Laughing with Lucy: My Life with America's Leading Lady of Comedy

Laughing with Lucy: My Life with America's Leading Lady of Comedy

ISBN-10:
1578603056
ISBN-13:
9781578603053
Pub. Date:
09/28/2007
Publisher:
Clerisy Press
ISBN-10:
1578603056
ISBN-13:
9781578603053
Pub. Date:
09/28/2007
Publisher:
Clerisy Press
Laughing with Lucy: My Life with America's Leading Lady of Comedy

Laughing with Lucy: My Life with America's Leading Lady of Comedy

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Overview

Read the heartwarming and hilarious stories behind I Love Lucy, as told by Lucille Ball’s staff writer.

I love Lucy. You love Lucy. We all love Lucy. At any time, day or night, I Love Lucy is on TV somewhere in the world—which means that, 24 hours a day, Lucille Ball is speaking the words that Madelyn Pugh Davis wrote.

As Lucille Ball’s staff writer for nearly 50 years—spanning I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy, and Life with Lucy—Madelyn was responsible for thousands of hours of classic TV. Many of the story elements used on the shows were, in fact, taken from Madelyn’s own life and immortalized by Ball’s comic genius. (Mertz, for example, was the last name of her real-life neighbors.)

Madelyn and her long-time writing partner, Bob Carroll Jr., share with you their priceless moments in crafting the stories for Lucy, Desi, and cast. In Laughing with Lucy, you’ll learn about

  • the scramble to address Ball’s real-life pregnancy on the show without using the “p” word
  • behind-the-scenes, painstaking work to create “spontaneous” jokes
  • how, whenever an elaborate physical comedy gag was devised, Madelyn had to act it out first to be sure that a woman could perform it
  • Madelyn’s and Bob’s fond memories of the partnership between Lucille Ball, the consummate perfectionist, and Desi Arnaz, the charmer

In Laughing with Lucy, Madelyn looks back with wit and affection on her many years working with Lucy, Desi, and other entertainment legends, and the adventures that came her way as a television pioneer.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781578603053
Publisher: Clerisy Press
Publication date: 09/28/2007
Edition description: First Trade Paper Edition
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 770,058
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Madelyn Pugh Davis and her writing partner, Bob Carroll Jr, have been in the entertainment business for more than 50 years. Together they are have written more than 400 television shows—all the “I Love Lucy” shows as well as the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” “The Lucy Show,” “Here's Lucy,” “life with Lucy,” and “The Mothers-in-Law” —and about 300 radio shows. They have produced more than 200 television shows. Davis and Carroll were executive producers on the “Private Benjamin” and “Alice” TV series, and they also wrote for Steve Allen, Debbie Reynolds, Dorothy Loudon, and Dinah Shore. Davis and Carroll are two-time Emmy nominees for their work on “I Love Lucy,” and they received a Golden Globe Award as the producers of “Alice.” In 2001, UCLA Film School honor Davis with a Lifetime Achievement in Television Writing.

Read an Excerpt

“The Visitor From Italy” was next and was a typical example of how Lucy embraced a physical routine and made it a tour-de-force. Bob and I were in Hollywood one evening and happened to walk by an Italian restaurant where man was making pizza in a window. He was throwing the dough up in the air and sort of twirling it around. (I understand they do this to get air in it, but I’m certainly not a pizza-making expert. Do not try this at home.) We looked at each other, called Lucy, she joined us, and it wasn’t long before she was in the window, wildly throwing pizza dough about, much to the enjoyment of the crowd that soon gathered outside. The pizza routine was an example of how we sometimes worked. We would think of a funny physical routine for Lucy to do and then work backwards, coming up with a storyline so this could be the last big scene. Jay Novello was the fine comedy actor who played Mario, the gondolier from Venice, who knocks on their apartment door one day and announced that he has come to visit them like they said. You know, the old “If you're ever in New York, look us up” kind of invitation. Lucy helps him get a job in a pizza parlor, and then finds out it is against the law for him to work since he is in this country on a visitor's visa, and she has to fill in so he won't lose his back pay. On the show, of course, she was a master of ineptitude, even throwing the pizza up in the air and letting it drop over her head, and then making two little holes in it for her eyes.

Table of Contents

One: Don’t you have a better joke than that?

Two: But I wanted to be a foreign correspondent

Three: Worse than married

Four: The Cuban arm

Five: Lucy isn’t pregnant, she’s expecting

Six: California, here we come

Seven: You wouldn’t fit in, you’re a girl

Eight: Bon voyage

Nine: Our longest laugh

Ten: The Mertzes (or as Desi called them, “The Merzes”)

Eleven: What’s new?

Twelve: Did you really try out all those stunts?

Thirteen: I’m going over to the Pope’s house

Fourteen: Your show’s only half an hour; what do you do the rest of the week?

Fifteen: Don’t step on the children

Sixteen: Who am I?

Seventeen: Who’s the pushy broad at the end of the table?

Index

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