Here's Lucy
Here's Lucy was
Lucille Ball's third network television sitcom. It ran on
CBS from
1968 to
1974.
The program's premise changed from
The Lucy Show. Ball's character now lived in
Los Angeles, California and was named Lucy Carter. In this new incarnation, she had two children named Kim and Craig, played by her real life children
Lucie Arnaz and
Desi Arnaz, Jr. She worked for an employment agency run by her brother-in-law Harry (played by
Gale Gordon, in a role completely unrelated to his
Mr. Mooney role from
The Lucy Show though the two characters did share the same temperament).
Mary Jane Croft who had costarred on the last three seasons of
The Lucy Show, also became a regular on the new series, and Ball's longtime costar
Vivian Vance also made numerous guest appearances through the series' run.
Perhaps the most famous episode was one from
1970 in which
Richard Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor guest star in a storyline involving their famous diamond, which becomes stuck on Lucy's finger. Ball and Burton reportedly did not get along, as he found Ball's rigid perfectionism grating and he subsequently wrote about her in extremely unflattering terms in his memoir.
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TV Guide cover, promoting Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's famous appearance on a 1970 episode of Here's Lucy |
In
1972, Ball suffered a leg fracture in a skiing accident and as a result, spent much of the 1972-73 season in a full-leg cast. (This was written into to the show, with the Lucy Carter character also breaking her leg.) The "slapstick" was toned down for the remainder of the series, given Ball's decreased ability to perform physical comedy, as a result of her injury.
Here's Lucy ceased production at the end of the 1973-74 season, thus ending nearly twenty-three continuous years of Ball appearing weekly on telvision. Though it was widely reported at the time that it was Ball's decision not to continue (as she wanted to pursue other projects), a number of sources through the years have stated that it was CBS that chose not to renew the series for the following season. The ratings had fallen during the final season, though Here's Lucy did still finish in the top thirty at the end of the 1974 season. [
1]
The series was produced by Ball's newly-formed production company, Lucille Ball Productions, which she formed with her second husband and business parter
Gary Morton, after the
1967 sale of
Desilu to
Gulf and Western.
*"Here's Lucy: Best Loved Episodes from the Television Series"
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Here's Lucy Episode Guide
