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Behind the kooky redhead: |
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Behind the kooky redhead:| This month: Loving Lucy in books, TV specials |
| For a show that aired only six years, I Love Lucy spawned a legacy. More than 80 countries have broadcast the show to what some estimate is a billion viewers. Lucille Ball's own legacy appears enduring as well. In August, Ball was named the most recognizable celebrity in America, despite her death in 1989. She had the top Q score, a measure of familiarity and likeability used by broadcasters and advertisers. She still is the subject of many books and specials. IU alumna and long-time TV writer Madelyn Pugh Davis' book, Laughing with Lucy, was published this month. The PBS show, American Masters, will air a special, Lucille Ball: Finding Lucy, Sept. 20 at 9 p.m. on WTIU (Channel 30). The show looks at Ball's life and career and features interviews with other comedians, family and friends. (The show will be rebroadcast Sept. 23 at 3 a.m. and Sept. 26 at midnight and 3 a.m.) |
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One journalism alumna is half of the comedy writing team who created those characters and hatched those zany plots. Madelyn Pugh Davis, B.A. '42, reminisces in her new book published this month, Laughing With Lucy, about her own beginnings as a writer and her long-time association with the star.
"None of us knew we were creating a classic that would endure, a show people would love so much that they memorize episodes and spout dialogue to you," said Davis, 84, in a phone interview from her home in California. "At that time, we just wanted to work."
And work they did. She and writing partner Bob Carroll, Jr., wrote the pilot for I Love Lucy, all the scripts during its six years on the air, scripts for other Lucille Ball shows and specials, some movies, and the two produced several sitcoms in the 1970s and 1980s.
But were it not for talent, pluck and luck -- and the lack of men on the home front during World War II - Davis, "the girl-writer," may never have had the chance to become one of a handful of women pioneering their way into comedy writing.
"Early television was a little like going through Donner Pass in a covered wagon in the middle of winter. There were no maps because nobody had ever been there before, and if you froze to death, or didn't write a funny script, they might draw lots and eat you," she writes in her book, which reads like a friendly conversation with the witty, articulate Davis.
This new medium of television, and the absence of men off fighting in World War II, meant that fledgling networks were more open to hiring women, even if they assumed this would be temporary until the men came back.
Hoosier beginnings
They weren't figuring on women such as Davis, however. She'd learned to pursue her goal of writing early on, first as an elementary school student who figured out that she could avoid reading long books by writing her reports as poetry, which impressed her teacher. As a student at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, a school noted for its emphasis on writing, she wrote and edited the newspaper. She came to Bloomington as an English and journalism major in the late 1930s, where she sharpened her skills as a reporter.
"John Stempel was head of journalism then, and he was very stiff with us. You wouldn't want to tell him you made a mistake and you didn't want to miss a deadline," said Davis, who also was campus editor of the IDS.
Davis worked her way through college, at one point selling grilled cheese sandwiches she cooked in her room to her sorority sisters at Kappa Kappa Gamma. There was no Ernie Pyle Hall back then, but there was Ernie Pyle himself, one of Davis' heroes in journalism. His columns on the average soldier's experiences inspired her to be a foreign correspondent
"Someone pointed out that there were very few women foreign correspondents, but there were very few women anything, so it didn't bother me," she writes. This was, after all, the era when women writers were relegated to the "society" pages.
After graduation, Davis interviewed at all three Indianapolis newspapers, but after cooling her heels at home for two months, ended up taking a job writing radio spots for WIRE, an Indianapolis radio station.
"I didn't know what they wrote there, but it was a job," Davis said. "Turns out, I was the writer and a friend was the editor, and I wrote intros to songs and other spots."
The girl-writer
Davis and her family moved to California, where young Madelyn, too unsophisticated to be intimidated, applied to radio networks for writing jobs. She landed at NBC, then CBS, as the lone "girl-writer" for many radio shows, usually teaming with other writers to churn out scripts in tiny, smoke-filled closets. She met Bob Carroll, Jr., while at CBS, and their writing partnership has lasted over 50 years. The collaboration persists: while it chiefly is Davis' story, her book is "with Bob Carroll, Jr."
Davis and Carroll wrote for Lucille Ball's early radio show, My Favorite Husband, and when Ball and husband Desi Arnaz put together their own show, they asked the writing team to come aboard. They knew what Lucy could sound like, but were just beginning to see what Lucy could look like as a TV character.
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Davis, ever the reporter and anxious to protect the star, tried out these stunts herself to see if they worked and to see if the actress might get hurt. Most of the antics in the now-classic episodes - Lucy hiding eggs from Ricky, Lucy stomping grapes, Lucy and Ethel stuffing themselves with chocolates when the assembly belt moves too fast - were tried out first in Davis and Carroll's tiny office.
"The worst one was trying out a unicycle. I ran into a wall and hit my head. We decided it was too dangerous for Lucy," Davis said.
Once a script was ready, the actress rehearsed down to every detail. By knowing how to do something really well, she could then do it "badly" in front of the studio audience. Her work ethic and loyalty always impressed Davis.
"She had learned from the best, including Buster Keaton, and wanted everything to work," Davis said, citing the Harpo Marx and Lucy mime bit as an example. All the action was scripted, but Davis says part of Lucy's legacy is that she knew just what made a bit funnier.
"For instance, the episode where Lucy's fake nose catches on fire called for her to take off the nose and dip it in her tea cup to put out the fire," Davis said. "But in front of the audience (during filming), she instead dipped her nose into the cup, which was so much funnier. She really understood these nuances of physical comedy that just made it work."
What writers do
Lucille Ball often credited her writers with the longevity and success of I Love Lucy and her other shows, most of which also were written by Davis and Carroll. Davis says Ball was one of the few actors who ever publicly thanked her writers or even acknowledged them.
Even fans and family members aren't too sure what writers do.
"Some people would say, 'well, that's a half hour show. What do you do the rest of the week?' Few realize the hours and hours writers spend creating their work," she said.
People also ask the writers where they get their ideas. Davis and Carroll relied on everyday situations when creating the Ricardo's and Mertz's antics. This, she says, is the reason for the show's long popularity.
"We never dreamed of anything like syndication, so we didn't plan for this, couldn't plan for this," said Davis. "But we avoided references to present-day events or people because New York was doing live TV, we were on film and these references would look stale by the time viewers saw the show. Instead, we looked for common, everyday things that had happened to us or our families, or stories our friends had told us."
Sometimes, the writers would jot down notes about events they saw, such as a worker flipping pizza in a restaurant window, which later became an episode. Or, they'd think of situations in their own family, such as when one of Carroll's relatives sold a washer to another relative, and the washer broke down.
"We also used a lot of names and places and references from our own lives in the script," said Davis, who used her own Shortridge year book in the episode where Ethel attends her reunion.
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"We thought that sounded interesting and went down to the shop to see how this worked. We often walked around, looking for things to inspire us, or made special trips like this to see how things are done, and if it would work in a script," Davis said. The candy-making episode is one of the most popular, she said.
Davis relied more on her journalism training than she realized, she said. To shape her writing and story lines, she analyzed the audience, conducted research (including trying stunts herself) and interviewed people about their jobs and experiences. And, of course, she learned about deadlines.
"Journalism, radio and television teach you that you had better have the material, that someone is waiting for it," she said. "We'd write all weekend to be ready for Monday morning rehearsals. Bob would say, 'Lucy is waiting, and we'd better have something to put on those hands.'"
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