I Love Lucy: The Untold Story by Jess Oppenheimer, Gregg Oppenheimer Page B
Authors: Jess Oppenheimer, Gregg Oppenheimer
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as producer, I acceded to his request.We agreed that Desi would be named as executive producer of I Love Lucy commencing with the “Freezer” show, which would air at the end of April.
On Friday, April 18, the Nielsen ratings declared that I Love Lucy was now the number one show in America, reaching a record twenty-three million people, in nine and a half million homes. To celebrate, Desi gave a party for the cast and crew, at which he presented me with a trophy. It was, of all things, a statue of a baseball player taking a swing. At the base of the trophy, the inscription said: “Jess Oppenheimer: The Man Behind the Ball, 4-18-52, #1 Nielsen.”
It was a nice gesture by Desi. I decided I had probably been wrong to be so concerned about letting him have the “executive producer” credit.
----
Photo caption (next page):
A nice gesture by Desi.
The following Monday morning I came into my office to find a telephone message waiting for me.It was from Eddie Feldman at the Biow Agency. I returned the call.
“Did you talk to anyone at the Hollywood Reporter about Desi becoming executive producer at the end of this month?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t.Desi must have had Kenny put out a press release about it. Why? What does it say in the Reporter? ”
“Take a look for yourself.It’s on page 9, in Dan Jenkins’s column.”
Both trade papers were sitting on my desk.I picked up the Reporter, flipped to the column, and started reading:
TAKE HAPPY NOTE, gentlemen, of the five following facts about “I Love Lucy”:(1) It tops the latest national Nielsen; (2) it tops the same Nielsen in the number of homes reached, a figure in excess of 9,500,000, which translates to something around 23,400,000 viewers; (3) it stars an established motion picture personality, Lucille Ball; (4) it originates in Hollywood; (5) it is on film. It is worth repeating: a Hollywood television film series, starring a motion picture personality, is as of this moment the No. 1 TV show in the nation. The credit goes to a lot of different people—to Don Sharpe for believing from the beginning (1949, that is) that Lucy and Desi could be starred together as husband and wife;to Harry Ackerman for never once throwing cold water on Desi’s starry-eyed idea of not only filming the show but filming it before a live audience on a motion picture sound stage; to Jess Oppenheimer, the producer-writer who shared Sharpe’s faith when everyone else was telling Lucy and Desi they were headed for career suicide;to Karl Freund, an Oscar-winning cameraman whose pioneering spirit plunged him happily and successfully into a new medium which, on form, he was supposed to sneer atdisdainfully; to a crew which honestly believes “Lucy” is the greatest show on earth and works accordingly, week in and week out;
And then I saw why Eddie had called me:
and above all to Desi Arnaz, the crazy Cuban whom Oppenheimer insists has been the real producer all along and who in two weeks reluctantly starts taking screen credit as executive producer.
I stormed into Desi’s office and confronted him with the column. “How can you quote me like that?” I demanded to know.
“Well, it’s like I told you, amigo,” Desi answered. “I need to build a rep as a producer.”
After an extended shouting match that got nowhere, I walked out. Angry as I was, I knew that there was nothing I could do about the publicity without seriously damaging both the series and Lucy’s precariousmarriage. And I would never do anything to hurt Lucy or the show. I was stuck, and Desi and I both knew it.
Desi’s habit of taking credit for other people’s accomplishments was a continuing source of friction between us, but each of us had such great respect for the other’s abilities that we never let it interfere with the show.And in time, Desi became a fine producer and a very good director in his own right. And he did have his gracious moments. Cosmopolitan once ran a cover story which said,
On Friday, April 18, the Nielsen ratings declared that I Love Lucy was now the number one show in America, reaching a record twenty-three million people, in nine and a half million homes. To celebrate, Desi gave a party for the cast and crew, at which he presented me with a trophy. It was, of all things, a statue of a baseball player taking a swing. At the base of the trophy, the inscription said: “Jess Oppenheimer: The Man Behind the Ball, 4-18-52, #1 Nielsen.”
It was a nice gesture by Desi. I decided I had probably been wrong to be so concerned about letting him have the “executive producer” credit.
----
Photo caption (next page):
A nice gesture by Desi.
The following Monday morning I came into my office to find a telephone message waiting for me.It was from Eddie Feldman at the Biow Agency. I returned the call.
“Did you talk to anyone at the Hollywood Reporter about Desi becoming executive producer at the end of this month?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t.Desi must have had Kenny put out a press release about it. Why? What does it say in the Reporter? ”
“Take a look for yourself.It’s on page 9, in Dan Jenkins’s column.”
Both trade papers were sitting on my desk.I picked up the Reporter, flipped to the column, and started reading:
TAKE HAPPY NOTE, gentlemen, of the five following facts about “I Love Lucy”:(1) It tops the latest national Nielsen; (2) it tops the same Nielsen in the number of homes reached, a figure in excess of 9,500,000, which translates to something around 23,400,000 viewers; (3) it stars an established motion picture personality, Lucille Ball; (4) it originates in Hollywood; (5) it is on film. It is worth repeating: a Hollywood television film series, starring a motion picture personality, is as of this moment the No. 1 TV show in the nation. The credit goes to a lot of different people—to Don Sharpe for believing from the beginning (1949, that is) that Lucy and Desi could be starred together as husband and wife;to Harry Ackerman for never once throwing cold water on Desi’s starry-eyed idea of not only filming the show but filming it before a live audience on a motion picture sound stage; to Jess Oppenheimer, the producer-writer who shared Sharpe’s faith when everyone else was telling Lucy and Desi they were headed for career suicide;to Karl Freund, an Oscar-winning cameraman whose pioneering spirit plunged him happily and successfully into a new medium which, on form, he was supposed to sneer atdisdainfully; to a crew which honestly believes “Lucy” is the greatest show on earth and works accordingly, week in and week out;
And then I saw why Eddie had called me:
and above all to Desi Arnaz, the crazy Cuban whom Oppenheimer insists has been the real producer all along and who in two weeks reluctantly starts taking screen credit as executive producer.
I stormed into Desi’s office and confronted him with the column. “How can you quote me like that?” I demanded to know.
“Well, it’s like I told you, amigo,” Desi answered. “I need to build a rep as a producer.”
After an extended shouting match that got nowhere, I walked out. Angry as I was, I knew that there was nothing I could do about the publicity without seriously damaging both the series and Lucy’s precariousmarriage. And I would never do anything to hurt Lucy or the show. I was stuck, and Desi and I both knew it.
Desi’s habit of taking credit for other people’s accomplishments was a continuing source of friction between us, but each of us had such great respect for the other’s abilities that we never let it interfere with the show.And in time, Desi became a fine producer and a very good director in his own right. And he did have his gracious moments. Cosmopolitan once ran a cover story which said,
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