Oscar Hammerstein II

            On Monday I went to bed at 1:30 and got to sleep at around 2:00. I didn’t notice any bedbugs on me but after yoga when I checked there were a few adults caught on the carpet tape and a few more mostly babies crawling on the old exit door at the head of my bed. 

            I searched for more chords for “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian but no one had posted more than the ones I transcribed yesterday. I worked them out for the instrumental intro. 

            I finished working out the chords for the first verse of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. The rest of the verses should have the same chords. 

            I weighed 91.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice and it went out of tune constantly. 

            I weighed 93.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching an interview with Shirley Jones.

            Shirley was the youngest member of a church choir at the age of 6. She recognized that she was gifted but her dream in life was to be a veterinarian. During the summers when she was in high school she studied acting and dancing at The Pittsburgh Playhouse and in her first play she had the lead role. But she loved animals and had raised everything from squirrels to snakes and so she wanted to be a vet. Before entering veterinary college she went with her parents on a trip to New York. When she was there she called up her friend who was a pianist she knew from The Pittsburgh Playhouse. He invited her over and then told her Rodgers and Hammerstein were having auditions for anyone that wants to sing for them. They had three shows running on Broadway at the time and the shows ran for so long that they needed to keep replacing members of the chorus. She didn’t know who Rodgers and Hammerstein were. She went and sang then the casting director asked what she’s done. She told him she’s done nothing. He asked her if she’d wait a few minutes and sing for Richard Rodgers who was across the street rehearsing his orchestra for Oklahoma. He went and got Rodgers and he walked up and said, “Hello Miss Jones”. She asked him who he was. She sang for him and he asked if she could wait because he wanted his partner Oscar Hammerstein to come from his home to hear her. He finally arrived and asked her if she knew the score of Oklahoma. She said she might know some of the tunes but not the words. He said he had the score with him but she said her pianist had to leave. He took her across the street to sing with the full City Centre Symphony. She’d never even heard a symphony let alone sung with one. She sang “People Will Say We’re In Love” and “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”. Three weeks later she was in her first Broadway show, South Pacific. Three months later she was in the movie Oklahoma, all from her first audition. They signed her to a personal contract and she was never signed to a studio. 

            But after a few years movie musicals went out of style. Since she’d been typecast as a singer in movies she wasn’t offered any straight acting work so she went into television. Her agent warned that it would ruin her film career. She did Playhouse 90 with Red Skelton and got nominated for an Emmy. Burt Lancaster saw that show on TV and called her but she hung up on him because she thought it was a crank call. But he called back and when she realized it was him she was embarrassed because she’d had his pictures all over her bedroom wall when she was sixteen. He invited her to audition for Elmer Gantry. The director didn’t like her at first but then apologized and predicted that she would win an Oscar, which she did. 

            After that she did a lot of movies with stars like Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and David Niven. 

            When she was invited to do The Partridge Family she was advised against it because if it was successful her movie career would be over. She had already turned down the role of the mother in The Brady Bunch because that character was just a housewife. But The Partridge Family was different because it had music and she’d be the first working mother on TV. When David Cassidy came to screen test for the show he didn’t know Shirley had been cast. They had almost five years of success with the show and the hours and the steady location gave her an opportunity to go home early every day to raise her kids at a time when a lot of Hollywood movies were being shot in Europe. 

            Shirley was a fan of Carol Burnett from watching her show but also from meeting her through her husband Jack Cassidy because he was doing Fade Out Fade In with her on Broadway. When she guested on Carol’s show she was so much fun to rehearse with. It was the best variety show that was ever on the air. 

            She worked with Bob Mackie on Carol’s show and other shows and sometimes she got to bring the clothes home, although Bob might not have known about it. 

            Oscar Hammerstein II enrolled in Columbia University in 1912 and while attending law school participated in and wrote plays. In 1917 he dropped out of law school to pursue a theatrical career. His mentor was Otto Harbach. His first musical was Always You in 1920. His first hit was Showboat in 1927, which introduced the songs “Old Man River” and “Can’t Help Loving That Man” with music by Jerome Kern. Hammerstein’s lyrics for musicals were unique in that they actually furthered the plot and developed characters rather than providing a musical break from the story. In 1943 he began his collaboration with Richard Rodgers on a musical adaptation of the play Green Grow the Lilacs, which became the mega hit musical Oklahoma (containing my favourite song from a musical “I Can’t Say No”) and ran on Broadway for 2,212 performances. From 1943 to 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein were the dominant force in musical theatre. They created Carousel, Allegro, South Pacific (which won a Pulitzer Prize and which contained the anti racist song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”), The King and I, Me and Juliet, Pipe Dream, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music. They also collaborated on the movie State Fair. In addition to their own work they also produced other people’s musicals such as Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun and John Van Druten’s I Remember Mama.

            In 1943 he wrote the lyrics and the book for Carmen Jones with all black characters. 

            He won 8 Tony Awards. He won Academy Awards for his songs “The Last Time I Saw Paris” and “It might as Well Be Spring” making him the only person named Oscar to ever win an Oscar. His last song before he died was “Edelweiss” for The Sound of Music. 

            He co-wrote over 850 songs. 

            He was the mentor of Stephen Sondheim. 

            Before WWII he co-founded The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. 

            In 1956 he was a speech writer for Adlai Stevenson II. 

            He was president of The Dramatists Guild of America from 1956 to 1960 when he died.

August 26, 1996: I started calling around for modelling work

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I made some calls and got a few calls about modelling bookings this fall.

Steve Earle

            On Sunday after midnight I put some more two sided carpet tape on the wall side edge of my mattress to secure the other tape where it had lifted up. I went to bed a little after 1:30 and slept fairly well after lying awake for a while without feeling any bedbugs. When I checked after yoga there were a few crawling on the wall above the head of my bed but there were more stuck to the tape. 

            I transcribed from the Boite a Chanson site a set of chords for “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. I’ll check tomorrow to see if there have been any different chords posted and then I’ll start working them out. 

            I worked out the chords for more than half of the first verse of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have the first verse done tomorrow and then I think the rest of the verses will be the same. 

            I weighed 90.85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the second of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time as usual. 

            Around midday I laid down more two-sided carpet tape on the bedroom floor next to the baseboards and also next to the bottom of the part of my desk that is closest to the bedroom. I vacuumed under my desk again. I’ll put down some more tape on Tuesday. 

            I’ve been listening to the Steve Earle discography and I’m about halfway through. The first two albums are conventionally country music but then with Copperhead Road he starts to rock a bit, with The Pogues guest starring on the record. His lyrics also became more interesting. The fourth album The Hard Way goes even further into rock and it has an interesting song called “Justice in Ontario” about a murder that happened in 1978 in Port Hope, Ontario during a biker war between The Outlaws and The Satan’s Choice. About six Satan’s Choice members are still in prison while the real murderer is free. The Ontario Provincial Police decided it was an opportunity to get rid of several nasty bikers and more important than catching the killer of another biker, so they shuffled the evidence and put the Choice members away. In another song, “Christmas in Washington”, imagine a country singer saying “Bring back Emma Goldman” the Anarchist revolutionary. His album Transcendental Blues is still country but with some songs having an Indian feel like the Beatles’ “Within You Without You”. In his Grammy Award winning album The Revolution Starts Now there’s a song from the point of view of a US soldier fighting in the Middle East, with the line, “Just another poor boy fighting a rich man’s war”. 

            He started learning guitar at the age of 11 and ran away at 14 to search for his idol Townes Van Zandt. He moved to Nashville at 19. He played bass in Guy Clark’s band and sang on his Old No 1 album. he was one of the featured songwriters in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways. He became the staff songwriter for the company Sunbury Dunbar. he got tired of Nashville and moved back to Texas where he started a band called The Dukes. He returned to Nashville and worked as a songwriter. His song “When You Fall In Love” was a top 20 Country hit for Johnny Lee in 1982. In 1986 his first album was Guitar Town and the title track became a top ten hit. "Copperhead Road" became an even bigger hit and a signature song. In 1996 his album Train a Comin was nominated for a Grammy. His novel I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive was published in 2011 as was his collection of short stories called Doghouse Roses. He is a Socialist and also an activist against capital punishment.

            I weighed 92.9 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 92.7 kilos at 18:05. That’s the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since I’ve been recording my weight. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up.  

            I made two Canadian ground beef burger patties and grilled them in the oven. I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, one pf the burgers crumbled up, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching an interview with Rita Moreno about Carol Burnett. 

            Rita can’t imaging anyone having a bad word about Carol. She’s loving, generous, and very intelligent. Years after Rita guest starred on Carol’s show they co-starred in The Four Seasons, written by, directed by, and co-starring Alan Alda. It also co-starred Jack Weston and he and Rita were playing Alan’s take on Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft. Alan did a lot of takes. This movie was his first baby as a writer and director. It was tough on the cast but still one of the most wonderful filming experiences of Rita’s life because of Carol and Jack, who are two of the funniest people alive. Rita and Jack broke up all the time while shooting scenes. Alan didn’t like it when they adlibbed their lines or started laughing and especially both. 

            During the first quarter of the movie Rita and Carol were changing costumes in the ladies room. Rita called Carol out of a stall and mooned her. She’d never done that to anyone before but she really wanted to make Carol laugh, because there’s nothing like making a very funny person laugh. She says if she could make Sid Caesar laugh she would die of happiness. However, Carol disappointed her by just saying she had a cute behind. The next location for the film was the US Virgin Islands. They all had apartments on the ground level with windows that looked out on the walkway. Every day Carol would come by at 6:00 with her assistant Sharkey, call for Rita and then they’d walk to breakfast. One morning when Carol came to the door Rita mooned her and Sharkey and this time she got them shrieking with laughter so loud they woke the neighbourhood. Rita says it gave her such nachas (pleasure).

            Rita has a character called Googie Gomez who she played in The Ritz on Broadway and in the film version. She talks in an exaggerated Puerto Rican accent and is hilariously arrogant. She still does her at random times even when she is along to make herself and others laugh. She says things like, “If it wasn’t for Barbara Streisand stealing my act I would be a big movie star!” She created the character while goofing around on the set of West Side Story. She made Carol laugh with the character and Carol used to ask her what Googie thinks of Carol Burnett. So Rita would say, “The woman can’t sing, she’s cheap, and her breasts are like two fried eggs!” 

            During the shoot Carol’s birthday came up and Alan surprised her with a big cake with whipped cream on top. Carol cut a piece and smushed it into Alan’s face, then did the same to herself. 

            Rita used to keep all of her awards in a box because she thought putting them on display was showing off. When she married Leonard Gordon in 1965 and they moved into a new house together he found the box and encouraged her to showcase them because she earned them. Now she lets her guests hold her Oscar and she takes pictures of them. When she has Oscar parties she has her guests prepare embarrassingly self serving speeches and say them while holding her Oscar. What’s great about it is that most of her friends are not show people. 

            Rita first met Carol when she guest starred on The Carol Burnett Show. She says there was no ethnic humour on The Carol Burnett Show. That’s not entirely true. There were accents and the mannerisms that come along with them.

            In acting school they’ll tell you, “Don’t act. Behave like your character.”

August 25, 1996: I gave my daughter back to her mother

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday I spent the day with my daughter, mostly playing outside. In the evening I rendezvoused with her mother at Eaton Centre to give her back.

Queen Latifah

            On Saturday after midnight I laid down two-sided carpet tape on the floor next to the baseboards at three sides of my bed and about half the length of the open side. I couldn’t put it the full length because every morning before breakfast I flip up and double over my mattress to clear a space for sit-ups and the tape would get in my way. I also put carpet tape all around the edges of my futon. I went to bed a little after 1:30 and after a few minutes felt a bedbug and killed it, then my hand found another on the bottom sheet and killed that. 

            I went to sleep but woke up at 2:30 when my upstairs neighbour Jacob started stomping on his floor and then shouted, “CHRISTIAN IS A PAEDOPHILE!” Then he was shouting something about cupboards with the doors off and some other stuff I couldn’t make out. Later I heard him go downstairs with his dog and after a while he was screaming, “I’m not sorry!” over and over again. When he came home I think the cops were in the building and I heard Jacob laughing hysterically. I was disturbed by his disturbed ranting and didn’t sleep much. But I did dream that Jacob was talking to Tony Soprano who was sitting at a sidewalk café outside our building and agreed to harass me for Jacob. Then I dreamed that I went to pee and the side of my apartment where the bathroom would be was a big open area. There was a full garbage bag in the shape of a ball rolling towards me and there was someone inside. I tore it open and there were two aliens who looked like fully grown human men but with saucers in their heads like the brims of hats but part of their heads. They also were there to harass me for Jacob. 

            I got up at 5:00 as usual and after yoga checked the carpet tape. Quite a few bedbugs had been caught but there were also some on the old exit door at the head of my bed. 

            I finished memorizing “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian and searched for the chords. I noticed there was at least one set so I’ll transcribe them tomorrow. 

            I searched for the chords for “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg and wasn’t surprised that no one had posted them. I worked them out for the intro and most of the first line. I might have the first verse done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 91.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time as usual. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where I bought five bags of Canadian cherries, a basket of Canadian peaches, a basket of Canadian nectarines, two pints of Canadian blueberries, a pack of five-year-old Canadian cheddar, some bananas, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, lemon detergent, spoon sized shredded wheat, olive oil with the spout, a jug of lemonade, a jug of orange juice, and two containers of skyr.

            I weighed 91.5 kilos at 14:40, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since August 1. 

            I woke up from my siesta too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 91.65 kilos at 17:40. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up. 

            I made pizza on multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, my last hot Italian sausage sliced, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching an interview with Pat Boone and another with Queen Latifah about Carol Burnett. 

            When Pat guest starred on The Carol Burnett Show he found it to be a real treat that she put him in sketches and let him do comedy in addition to his musical numbers. 

            Pat thinks there’s a difference between a female comedian and a male one. He says a comedienne has to be mentally brilliant. She has to maintain her femininity or lose universal appeal but also be non-threatening. He thinks Lucille Ball had that and Tina Fey and Amy Pohler have it now. They have to be likeable. (I think Pat’s gender specific criteria are silly). 

            The differences between being a guest on The Dean Martin Show and The Carol Burnett Show, first of all is that Carol was at her rehearsals. He would have someone stand in for him while he played golf. He was mostly familiar with the songs he had to do but not the skits. he would use cue cards for the songs and thought it was funny if he made a mistake. Dean would watch the dress rehearsal while Greg Garrison filled in for him. Carol was always on the ball and if you didn’t do your part she’d do it for you. 

            Pat didn’t feel he was on the A list with the liberal establishment of Hollywood. He was conservative, straight, religious, and square. Pat was already married with four kids when he did Carol’s show. But Carol and her crew let him play with them as an equal. 

            Carol’s show is timeless because it wasn’t topical. 

            As a singer Carol could match Julie Andrews note for note. I don’t think that’s entirely true. There’s a quality to Julie’s voice that Carol can’t match. 

            Pat turned down a movie with Marilyn Monroe because he thought the story was immoral. The studio was pissed off at him. They later did the movie with Joanne Woodward and Richard Beymer and it bombed. He’s talking about The Stripper and it didn’t bomb. Marilyn was cast in the film but then she died before it went into production. That would have been interesting. The playwright William Inge wrote A Loss of Roses on which The Stripper was based with Marilyn in mind. 

            Pat says when he used to milk the family cow he envied Julius LaRosa who was on Arthur Godfrey. Then a year and a half later he’d replaced La Rosa on that show. 

            Pat says he always had a B plan if his entertainment career didn’t take off. He was going to be a school teacher and probably a preacher. He was still attending Columbia University while he was making records. In 1953 he was on the cover of TV guide in his cap and gown and inside the issue was a picture of his wife and four daughters. 

            He didn’t encourage his daughters to pursue show business but for about seven years he and his wife and daughters had a family act. They toured Japan with The Osmonds and his daughters paired off with those boys who were about the same age. He didn’t push any of his girls but they all loved it. The only thing that broke up the group was when they got married. All the girls lived at home until they got married. Debbie continued in entertainment and had her big hit record in “You Light Up My Life”. Two of his granddaughters want to make it in show business but they’re working as waitresses. He says he used to sing “The Father of Girls” by Ervin Drake and Anthony Newley. 

            He was married to Shirley for 66 years until she died. 

            Pat played Will Rogers in The Will Rogers Follies in 1994. He thinks Will and Carol have a lot in common. 

            Pat likes all kinds of music and so he had no problem doing a heavy metal album. 

            He’s had 63 chart records and one more in the 50s than Elvis.

            Latifah says Carol is iconic and capable of anything. She used to watch and be inspired by her show when she was Dana Owens. 

            Queen Latifah first worked as a human beatbox for Ladies Fresh in 1988. When she was 18 she started rapping with beats from DJ Mark the 45 King, in a style derived from jazz, reggae, and soul. She was an original member of Flavour Unit. She first opened for Public Enemy. Her first single was “Wrath of My Madness” in 1988. In 1989 she released her debut album All Hail the Queen which had a hit single in “Ladies First”. Her third album Black Reign in 1993 was the first album by a female rapper to go gold and it spawned her song “U.N.I.T.Y” which won a Grammy Award. She was a member of the hip hop collective Native Tongues. She sang with Tony Bennet on his Duets album. She made her TV debut in House of Style in 1989. She made her film debut in Jungle Fever in 1993. She co-starred in House Party II, Bringing Down the House, Set It Off, Living Out Loud, The Secret Life of Bees, The Bone Collector, Chicago (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award), Ice Age: The Meltdown, Stranger Than Fiction, Hairspray, Girls Trip, Mad Money, and The Tiger Rising. She starred in Taxi, Beauty Shop, Last Holiday, Joyful Noise, and End of the Road. She is the first female rapper to be nominated for an Oscar. She’s the first rapper to perform for the Super Bowl halftime show. She starred in the sitcom Living Single from 1993 to 1998 (for which she wrote and performed the theme song). She hosted The Queen Latifah Show from 1999 to 2001 and from 2013 to 2015. She starred in The Equalizer from 2021 to 2025. She produced and co-starred in the film The Perfect Holiday. She was a co-executive producer of the series Scream. She wrote a book called Ladies First. She was arrested for carrying a loaded handgun in 1996. She was arrested for assaulting a photographer the same year. In 2002 she was arrested for driving under the influence. She became a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, Cover Girl, and Pizza Hut. She was the first hip hop artist to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

August 24, 1996: It was a warm weekend so we played on the roof

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday Nancy brought our daughter to me and she spent the weekend. The weather was warm and so we spent a lot of time playing outside on the back roof.

Vivian Vance

            On Friday after midnight I went over my bed several times with a lint roller until no baby bedbugs got picked up. I went to bed again with no two sided carpet tape around the futon to trap bedbugs before they could get to me because I wanted to wait until I steam the bed later today. After yoga I found several on the floor and wall at the head of my bed and a nest in a groove in the plaster. All that’s going to be blasted with steam later today. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian and almost nailed down the fifth and final verse. 

            I finished translating “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg and started looking for the chords. No one has posted them so tomorrow I’ll start working them out. I think this song will be fairly easy. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            Around midday I steamed my mattress then moved it into the living room and steamed the west side of my bedroom where the bed sits. I steamed the baseboards, the floor, parts of the walls, as well as the back of the stand beside my bed. 

            I weighed 92.9 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos at 18:05. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on catching up. 

            I made a new batch of gravy from chicken drippings and had some with a potato and a chicken leg while watching an interview with Lucille Ball and another with Lyle Waggoner on Carol Burnett.

            Lucy says Carol is one of the greatest gals she’s ever met. She first went to see Carol when she starred in Once Upon a Mattress because she was interested in making her part of one of her company’s shows. But someone else had already gotten her for their show so she just became friends with Carol. She showed herself to be a true comedian on her second performance and that’s unusual. She had it, which is honesty, delivery, energy, timing, and vulnerability. Lucy loves how she gets so deep into a character. Vulnerability is very necessary for a comedian. Carol sometimes breaks Lucy up when they work together and Lucy has to be careful because she doesn’t approve of that. She’s funny because she believes in her characters. The same thing used to happen with Vivian Vance. There isn’t anything Carol can’t do well. 

            Lyle says Carol’s show was very relaxed and a lot of fun. He didn’t mind the live audience. Carol was not intimidating but just one of the players. She’ll go down as one of the top comedic actors of all time. He hasn’t seen anyone that can hold a candle to her.

            Steve Lawrence was a good kisser. 

            Tim Conway came up with ingenious ideas and he was very athletic, as was Carol. 

            Lyle had great admiration for Harvey Korman because he could do characters like no one else. He co-starred on The Danny Kaye Show but Lyle thinks he was better than Kaye. 

            When Lyle co-starred on Wonder Woman they gave him a very nice trailer. He asked where they got it and he was told that they rented it from a private owner in the Valley. So Lyle bought a motor home and they rented it from him for the three years he was on Wonder Woman. He found out that there was no one stop shopping place for motor homes and they often had to rent them from four different places. So Lyle started buying up coaches until he had a little fleet. In 1988 he started building trailers and now he has two manufacturing plants building trailers as fast as they can. He’s thought there would be a saturation point but it never came and so now his company Star Wagons has 800 trailers scattered all over the country and they’re going to send some to Vancouver. Lyle retired five years ago and his two sons run the company. The trailers all have built in generators, satellite systems, and make-up areas. He’s always been an entrepreneur and even when he was acting he considered it a business with himself as the product. 

            When Lyle was interviewed for the part of the announcer on Carol’s show he thought it would be funny to pretend to stutter. They looked at him in silence and thanked him for coming. He thought he blew it. But the next day they asked him to come and meet Carol. When Carol first saw him she pretended to faint. Lyle ran over to help her up. After some light conversation they thanked him again and he left. The next day he was told he had the job. 

            They allowed them to tweak the scripts a bit to surprise of throw the other actor off. They called them savors. (A savor is actually a pause after a line to build tension or to let a mood hover for the audience). 

            Everybody copied her show as the template for variety shows. 

            Lyle did several guest appearances on The Sonny and Cher Show. He says Cher was one of the friendliest people at CBS. 

            Even after The Carol Burnett Show had only been on a few weeks people were recognizing Lyle all across the country. 

            Lucy mentioned that Carol reminded her of her comedy partner Vivian Vance. Vivian Vance first acted professionally at The Little Theatre in Albuquerque, New Mexico and made enough to go to New York so she could study with Eva La Gallienne. The Little Theatre later was renamed The Vivian Vance Playhouse. After some struggle she finally got work performing in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s Music in the Air. The show lasted for two years. She next understudied Ethel Merman in the original production of Anything Goes. Her first starring role was in Hooray For What. She made her silent film debut in 1925 in The Patent Leather Pug. She made her sound film debut in Take a Chance in 1933. Her most successful stage role was in Let’s Face It in 1941. She co-starred in The Secret Fury, The Blue Veil, and The Great Race. Desi Arnaz saw her in Voice of the Turtle and decided she would be perfect for the part of Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy (His first choice was apparently Bea Benadaret). She won an Emmy in 1953 for playing Ethel (It was the first Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in the history of the awards). She was offered an Ethel and Fred spin-off but turned it down. After Lucy and Desi divorced, Desi would sometimes visit Lucy on the set of The Lucy Show and they would act like they were still married. In the late 60s she and her husband moved to New Mexico where they owned and operated a travel agency. For three years in the 1970s she played Maxine in Maxwell House commercials. She was the godmother of John Sebastian.