I Love Lucy!

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And who doesn’t! The “dingy redhead” is an American institution, so much so that people who were born long after she died in 1989 still know who she was and have probably laughed along with an episode (or 50) of the iconic television series I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, and that’s where the Lucy-Desi Museum is located. It pays homage to the careers (married and apart) of Lucille Ball and her first husband, the great Desi Arnaz. The museum is split into two parts. One covers the career of Ball, from her beginnings in Jamestown as an aspiring performer with a love of Vaudeville to her days as a “Chesterfield Girl” hawking cigarettes to her 70-plus movie roles, and Arnaz, a Cuban-born aristocrat who had to flee with his mother during the revolution in the 1930s. His father, a prominent politician, was arrested shortly before Desi and his mother made their escape to America. Their careers (Arnaz was indeed a musician and bandleader who popularized Latin music and the conga line method of dancing to it) crossed during production of a movie, and they married in 1940. One thing the museum is excellent at doing is showing the innovations that Lucy and Desi brought to television. I Love Lucy invented the “three-camera” method of filming a show, and it was also taped in front of a live audience (things that are common today). Since they butted heads with production executives so often they formed their own production company, Desilu. In addition to I Love Lucy that company gave us other classics like The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, and Star Trek. Although they divorced in 1960, Lucy and Desi remained friends. One of the informational panels says that she called him on November 30, 1986, which would have been their anniversary. That was two days before Arnaz died of lung cancer. All of this and more is in the “history of Lucy and Desi” area. Part two is devoted solely to I Love Lucy. It includes recreations of the production sets showing their living room and kitchen, costumes, and the six Emmy awards that Ball won: five in her lifetime and the posthumous Governor’s Award, given five months after her death in 1989. It was a wonderful stop for fans of Lucy, Desi, or comedy in general. PHOTO COLLAGE: *Emmy Award for I Love Lucy *A photo of co-star and friend Vivian Vance…bet you didn’t know she was that beautiful when she was younger! *The Ricardos’ living room re-creation *The Jamestown NY city limits sign. (I told my brother I hope everyone who sees that knows that “10,000 Maniacs” is the name of an 80s band! )