Vivian Vance

I'll put this playlist on or I'll put his album on like his my William Frawley playlist.

on every now and then when I'll be working if I just want to be put in a happy mood because it's very like 5 billion and yeah I just put a smile on my face and it reminds me also of the skits some of the musical numbers they did in I Love Lucy where him and Vivian Vance would do little musical numbers like of that time and I wish we had a Vivian Vance album I feel like we were robbed of that but you know maybe one day there'll be something that'll be found you know an unknown yeah unfound you know recording of her but yeah i just thought this was a fun one and shine on harvest moon it fits with the season and yeah yeah definitely worth the album it's it's a fun one

Well, that made my day.

Like I just like, because I didn't know.

She not only, she, she ran the show.

She was the star, and Vivian Vance, an incredibly talented woman, was always overshadowed by Lucy.

Just the very nature of the industry made that happen.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It wasn't, it wasn't Laverne and her roommate.

It was Laverne and Shirley, and that is one thing that I think made it, I don't want to say stronger, but it, it endears me a little bit because I always felt, uh, a- again, it's not a shade on Lucy 'cause of her talent, but I always felt like Vivian Vance, who I also find incredibly talented, w- I was always sad for her that she was the, you know, the-

the-Supporting

That was the first commercial I ever did.

I got my SAG card doing a, a, a commercial with Vivian Vance-

Wow

... for Maxwell House coffee.

... for that commercial.

You know, uh, there was a Broadway show in the '20s, uh-

With Vivian Vance? [laughs]

Yeah, a Cole Porter show called, uh, Let's Face It, Bob Hope, Ethel Merman, Vivian Vance.

And Ethel's priceless.

Vivian Vance's best stuff on the show is in that episode where she thinks Lucy's hurt herself.

falling to the street and she's having to disguise she's in on the gag but Ricky isn't.

She has to hide the fact that she suspects Lucy's hurt herself.

And I, yeah, you summed it up very well.

Some of the things that I'd be interested in talking about were the cast dynamics.

You know, we've heard all kinds of stories about their friction with Lucy and Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance, you know, that I know, you know, as the years went on.

their relationship was, was good.

Time to find a new hobby.

Bullet point number two: When Vivian Vance left The Lucy Show in 1965, Joan Blondell was one of the actresses brought in to do a couple of episodes with Lucille Ball to test their chemistry.

They had gotten along very well in their earlier Hollywood years in the 1930s and '40s, but Lucy was the big boss now, and she'd grown a much tougher skin.

According to Joan, Lucy was not kind to her and threw insult after insult at her as they played out their lines.