Jimmy would hand his roll of money to the manager, and the manager would give him another roll of money. And instead of twenties and fifties that were in Jimmy’s roll, there’d be fives and tens in this other roll that the manager had given him, because he would give it all away, to whomever he met on the street. And these out-of-work people knew that he was a good touch.

On Jackie Gleason (from Part 5):
Jackie Gleason was developed on the Dumont television station in New York. .... [When Dumont ended] Jackie Gleason was available, and he went to the networks, NBC and CBS, to get a spot to do a show. So NBC said they would let him do a trial show, and if his ratings were good they would sign a contract with him. So he was brought to NBC and I was assigned as the director of the show. He had his staff of writers. So we started on the show and I called rehearsals, and the first day of rehearsal all the cast – and there were about fifty people in the cast, his regulars – came, but Jackie was not there. And he had a stand-in and I gave all the moves to the stand-in, who wrote them down on the script. They said, maybe tomorrow Jackie will come. And second day Jackie didn’t come to rehearsal. So I said, what’s going on here, and they said, well, it’s hard to reach Jackie. He’s not at his apartment and we’ll get hold of him. We’ll see he comes. The third day he missed rehearsal, and so I went to NBC management and I said, we’re not going to have a show because Jackie is not coming to rehearsals. And so they got in touch with the manager and on the fourth day Jackie appeared at rehearsal, and he really looked like he’d been in a wreck. He smelled of booze, and a real floozy blonde came with him. And I understand he shacked up in a hotel with this girl for a period of days. And anyway, he was very polite, first time I met him. And his agent had given him the script and he had the script, but he hadn’t even read it. We rehearsed the whole thing through and he was very courteous and receptive and we left after the rehearsal. And the next day, when we came to rehearsal, he was there and he knew every line of his one-hour show. He didn’t have to study, he just had a photographic memory. And it was no problem with him. He was very amenable to any changes in anything that would improve the situation. And he had some very difficult things in his program. In one skit he was a wallpaperer, and he climbed up the ladders and he’d get wallpaper all over himself. And he fell off the ladder and he’d drop the bucket of paste and everything. It was all written in the script, he had to do. So he had some tough things to do, as well as other skits he appeared in. But anyway, we went on the air, and he was letter perfect. He hit all of his marks. He made all of his entrances, all his costume changes, and said all the lines, and it was a fabulous show. So the people at NBC said, wow, this is good. NBC’s going to get him a contract now. So the vice-president of NBC met with the manager of Jackie’s and said, NBC will give him a contract. Let’s make an appointment and sit down and work out the details. And the manager said, sorry, we just signed a contract yesterday, before the show, with CBS. So NBC lost him and CBS got him. And he did his musical variety show for the first year at CBS, and then they developed The Honeymooners.

Interview description:
Garry Simpson was interviewed for four hours in Vergennes, VT. Mr. Simpson started in television directing live demonstrations of television around the country. He later directed some of the first sporting events, mobile events, and went on to direct the informational series Eye Witness and direct and produce Wide Wide World (created by Pat Weaver). In the period before the war in the 1940s, Simpson was NBC’s only television stage manager. Simpson described his other directorial efforts on such programs including Chevrolet Tele-Theater, Mary Kay and Johnny (television’s first sitcom), All Star Revue, Ford Festival, and Campbell’s Soundstage. Among the actors he recalls working with are: James Dean, Grace Kelly, Jimmy Durante, Ed Wynn, Jackie Gleason, Jack Carter, and Olivia de Havilland. He later left NBC to head the formation of Vermont public television. The interview was conducted by Karen Herman on October 18, 1999.

Televangelist Jerry Falwell Has Died

Jerry Falwell, whose earliest television appearances date back to the 1950s, has died at the age of 73.


Rev. Falwell was interviewed by the Archive of American Television on October 16, 2003 at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. Click here to access his two hour oral history interview.

Interview Description:
Rev. Jerry Falwell talked about growing up the son of an entrepreneur, and his eventual calling to the Christian ministry. He discussed starting his first television broadcast, Thomas Road Baptist Church Presents and how it eventually became The Old Time Gospel Hour. He spoke about the growing popularity of the program and its eventual syndication worldwide as well as its transmission over satellite. Falwell also described his founding and the goals of the Moral Majority and Liberty University. He detailed the controversy surrounding his political views, the fallout from the PTL scandal that hit religious broadcasting in the late 80s and his treatment by the mainstream media. B-roll consists of a personally-guided tour of a museum dedicated to his life on the campus of Liberty University (Click here to access).

Norman Lloyd's Interview Is Now Online!

Norman Lloyd, best known for portraying St. Elsewhere's kindly "Dr. Auschlander," was also a producer and one of the directors of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and directed the famous "Man From the South" episode in which Steve McQueen bets Peter Lorre that he can light his Zippo lighter ten times in a row or else loose a finger for each misfire! Click here to access part 5 where the episode is discussed.


Click here to watch the entire six-part interview.

Some interview excerpts are as follows:

On appearing in Orson Welles and John Houseman's "Mercury Theater":
The very first production of the "Mercury" was "Julius Caesar," and I played the role of Cinna the poet in it. Orson was Brutus. Caesar was an actor, Joe Holland.... [and] it turned New York on its ear.... And in my view, Orson never did work at the level subsequently. The work never equaled what he did with Houseman. They were a perfect creative team.

On the falling out between Orson Welles and John Houseman:
I forgot the restaurant, where Orson accused John of stealing "Julius Caesar" for his Metro production. And that was in togas, [Orson's was] modern dress, I don’t know what, you know, but I guess Orson thought he wrote the play. And it’s like I always say, I was in the original production of "Julius Caesar," you know what I mean? And Orson threw, at John Houseman, in this restaurant, a can that was heating something, you know, a sterno can or something. Threw it at him. Would have been a very serious result if it had hit him. It was sad. It ended, unfortunately, that way.

On working with film director Jean Renoir:
What can I tell you about Jean? Because I don’t have the words lavish enough to describe my feeling about Jean. Chaplin and Welles said he was the great director of their time.... If you want to know what France was like in the twenties and the thirties, because he came over here in the early forties, you have to look at a Renoir picture.... He was the most intellectual of all the directors. He was almost avant, he was avant-garde. His mind. ....He was really a world figure, of great humanism. Great humanity. Great feeling for the human race. Look at the pictures. The people. There are no villains. You know, he wrote probably the greatest single individual line ever written in a movie, which is, "everyone has his reasons" [from Rules of the Game]. And that you can be thinking about forever. So Jean, uh, extraordinary, big individual. Didn’t speak English too well at that point. And he never lost the very thick French accent. But he was with one, of one with the great artists, particularly those in France. Not only movie people but whatever the art. And to work with him you had a sense that you were now working on a level that was above anything that you could possibly encounter in the run of things.

On Alfred Hitchcock's advice on directing for television:
There was one thing though, that was to be observed in regard to his directing television. He cautioned us all that it is a close medium. Get your establishing shot and get in close as quickly as you can. And he adhered to that. So he never got involved in any complicated shots that involved a lot of staging. He just set it up and then he got in close as fast as he could. And that’s the way he did it. But you see, he had a great storytelling gift so he could tell the story that way.

On St. Elsewhere:
The style was interesting in that the equipment that finally arrived at the point-- like Panavision hand held-- you could do wonderful things. We used to say that the strength of the show was in the corridors of the hospital. As soon as it went away from the hospital it got, in my view, a little shaky. But as long as it was in the hospital it was dynamite, because they dealt with subjects that had never been dealt with before. And in the corridors, particularly, with these hand held cameras, the moving shots, and then going into these rooms and out of the rooms gave the [show] a very alive style.

Interview description:

Norman Lloyd discussed his entrance into theater as a child actor and then as an apprentice to Eva La Gallienne. He talked in detail about his involvement with “The Mercury Theater” and described its first production, a modern dress adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” He spoke of his entrance into feature films in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur, in which he played the title role. Mr. Lloyd detailed his extensive career in television, which began with two 1939 NBC experimental productions. He recounted his work at MCA’s Revue Productions, as a director for such series as The Gruen Theater, which then led to his long association as an actor, director, and producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He recalled his work as executive producer and director of KCET’s Hollywood Television Theater. Finally, he discussed the role for which he is most identifed, that of “Dr. Daniel Auschlander” on the critically-acclaimed television series St. Elsewhere. The interview was conducted by Gary Rutkowski on September 7, 2000.

Producer/Director Alan Neuman's Interview Is Now Online

Producer-director Alan Neuman directed innumerable “live” on-location dramatic, variety, and documentary productions, including NBC’s first televised presidential election coverage and the first show that ever linked four countries together.

Click here to access the entire six-part videotaped interview.

Some interview excerpts are as follows:

On Kate Smith (from part 3):
Kate Smith was a wonderful, remarkable talent. She was a great performer for the theater. When they were traveling she would cut the boys’ hair— she was a barber as well. But I remember the transition. The show became enormously popular. But I remember the girl who cut hair…. Every Friday show, she would sing “God Bless America.” And I’ve probably heard it more than any other person I know has heard it. She had this great voice— big belting voice. And when she sang she filled a room, she filled a hall, she filled anything. She was the one who was always recognized with “God Bless America.” …. In those days, if she walked down the street, they followed her. And she was no beauty. She was not a Marilyn Monroe. But she was Kate Smith. And that meant a great deal.

On the Blacklist (from part 3):
The ad agency would say, the cheese company, or the car company doesn’t want to be in the position of pushing Communism in any shape, manner, or form. They’re out here buying entertainment and we don’t want that. And I could understand their perspective but I wasn’t sympathetic to it…. Who cared if they were a Communist when they were sixteen? It never made much sense…. It literally kept people from functioning, from earning a living…. I found it an abhorrent thing.

On Wide Wide World (from part 4):
I was the first one to do a show in which we linked four countries together— Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. It was Christmas and we sang “Adeste Fidelis.”…. I had a DC-10, a plane, between Miami and Havana, circling overhead relaying the signal, because that’s what was needed. …. I gave [the Emmy the show won] to the technical supervisor who was responsible for it.

On working with President Herbert Hoover (from part 4):
[NBC President] Pat Weaver called me and said I want you to do [a certain series]. I said I never heard of [that] series. He said that’s why I want you on board— jazz it up a little bit. I said "who’s the guest?" He said Herbert Hoover. I said, "Jazz him up?!".... But I got Hoover to laugh on camera, I got him to tell stories about himself… This is a man that never smiled on camera. I got him to tell the story about the little girl at Mark Hopkins who came over to him and said, "Mr. Hoover, may I have twelve of your autographs?" And he said, “Twelve? Why do you need twelve?" "Because twelve of yours is worth one Willie Mays." To get him to tell that story on himself on camera was I felt an accomplishment.

On Maurice Chevalier’s interview for Person to Person (from part 5):
Chevalier had not been permitted to visit this country. He had performed before the German officers. The truth was [he had been given an ultimatum]— “Mr. Chevalier you want to appear before the Frenchmen that we’ve captured, you’ve got to appear before a German camp.” So they gave him that, and he appeared before the Germans, so he could appear before the French. Now we were holding up his visa. He’s a famous French entertainer and we weren’t permitting him to come in. This was during the McCarthy time. I hope that by the story being explained when I did it on Person to Person, it helped, because he was permitted to attend the Academy Awards the following year. [In 1959, producing Person to Person abroad] I informed New York that I was gonna do an entire half-hour [on Chevalier]. They said no. The only ones that ever took a half-hour were Kennedy and Nixon. You’re not gonna take a half-hour— it would break precedent. Why are you taking a half-an-hour? I said because I can’t tell the story in just fifteen minutes. I had visited Chevalier where he had a home. And as I walked up the steps he had a photograph of every woman he had ever been with, all these major stars going on up, ending up with a shrine to his mother that he had outside his bed. And I knew there was no way I was gonna get to any of this without a half-hour at least! He was extraordinary, he was very funny, and it was a delightful half-hour. So what I did is, I shot a half-hour. There was no room for a commercial break in the middle. CBS, when they got the material, was stuck with what I sent them…. There was no commercial break in the middle, they had to give me the whole half-hour— if the man is walking up a staircase you can’t cut away.

Interview description:
Alan Neuman talked about joining NBC as a page in 1947 and his rise through the ranks as stage manager and then director. He described the studios at Rockefeller Center and the early camerawork on such series as Kraft Television Theater. He recalled directing NBC’s first televised presidential election coverage in 1948, anchored by Ben Grauer, which lasted so long that he had Grauer doing calisthenics on the air. He talked about serving as director on such early series as The Three Flames, Mary Kay and Johnny, and Broadway Open House (the forerunner to the Tonight Show). He spoke in detail about his work with Kate Smith and her manager Ted Collins on The Kate Smith Hour. Neuman discussed his work as a producer/director on programs that featured several Presidents of the United States, including Presidents Hoover, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He talked about the first color remote broadcast done by NBC, for Matinee Theater. He spoke in detail about the series Wide Wide World and Person to Person, for which he served as a producer. Additionally, he talked about the era of the Hollywood Blacklist. B-roll consisted of several photos of Neuman with the presidents he worked with and a photo from the premiere episode of Adlai Stevenson Presents. The interview was conducted by Gary Rutkowski on February 15, 2006.

Beloved Character Actor Tom Poston Leaves A Legacy of Comedy

Tom Poston, who was a regular on The Steve Allen Show,

Mork & Mindy, and Newhart, has died at the age of 85.

Poston was interviewed by the Archive of American Television on
February 2006 (pictured here with interviewer Stephen J. Abramson).
His entire two-hour interview (part 2 of 4 can be seen below)
can be viewed at the Television Academy offices in North Hollywood.

In the clip above (part 2 of 4), Tom Poston discusses how he became a regular on The Steve Allen Show. PRESS THE PLAY ARROW IN THE PLAYER ABOVE TO VIEW THE SEGMENT.


Interview Description:
Tom Poston talked about his first television appearances, including his stint as a regular on the early soap opera, Hawkins Falls, Population 6200, which originated in Chicago. He chronicled his work on a local New York daytime show, that led to appearances as a regular on The Steve Allen Show where he memorably appeared in the “Man on the Street” sketches with Don Knotts and Louis Nye. He discussed his work with colleague Bob Newhart – including his recurring role on The Bob Newhart Show, and his regular role as handyman “George Utley” on Newhart. Other topics he discussed include his original consideration for the lead of Get Smart (before the project changed networks nullifying his contract), his regular role on Mork & Mindy, and his relationship and marriage to actress Suzanne Pleshette. The interview was conducted by Stephen J. Abramson