The second 60-minute adventure of the Ricardos and the Mertzes is loaded with southern comfort and paint. Lots and lots of paint.
The celebrity in the show’s title is Tallulah Bankhead. For those who are familiar with “I Love Lucy”, but not familiar with Tallulah Bankhead, Wikipedia sez:
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Lifeboat (1944). She also had a brief but successful career on radio and made appearances on television. In all, Bankhead amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles during her career. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1981.
Bankhead’s participation in this episode is somewhat notorious; we’ll talk about that later. Right now, the Ricardo household is all abuzz with the forthcoming PTA Variety Show. But soon Lucy and Ethel are drawn to a moving truck at the house next door. When Ricky sees Lucy with a pair of binoculars she attempts to convince him that she’s a bird watcher:
LUCY: Do you know that there’s a yellow-bellied woodpecker on our lawn?
RICKY: No, but I know there’s a red-headed cuckoo in the living room!
LUCY: Ohhh, now I know how our new neighbor got her mink coat…she bought it with the money she saved on that cheap furniture.
RICKY: Lucy!
ETHEL: Ohhh, look at that crummy looking couch! How could anyone collect so many monstrocities?
LUCY: I bet she’s a lady junk dealer.
RICKY: Lucy!!!! I’d like you to meet our new neighbor!
To try to make nice with the new neighbor, Lucy invites her to dinner. Upon accepting the invitation Tallulah mentions not being able to find a “couple” (i.e. maid and butler). Lucy,not wanting to seem out of step, makes plans to find a “couple” of her own.
RICKY: Come on honey, eat your lunch.
LUCY: Ohhh…every time I think of how I acted in front of Tallulah Bankhead this morning I could just die. What she must think of me.
RICKY: Well, I warned you about snooping.
LUCY: And you were so right. I swear on a stack of old binoculars I will never snoop again… Why do I have to act like such a goof always?
RICKY: Oh, I don’t know…I guess it’s part of your charm.
LUCY: Somebody oughta give me a good swift kick in the pants.
RICKY: I’ll volunteer.
In discussing the first Lucy/Desi hour, I noted that the Mertzes had a very small role in the story…almost incidental characters. Here in “The Celebrity Next Door” things are as they should be: Fred and Ethel get huge laughs in the dinner scene and also loom large in the second half of the show.
This brings us to the segmented storylines in “The Celebrity Next Door”. The first half of the show is all about Tallulah’s dinner with the Ricardos, and the Mertzes as disgruntled servants. The second half puts the PTA show in the spotlight. Many books on the work of Lucille Ball note that Lucy’s reliable writers had plenty of experience writing for her. But all of those scripts were for half-hour series, be it “My Favorite Husband” on radio or “I Love Lucy” on TV. The writers must have figured something out, because the remaining comedy hours are indeed full-hour storylines.
We’re now well into the second-half storyline, and this seems like a good place to stop and talk about Tallulah Bankhead’s guest star behavior. The following quotes are from a tremendous oral history volume callled “The Lucy Book” by Geoffrey Mark Fidelman:
“Tallulah was either so drunk or stoned during the rehearsal process that we were dreading the shooting night.” -Hair Stylist Irma Kuseley
“Tallulah was drunk the entire time. She would remove her panties for no reason. She kept calling Vivian [Vance] (A WORD THAT I WOULD NEVER USE IN THIS BLOG). -Writer Bob Schiller
“We babied Tallulah to make sure she’d make it. Desi and I drove her home to our house, made sure she ate something and got bathed….Finally we got to the show day and it struck me. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know what the hell I am doing!’ …I don’t like watching this episode. It reminds me how I allowed Bankhead to mop up the floor with us.” – Lucille Ball
It’s hard to imagine a guest star being any more difficult than that. Unless you know that their original choice was Bette Davis, who had to bow out because she fell off a horse.
LUCY: I never thought you would stoop to this!
TALLULAH: Stoop to what darling?
LUCY: You knew that was wet paint! Look at me! No wonder you insisted I sit down!
TALLULAH: I knew nothing of the kind!
LUCY: Not much you didn’t! Oh, what a sneaky way to get even!
TALLULAH: I wouldn’t even lower myself to try to get even with a wacky character like you.
LUCY: Wacky?! Well let me tell you something, Tallulah Bankhead, Ethel Mertz may think you’re the greatest actress in the world, but not me! All you can do is “Ahahahahaha dahhhhling!”
TALLULAH: That does it. My good woman, would you kindly leave the premises before I grab your pink hair and pull it out by its black roots!
Sabotage is the name of the game at the PTA show, as Lucy has locked Tallulah away so she can be the star. Bankhead eventually returns to the stage, but is done in by a dinner tray…the sauce on the roast is supposed to be marmalade but–Lucy strikes again– it’s strawberry jam.
The play is a shambles, but–as seems to happen whenever Lucy fouls up the show–the audience loves it and they are invited to perform the whole thing again tomorrow night!
RANDOM NOTES:
-In that last group of pics the #2 shows Lucy’s “spider” face, accompanied by “eeeeeeeeiiiiiuuu”. The utterance was first heard in a Jell-O commercial on Lucy’s radio series “My Favorite Husband”. Lucy played Little Miss Muffet in that spot, hence the “spider” look. The writers came up with shorthand for many of Lucy’s frequently used facial reactions.
-Ricky-eese: “Greetings fair lady! I wouldst have an audience with the quinn.”
-Elvia Allman has a part in this show as the PTA play director. She is probably best known for an earlier (and bossier) Lucy guest role.
-To allow equal time, here are Tallulah’s recollections on the experience:
I’ve got not even one picayune derogatory thing to say abput those wonderful people. Of course, I did have pneumonia at the time. And someone nearly blinded me one day at rehearsals with hair spray, But Lucy? She’s divine to work with! And Desi? He’s brilliant. He has a temper, however. But that’s because he’s fat. It worries him…I broke a tooth. I broke the cap they put on the tooth. I broke my nails. I had pneumonia.
NEXT TIME: Geiger Counters ahoy!