RED Headed Woman: The real story of Lucille Ball and the Hollywood Red Scare

Tony Maietta: 0:51

Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve: 0:54

And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta: 0:57

We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's olden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve: 1:04

And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta: 1:09

As does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood. I am so excited for this, Brad, me too. This is going to be really, really interesting, because you know what, as far as Lucy goes and Lucy history and Hollywood history, I mean, this man, please, can put everybody to shame, including me.

Brad Shreve: 1:34

Oh my gosh, it takes something miraculous to make you humble, tony, but I am equally excited and honored to have Tom on.

Tony Maietta: 1:48

I'm excited too. We are talking with my good friend, sometime employer, an all-around great guy, Mr. Tom Watson. Now, I say sometime employer because I met Tom about 15 years ago when he hired me to be the on-camera host of the DVD releases of the Lucy Show, which was Lucille Ball's second series after I Love Lucy, and CBS was putting them out, and Tom was producing them and it was so great. I talked with some wonderful people such as Lucy Arnaz, the late great Carol Cook, but Tom and I also worked on the Blu-ray releases of I Love Lucy just the first two seasons. But in addition I want to say that Tom is also one of the people responsible for the wonderful colorized I Love Lucy specials. That was kind of an annual thing CBS was doing around the holidays for a few years I don't know if you remember that. They colorized some wonderful iconic episodes. So when I say this guy knows Lucy, I mean it.

Brad Shreve: 2:44

Sounds like he knows Lucy for sure.

Tony Maietta: 2:46

I'm saying he worked for Lucille Ball for a number of years and I think you consider her a good friend, right, Tom?

Tom Watson: 2:54

Correct, thank you.

Tony Maietta: 2:55

Yeah, how lovely to have you here, and we're going to focus on, in particular, the red quote, unquote red scare that happened in the 50s, particularly with Lucy. That's why I wanted to talk to you about it, because I find it fascinating. Tell Brad, tell our listener, about your background with Lucy and how that all came about, if you don't mind.

Tom Watson: 3:15

Well, I was a lifelong Lucy fan and I know we all lay claim to that, but I'm old enough to have seen the shows in their original form when they were on CBS Monday night for Philip Morris Cigarettes, and I grew up watching it. My parents had a TV before they had me, which is common today, but when you were born in the late 40s, that wasn't the way it was.

Tom Watson: 3:41

My family had a TV because my dad sold them and we had one of the only aerials in town. People thought the Martians had landed and all that because of this contraption out on our roof.

Tom Watson: 3:51

But everybody in our family had favorite TV shows, but the one that everybody liked and we all got together in the living room every Monday night was I Love Lucy, and the show was just always an important part of my life and I grew up knowing that, even though I was living in a relatively small town in the Midwest, I wanted to work in television in some way, shape or form, because I was part of that first television generation, of a babysat us, if you will and so I ultimately went into the business.

Tom Watson: 4:29

I went to New York, I got a job at CBS and actually Lucy helped me get that job insofar as I wrote a theme paper on Lucy for a English class in high school and in order to find out all the information that I needed, I wrote multiple letters to CBS asking this and asking that and whatever, and apparently impressed them, because later, when I went to New York and was looking for a job, the lady that hired me was the lady that answered nine-tenths of the questions that I had asked her here, earlier on my theme papers, and so, anyway, lucy got me that job indirectly and then I was at CBS in New York for seven years and then they moved me out.

Tom Watson: 5:19

Here I was in the research department, where it's almost like the library of facts, where people would call in and asked about things that I show, like yours, if you were looking at specific details, you would call the research department at CBS and ask when did this happen and how did this happen? And we got the questions. So, anyway, they moved me to Los Angeles and that's when I actually became very close with Lucy and when she ultimately was doing a new project in the 80s, I left CBS and went over and worked for her.

Tony Maietta: 5:57

So you were working specifically on Life with Lucy when she began her last.

Tom Watson: 6:00

I stayed with her for the rest of her life.

Tony Maietta: 6:02

Wonderful and you were the president of the We Love Lucy fan club, which is how I first heard of you.

Tom Watson: 6:07

It bothered me in the 70s, where there were no fan clubs, or the fan club that had once existed for I Love Lucy had disappeared, had sort of weaned out.

Brad Shreve: 6:18

It's a shame those have fallen out of favor.

Tom Watson: 6:20

What's interesting was I was trying to write a book on I Love Lucy when I was at CBS and I got multitude volumes of help from CBS employees and whatnot and I sent around presentations to every publisher in town and got a stack three inches steep of rejection letters. And one thing they all had in common was they didn't see that there was any interest whatsoever in old television. If I wanted to write a book on a current show, such as Saturday Night Live, which was then the really hot new show, they said they'd be glad to take a book on a current show, but no one's interested in old television. Thank you, and anyway.

Brad Shreve: 7:12

Well, that was short-sighted.

Tony Maietta: 7:14

That was the spirit of the time, so Well, I think I should also point out you are the author of a couple books on Lucy and a fabulous one on Judy Garland. Yeah, and you co-wrote a book with Betty White, correct?

Tom Watson: 7:29

Correct. It's been fun the various projects. But yeah, Lucy has been an important part of my life from the very beginning and she knew me through CBS and through the work I had done on the fan club and so when she needed help and I applied, she hired me without much to do at all, said, oh fine, let's do it.

Brad Shreve: 7:49

Tom. That is the classic Hollywood story of being in the right place at the right time.

Tom Watson: 7:54

Right, I was in the right place at the right time and bam.

Tony Maietta: 7:56

Very true, that's fabulous. Well, I know I love the fact that you have such a knowledge of Lucy, and you and I have talked about this many times. There was a movie that came out a couple years ago that we won't speak the name of, shall not speak its name, which dealt with this area, this particular timeframe in Lucy and Dezi's life, and got it so wrong. Just as a little background, tom and I were actually working on the Blu-rays of I Love Lucy and we were going to do this documentary, weren't we, tom?

Tom Watson: 8:28

when we got to season three, Right, it was going to be on the Red Scare.

Tony Maietta: 8:32

Yeah, and unfortunately season three never happened of the Blu-ray. So this is kind of our opportunity to set that straight and to get the real information out there for people to know what really happened. Because to me I don't know how you feel about this either, both of you but to me the reality is always so much more fascinating than anything any writer makes up. I mean, the story of what really happened to me is so much more interesting. I don't know why we need to stray from that and quote unquote, dramatize it. You know, there's there's dramatic license and then there's dramatic licentiousness, and I think that's what happened with this movie.

Brad Shreve: 9:06

I know it's cliche, but the longer I live, the more I really find it true that truth is stranger than fiction.

Tom Watson: 9:12

Exactly.

Tony Maietta: 9:16

So this is the time in Hollywood of the Red Scare, with the House Un-American Activities Committee, also known as HUAC, which was actually formed in 1938, but gained momentum after World War II. So this is the time of the Hollywood Ten. You know there's screenwriters like Dalton Trumbo, Adrian Scott, Ring Lardner jr. You know all blacklisted, the blacklisting era Right. And then in the early 50s, senator Joseph McCarthy and his Senate committee came to the forefront with their investigations of, quote unquote, american communists, you know, real or imaginary. And this is when it all came down on Lucy right, it all came down on Lucy right, it never really totally, got totally away, it just was basically inactive.

Tom Watson: 10:17

The sad part was that it all dated back to, you know, the 30s when, let's face it, the world had gone to hell in a handbasket to most people because, beginning in 29, there was not only the crash, the Wall Street crash, but basically a depression around the world and all of the forms of government, if you will, were suddenly thrown into disarray and people were very disillusioned. They didn't know for sure. Well, who's piloting this ship, you know. And so particularly the I don't want to get political, but the liberal thinkers, let me put it this way around the world were sort of searching for new answers, because the old ones seem to have failed people, certainly economically.

Tom Watson: 10:59

So in this country, particularly a lot of the artists of various disciplines, your writers, directors, actors were looking. They were very open. If they weren't looking, they were at least open to new ideas. There were little groups starting up, people who thought they might have a better way, a better solution, and one of them happened to be the Communist Party. It was simply a. People were invited to come into one of our meetings and just see what it's about. You know, if it's not for you, then it's not for you, but if it is, we'll see what we got going, and so a lot of people did that.

Brad Shreve: 11:44

Given the realities of that era, it's no surprise.

Tony Maietta: 11:47

Yeah, well, the ironic thing is is Lucy was not one of those people. I mean, when HUAC got a hold of and HUAC is the House of American Activities Committee, which is the committee that Jay Parnell Thomas, who was the first in the initial run of this in the late 40s who ran these hearings, and then McCarthy kind of took over when Lucy was involved, lucy wasn't one of those people. Right, I mean, the story is right. How was Lucy involved in the Communist Party?

Brad Shreve: 12:16

Tony, I'm stopping our conversation real quick.

Tony Maietta: 12:18

Why? Why we're in the middle of a podcast.

Brad Shreve: 12:21

But this is about the podcast and it's very important.

Tony Maietta: 12:24

Okay

Brad Shreve: 12:24

Listener, whatever app you're listening on whether it's, but this is about the podcast and it's very important. Okay, Listener, whatever app you're listening on, whether it's on the computer or on the phone, reach your finger or your mouse over. It usually says follow. Some still say subscribe and click that. And what's going to happen when they do that, Tony?

Tony Maietta: 12:38

They're going to get notified when a new episode is available and they can listen to us again. You know you don't want to miss that. Don't forget to subscribe and follow. There you go. How was Lucy involved in the Communist Party?

Tom Watson: 12:59

Well, first of all, her own father died when she was very young I think she was only like three. First of all, her own father died when she was very young I think she was only like three and her mother and she and her baby brother moved in with grandpa and grandma, and grandpa was a woodworker in Jamestown, New York. He worked with his hands his entire life. There were a lot of furniture factories in the Jamestown area and he worked in one of them and he could build you anything your heart desired. He was very much a craftsman, but he was also one of the people who was suddenly, if not out of work, at least financially strapped. When you know, the depression hit. Almost everybody on the planet was, and so he was always for the working man. You know, if anybody's going to make money, it ought to be the guy holding the hammer, not some guy sitting in a three-piece suit up in the office.

Brad Shreve: 13:53

So Is it fair to say he was a socialist?

Tom Watson: 13:57

He was very much what I just said for the working man.

Tom Watson: 14:01

When Lucy moved to Los Angeles in 33 and wound up with a contract as a studio player, the first thing she did was bring her family out to Los Angeles and out came her brother, fred, and her mother, deedee, and her grandpa, who she called Daddy because it was the only real father figure she ever really knew, and she got him a part-time job as a builder to build sets at the studios.

Tom Watson: 14:35

But he was still very much for the working man and any of the literature that came along, including the communist-leaning newspapers and whatnot and election, which would have been for Roosevelt's re-election the second time. He encouraged Lucy and Dee Dee, her mother and Fred to all register as communists, you know, and vote that way, vote the communist slate. And to appease this gentleman who was up in years at this point and he could get I don't want to say nasty, but he would get all worked up if you, you know, if you didn't do what he was suggesting. And so just to keep peace in the family and make everybody happy, they did. They registered when it was time to register to vote next time.

Tony Maietta: 15:25

But she didn't even remember if she voted right. And then, when she did all this and she didn't even vote right, Right, they filed the paperwork.

Tom Watson: 15:32

She never really attended a meeting. I don't know that Grandpa did or not. It was simply like that's where you know. I mean, I've never been to a political rally, but I voted one party or another my entire life, but I've never gone to anything like that. So that's all they did, end of it. And it would have been except for what you were saying. Suddenly and the odd thing was, making it even stranger was during when world war ii broke out, one of our fiercest allies was russia it was russia.

Tom Watson: 16:09

Yes, yes because you know everybody else was siding with the other guy because we were fighting fascism, fascism was the big enemy.

Tony Maietta: 16:16

Because we were fighting fascism, fascism was the big enemy. And then, when we defeated fascism, suddenly communism. Yeah, I think it's kind of funny. She made a famous remark about that where she said in 1936, it was almost worse to be considered a Republican than it was a communist. I mean, it's a different era.

Tom Watson: 16:34

Because the Republicans had been in office when the crash hit.

Brad Shreve: 16:39

They were viewed as being responsible for the Depression.

Tony Maietta: 16:41

So yeah, just to put it in perspective, it was worse to be a Republican than it was to be a communist in 36. And that all changed 17 years later, after when the hearings began.

Brad Shreve: 16:51

So, just to clarify, she wasn't an active member of the Communist Party, which, to me, the part that drives me crazy is it shouldn't matter. This is the United States, but she was a communist on paper only.

Tom Watson: 17:02

She declared herself a communist in order to vote.

Tony Maietta: 17:05

As we declare ourselves, democrats or Republicans. To vote, it's a political party. But that was the extent of her involvement.

Tom Watson: 17:14

Right, there are like two or three other parties as well listed, you know, the Independent Party. Now we have the Independents, we have the Green Party, we have the this, we have the that. Well, in those days, one of them was the Communist Party and, like I said, to keep Daddy happy, you know, they all said they were communists.

Tony Maietta: 17:29

I think it's safe to say that, other than her participation in World War II, as all stars did you know the, the bond tours and the participation in the war she was a very apolitical person. Yeah, Didn't Desi say. She wasn't even sure who the mayor of Los Angeles was. So the idea to say that she's a communist is just is ludicrous.

Tom Watson: 17:50

Right and she always had her heart in the right place and usually supported people of whatever party that needed help. All of Hollywood did extremely good things during the war as far as, like you say, selling war bonds and all that and anything here locally, whoever the mayor was, if they needed help, they went out and helped them, that sort of thing. But she was no more political than a blade of grass. It just wasn't her thing.

Tony Maietta: 18:20

That's what's fascinating. So how is it that HUAC came up with her name? Was there? They found the old papers. They found the old papers that she had registered as a communist.

Tom Watson: 18:30

Paper trail never went away Right, and so suddenly all these things were confiscated by these committees.

Brad Shreve: 18:36

They were looking for everything and anything.

Tom Watson: 18:38

Yeah, and the thing is they didn't prove anything. All they wanted to do was, I think, they were looking for publicity as much as anything else. It ruined so many people's careers because it was the kind of situation where all you had to do was be accused of it and it was up to you. You were guilty until proven innocent, as opposed to innocent until proven guilty. Oddly enough, in Lucy's situation, she was first questioned about it in the spring of 1952, when her name first came up and they invited her in and she talked with them for an hour, an hour and a half, and explained to them exactly what we've just been talking about and they said, fine, OK, that answers it, Goodbye. And she went away and a year and a half went by and nobody bothered them at all, bothered them at all. And during that year and a half her TV series not only became the number one hit on television but she was pregnant, gave birth to a real-life baby situation with Little Ricky and Little Desi.

Tom Watson: 19:53

And they finished that second season and their extreme popularity led to MGM hiring them to star in a brand new motion picture called the Long, Long Trailer, and they did that as soon as season two was finished. They went right into that. That took about six weeks. Can you imagine six weeks to do a movie today?

Tony Maietta: 20:18

To do an MGM Technicolor film too. Yeah, I definitely want to put a pin in the Long, Long Trailer because I want to come back to that. But yeah, you're right, she was interviewed and then like not exonerated, but they said okay, no more, and then nobody heard about it for like a year and a half.

Brad Shreve: 20:32

Boom, we're done, so end of story, or so she thought.

Tom Watson: 20:34

Exactly what happened. It is no problem, that's just it. You know no problem and we're done here.

Brad Shreve: 20:41

So how did it come back up?

Tom Watson: 20:43

When they were testifying, they brought people in, some apparently somebody who had seen those papers said well, why come you're picking on me, what about? And she named two or three people lucy was one of them and so then it all opened up again and that was when Walter Winchell got a hold of it, right well, yes, true, that's, that's when he picked it up that's the really.

Tony Maietta: 21:08

The crisis moment was when Winchell had his famous radio. You know, America's top comedian has been charged with membership in the Communist Party.

Tom Watson: 21:16

He just said has been questioned about.

Tony Maietta: 21:18

Has been questioned.

Tom Watson: 21:19

But that's all you do, is. I mean, suddenly it was like because the first time it had been a private thing, it's like me asking you to come over and explain why you're doing this or doing that, whereas this was suddenly in the media because the first time it simply she was either given a phone call or was sent a letter please come in and see us. And she did, and it was all behind closed doors and, like I say, she was officially told okay, that we're satisfied. And now suddenly it was right in the middle of the media, had it?

Brad Shreve: 21:53

So we can place the blame on Winchell and, I presume, others in the media looking for a good story

Tom Watson: 22:25

Desi loved to go to the races and she loved to lay on the beach and get the sun and you know they had a baby girl who was, and a new baby boy and she wanted them to have a nice vacation and they were down there for six weeks and that's when the issue came up again and they called and they wanted her to come up and tell her story all over again and she did. She cut her vacation short by a few days. Desi was going to stay down there. They're going to start their new season Tuesday after Labor Day.

Tom Watson: 23:01

Monday she came up, like Thursday or Friday of the previous week, for two reasons One was to talk with these people and the other one was she had a couple of new employees joining I Love Lucy, including Elois Jenssen, who was the fashion designer, joining I Love Lucy Elois Jenssen including , who was the fashion designer, and she was creating what we now know as the Lucy Ricardo look and she made an appointment with her to come out to the Desilu home out in Chatsworth and go over sketches and ideas and whatnot. So this is all going on in her head and she and Fred and DeDe were all called in and they went in that Friday and they talked for an hour and a half.

Tony Maietta: 23:45

Fred is Lucy's brother, not Fred Mertz. For anybody who's listening, it's Fred Hunt.

Tom Watson: 23:50

Right, Hers alone was something like 33 pages. I mean, they talked extensively and she told her story about granddad and again he had passed, I think, at this point, and so you know he wasn't there to tell the story. But all three of them independently told basically the same story.

Tom Watson: 24:10

Once again they again said okay, fine, we're satisfied, goodbye. And she put it again out of her mind Okay, that's done, that's it, we don't have to deal with that anymore, because that's what she was told right there. And Walter Winchell had spies all through the show business world and he fed off of that sort of innuendo, if you will, and he heard about it the fact that television's top comedian has been questioned about, you know, communist membership.

Tony Maietta: 24:47

And someone said who's an Imogen Coca? And didn't she get mad about that?

Tom Watson: 24:52

She was sitting, like I say. Then on Saturday she met with Alois. They went through costumes and whatnot and she was sitting at home alone. On Sunday night, the babies were in the other room and, like the rest of the world, she flipped on a radio and there was Walter Winchell and he had that. It was almost. He didn't have to say it that way, because she had basically been Cleared.

Tom Watson: 25:21

I won't say moderated, but they said there's something here. He didn't say that, he left it up in the air. Like she's been questioned about her comedy cleaning.

Tony Maietta: 25:30

And that started, and that was the firestorm began. That exploded, exploded, exploded, exploded.

Brad Shreve: 25:38

Tom, is it safe to say that if Lucy had a very popular show let's say something like Make Room for Daddy, which people call the Danny Thomas show Right, let's say it was very popular but wasn't insanely popular. Like I Love Lucy, Is it likely her career would have been over?

Tom Watson: 25:53

Could have been been over, could have been uh, and she was afraid because there was a lot of big stars, you know, like uh, and a lot of the big writers and whatnot larry parks?

Tony Maietta: 26:05

uh, exactly a friend of hers, Larry Parks and they were friends.

Tom Watson: 26:09

They they've been at Columbia studios at the same time. They both had ranches in the valley out here, homes in the valley anyway, and it was a real tricky situation because, no, she could have lost everything. That night Desi heard it down in Del Mar. He had a poker game going and suddenly all hell broke loose and he said he called her and said and said, honey, I'm bringing some guys home and what did she?

Tony Maietta: 26:39

she said what do you want to have a party?

Tom Watson: 26:42

yeah, she knew it's got a two-hour drive, you know, and so, uh, it was going to be like what the heck? And so, anyway, I think Howard's trickling from MGM publicity, because the thing is, if this exploded and hurt her, the movie, the TV series, the whole shebang could go down the tubes in a matter of moments.

Tony Maietta: 27:03

Yeah, this is something I wanted to bring up, particularly involving MGM and the Long Long trailer, and I wanted to see your perspective on this, because this kind of ties into what you just said, Brad, about if she had been on a less popular show. Well, I wonder if this whole situation had happened a year later and she hadn't just finished a multi-million dollar MGM film which had not been released yet. Mgm's presence was very important Howard Strickling, who did the laundry in a way at MGM, who made sure everything got taken care of. They had a lot of money tied up in the long long trailer. So if this had happened after the long long trailer had been released, I wonder if it would have gone away the way it went away. I mean, how much of this was MGM pushing this through and making sure this got closed down?

Tom Watson: 27:53

Well, I agree to a certain extent, but I also know that it could have backfired If the public turned on her. It was a house of cards, it could have all come tumbling down. The big player in this, as far as at least television went, was Philip Morris. Philip Morris had originally see for them. I Love Lucy was a bold experiment. Prior to it coming on the air, their primary advertising goal was to sell cigarettes to men and they usually sponsored police stories like Racket Squad and things like that. And this was an idea that let's broaden our horizons. And you know, advertising what you might consider today to be a chick show type of thing. So anyway, they did that. But you know, if they'd have pulled the plug, if they'd have said we don't want to be associated with this, it would have been all over. So one of the big players. This week, when the phone calls were going back and forth from Desi's office to Philip Morris and everybody else involved, it was their decision that really saved the day all around.

Tony Maietta: 29:18

That Philip Morris was not going to desert them as sponsors.

Tom Watson: 29:21

And, by contrast, when I Love Lucy was first being broached, in fact it wasn't even called I Love Lucy, it was just the Lucio Ball television series. Her radio show had been sponsored for three years by General Foods, better known as J-E-L-L-O, and they were interested in the TV project and so it was sort of agreed upon going in that if in fact she did do a TV pilot, they would have sort of first look at it, first refusal because they were already in television and it didn't work out. They later decided no, it's really not for us, but we wish you well, and they, I Love Lucy, got with the BO agency and Philip Morris. But my point is a year or so earlier, another big General Foods series on television was the Gertrude Berg series, the Goldbergs, and the man who played Mr Goldberg was named Phil Loeb.

Tom Watson: 30:28

He was a New York actor who indeed had gone to multiple communist party meetings. Like Lucy, he had signed membership papers and all that. But he was, like I say, he was a liberal actor from New York and he went to a lot of different things. So he was not really a rabble-rousing communist, he was just interested in various political ideas. Once it came out in the papers that Phil Loeb you know Jake Goldberg is a communist. People started to complain and General Foods called Gertrude Berg and said fire him.

Tony Maietta: 31:07

Right.

Tom Watson: 31:08

She said no, I can't do that, I can't fire him for simply being inquisitive and whatever. And they said look, either he goes or we go. She said I cannot fire that man over something like this. They canceled the show. It was Goldberg.

Brad Shreve: 31:28

I always heard that Goldberg's was popular and I always wondered what happened to it.

Tony Maietta: 31:32

They lost their sponsorship.

Tom Watson: 31:33

Came back two or three years later with a different cast.

Tony Maietta: 31:37

But it was never the same.

Tom Watson: 31:39

No, never the same, never the same. But the irony is that if, if general foods had been lucy's sponsor, they would have pulled out too, because that's amazing their attitude at the time.

Tom Watson: 31:52

They said we're not against any of this it was just business what we are trying to do is sell our product Jell-O, Sanka coffee, whatever and if your politics is influencing that in a negative way, if people are writing to us and saying we don't want it, we're not going to support your products anymore. If you're supporting communists, then we have to break that. That's why they said we will not sponsor a show that Phil Loeb's in.

Tony Maietta: 32:26

That's phenomenal. I never made that connection with General Foods and being Lucy's sponsor before.

Tom Watson: 32:31

Darn good chance they'd have done the same thing with Lucy.

Tony Maietta: 32:35

Yeah, that's amazing. So you know there. But for the grace of Philip Morris, exactly goes, went, lucy.

Brad Shreve: 32:42

Something I want to clarify for those not familiar with the era. Each show had one big sponsor. So the I Love Lucy opening that we're familiar with, with the Velvet and the I Love Lucy Heart, that wasn't the original opening, right, Tom Right, it was Lucy and Desi stick figures holding Philip Morris cigarettes, correct? So at that time it was a much bigger deal for a sponsor pool than today, where you have a whole pool of sponsors.

Tony Maietta: 33:07

Right, right, I don't think we. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, because I don't think we have an appreciation of that, especially in this world.

Tom Watson: 33:15

The sponsors had more influence over it than the networks, because a lot of the shows were developed by the sponsors and their advertising agencies and then tossed to the network saying you know, this is the show we want to do, take it or leave it, and that's why you know. But the networks were not as involved as they are today. The thing that changed all that was half a decade later, with the quiz scandals. The quiz scandals exploded in the late 50s. Suddenly, the network saying okay, that's it, from here on out, anything we put on the air we have to have personal knowledge of it, can't be packaged by somebody outside and just delivered to our front door.

Tony Maietta: 33:54

Bring us into what then happened. So Philip Morris is standing behind Lucy and the show.

Tom Watson: 34:00

They're waiting to see what happens at the taping.

Tony Maietta: 34:05

So okay, so this whole weekend goes by. It's a whole week. The cast rehearses. Lucille is under an incredible amount of pressure because this is all happening while she's trying to rehearse the first episode of the new season.

Tom Watson: 34:15

Right.

Tony Maietta: 34:16

Then there's a tremendous amount of pressure. This is all happening behind the scenes. Desi's doing what Desi does, which is making things better and trying to get this thing fixed.

Tom Watson: 34:24

Right.

Tony Maietta: 34:25

One of the things that really bugged me about this film and about the fact that these things didn't happen was that there was no 11th hour call from J Edgar Hoover clearing Lucy.

Tom Watson: 34:37

No.

Tony Maietta: 34:38

Tell us a little bit about that night of the taping and Desi's speech and the kind of passion about that night of the taping and Desi's speech, and the kind of passion, the kind of heroic passion that really, really, in my opinion, saved the day and saved that taping.

Tom Watson: 34:52

Well, to an extent, what they did in the movie was similar to real life insofar as he introduced the cast, beginning with Fred and Ethel, Vivian and Bill, and then he said he wanted to introduce, you know, the lady that plays my wife, and you've heard a lot about her this week and I just wanted to let you know there's nothing red about this lady, including her hair. You know, it's not real either. And she came out and, you know, was basically in tears because of everything that was going on the stress of the week.

Tom Watson: 35:26

The audience gave her a standing ovation, but it had been in every newspaper in the country at this point, because this show was it, and Milton Berle's show was credited with having sold more television sets than any other series. You know, till that time. Because it was like what we recently went through 20 years ago with our computers, a lot of people didn't want to run out and buy a computer because what was on there for me to use, and so, until there was a lot of material available on the internet, no one really wanted to, you know, invest a couple of hundred bucks in something. And it was the same way with television. When all that was on was test patterns, who the hell wanted to buy one? Except my dad? People loved this show. This was not just the number one show, these were everybody's best friends, and so the country was riveted to this.

Tony Maietta: 36:26

But the taping, the taping. That night they had gotten the okay before they began taping right that Morris was going to support them.

Tom Watson: 36:33

Use the word filming.

Tony Maietta: 36:34

Filming, sorry, the filming.

Tom Watson: 36:36

You're absolutely right, it was filmed on film For God's sake, it still exists as beautifully today as it did then.

Tony Maietta: 36:43

It is Before the filming began, desi got the OK from Philip Morris that they were going to support correct?

Tom Watson: 36:50

He had talked to Bill Paley and said if Philip Morris pulls out, I want to buy the half hour and present our story to the American public, who are going to be interested in what's really been going on. And he was going to explain to the world because he did not want the same thing to happen that had happened to the Goldbergs and other shows as well, where things just happen and they just. You never heard the other person's side of the story. He told Bill Paley I'll pay you, whatever it is the amount of thousands of dollars, to buy the half hour because I want the world to know what's been going on and it's incredible.

Tom Watson: 37:34

It turned out that Philip Morris decided let's go with it, and because of that it all went away.

Tony Maietta: 37:43

See, and that's the amazing thing about Desi Arnaz and I've talked about this with Brad before how I feel, like you know, I will always get on my bandwagon for Desi Arnaz, because there's so many things that he did that he doesn't get the credit for. He gets more and more, but he didn't at the time. And to think that, you know, he was such a mastermind of this.

Tom Watson: 38:04

The ballsiest guy around. You know he was, as they later credited to Robert Kennedy because he came in as total naivete to the Hollywood scene. You know he had no background in it, even as an actor, and his first question was why? And then why not?

Brad Shreve: 38:24

That's impressive.

Tom Watson: 38:25

People would say when he asked why, they'd say, well, this is just the way it's done. And when things didn't quite add up, he was willing to gamble on that there was a better way. And you're right. He never got the credit he deserved back in those days.

Tony Maietta: 38:40

Yeah, we'll make sure he does now.

Tom Watson: 38:42

He revolutionized the television industry.

Tony Maietta: 38:46

He did, he did so on a personal level. How do you think this affected Lucille for the rest of her life?

Tom Watson: 38:53

She was devastated and if she were still here with us today she would agree with everything we've said. Desi said it was a time when they really found out who their friends were. Before all this happened, you know, the week before she was planning to have a big dinner party at their house that following weekend and invited six, eight people, most of them Hollywood couples, all of them very good friends. And as soon as this happened, one by one, everybody either got the flu or something came up and, one by one, they all canceled. They did not want to even be seen with these people who were suddenly being and the flip side was, she got up one morning in her pajamas and put her robe and slippers on and went out to the kitchen and looked out and she was, you know, fixing the coffee, getting things going. I mean, who the hell could sleep, uh, you know.

Tom Watson: 40:01

And she looks out the kitchen window and they had a swing in the backyard, not a little one, but one that three people could sit on, you know, a family size swing. And there was some guy sitting out there. She goes oh my God, if that's a reporter. She went out back and she got closer. He sort of readjusted himself and she realized it was Lou Costello. And she Lou, what the hell are you doing here at this hour and you know what's going on? He said I know what's been going on and I'm just going to sit here for a few hours and just know I'm here. If you need a friend to talk things over with, I'll be here for you. Wow.

Tony Maietta: 40:50

And they weren't that close, right, Tom? I mean, they knew each other, but they weren't like buddies.

Tom Watson: 40:55

No.

Tony Maietta: 40:56

That's such a beautiful story. I'm so glad you told that.

Tom Watson: 40:58

Jack Oakey, who was another longtime friend. They were friends back from RKO. They stayed with them. I mean Jack Oakey and his wife and whatnot, but there were very few. Everybody else was sort of like we're going to wait and see. And Bessie always said we really found out who our friends are.

Tony Maietta: 41:19

See, and that's the real story of what happened. There was no 11th hour Deus Ex Machina call from J Edgar Hoover, things like that. The reality is much more fascinating how these people survived this, and not only survived it, but then surthrived. One of my favorite words I Love Lucy continued on and on and on, but you know, everything leaves scars, and I heard that she never voted again after this. Is that true?

Tom Watson: 41:50

I believe so, and she never expressed a political opinion and she wouldn't allow any of us to. It's not that she wouldn't allow, she just didn't want to be involved with any. If anybody had anything, if anybody had anything. Oddly enough, about seven years later or six years later, Desilu had become a super studio and had something like 16 series going and a new pilot that was in development was called the Untouchables, and they wanted Walter Winchell to narrate it. And she said no, she was vice president of the company. And uh, she said I, I know. And Desi said Well, look, honey, not only should we let bygones be got bygones, but now the SOB is going to be earning us millions Because his voice was incredible. She allowed it, but she had never forgiven it Because he caused the whole thing.

Tony Maietta: 42:52

Well, thank you so much for talking to us about this and shedding some light on what really happened that fascinating week. Since we never got the chance to do the documentary, I'm glad that we had this opportunity.

Brad Shreve: 43:03

Yes, yes. Thank you for being our guest on here, Tom, and for clearing the air for us and showing that truth is more fascinating than fiction sometimes.

Tony Maietta: 43:10

That's yeah, no, it's true, it's very true.

Tom Watson: 43:12

Right right.

Brad Shreve: 43:13

Getting a phone call is anticlimactic compared to what we just heard.

Tony Maietta: 43:21

Thanks, Tom.

Tom Watson: 43:23

All right. Thank you for the invitation of course, come back anytime

Brad Shreve: 43:31

Do you enjoy Going Hollywood? Well, of course you do, and Tony and I would like you to do something for us and, more important, for other podcast listeners out there. Go to apple podcast, iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts and rate and review the show. A five-star would be especially nice. That way, when others are looking for a new show, they'll see ours and see those reviews and they will stop and listen and boy, that will make their day. It will be much appreciated. Thank you for being with us.