We Loved Lucy But Did Lucy Love US

A status crossed my facebook news feed which turned into a very long discussion. It was regarding the iconic Lucille Ball and the presence or lack of presence of African Americans on her show. After some research basically through the internet by a group of non-professional researchers [[including myself) we could find only one African American to appear on any on Lucy's four shows "I Love Lucy", "The Lucy Show", "Here's Lucy" and "Life With Lucy". I'm sure that it was still tough for women in the industry but Lucille Ball was a gold mine and I believe she had a lot of power. It would have been very fitting to see a Nat "King" Cole, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald or Sammy Davis Jr. jamming with Ricky's band. Help me if I'm wrong but so far only came up with one. I wonder if this was intentional or just someone living in a box.
Here's the one clip we could find of black presence on a Lucy Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru4blLpPC0M

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If Jack Benny could give Eddie Anderson [[Rochester)such a big regular role, then, Lucille Ball could have done something similar.

Desi Arnaz was big in show business. As stated above, Nat Cole or Sarah Vaughn, or Billy Eckstine or Ella Fitzgerald, could have sung with his band. Harry Belafonte would have been an easy choice. Even that didn't happen. Dezi Arnaz was Cuban. There was a lot less distinction between people of African and Caucasian descent in that country due to mixing. You would think that Lucy and Desi would have been on the more anti-racist side than the racist [[unless Desi came from conservative unmixed Spanish stock, who were upper class racists in Cuba).

At this point, unless we hear from insiders, or Desi Jr, we will never know if there were racist attitudes against Blacks by either Lucille Ball or her then-husband, or any of the others. I hold no ill-will against them because of there being a lack of Blacks on her shows.

There is no denying, though, that a White woman having a public marriage to a Cuban man, and on national TV, no less, was groundbreaking, and no doubt helped pave the way for Blacks to legitimately get on TV. Nat King Cole benefited.

But, unless i'm missing one, it wouldn't be until 1975 when America would again see an interracial couple on a weekly TV show: The Jeffersons. Even to this very say, it's easier to fins a gay couple on TV than it is to find an interracial couple with a healthy relationship and that stays together. America is still very racist. Even when the soaps attempt it, there is an outcry from southerners, Hollywood panics, and they back off.

I think Lucille Ball was an unhappy woman for whatever reason.

Aren't there thousands or millions of interracial marriages in the USA today? There are in Canada, including my family. It doesn't provoke even a comment or a look anymore, at least not in the big Cities like Montreal Toronto Vancouver and Calgary.

We always hear in Canada that the world remains very racist in a lot of the Southern USA.

If "Southern USA" refers to everything south of the Canadian border, then you, sir, have been hearing correctly.

I think Sammy Davis, Jr. appeared on HERE'S LUCY.

Nat "King" Cole, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald , Sammy Davis Jr. were all better than Desi and his band. Desi was not good singer and was not in the same league.

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Originally Posted by glencro

A status crossed my facebook news feed which turned into a very long discussion. It was regarding the iconic Lucille Ball and the presence or lack of presence of African Americans on her show. After some research basically through the internet by a group of non-professional researchers [[including myself) we could find only one African American to appear on any on Lucy's four shows "I Love Lucy", "The Lucy Show", "Here's Lucy" and "Life With Lucy". I'm sure that it was still tough for women in the industry but Lucille Ball was a gold mine and I believe she had a lot of power. It would have been very fitting to see a Nat "King" Cole, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald or Sammy Davis Jr. jamming with Ricky's band. Help me if I'm wrong but so far only came up with one. I wonder if this was intentional or just someone living in a box.

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You have to remember the context of the times. Black people were marginalized in the early sixties. The big names above weren't necessarily viewed as being "special" or "different". They just had talents that were accepted in some circles.

Before the sit-ins and the boycotts brought visibility, we were like Ralph Ellison's character in the Invisible Man. As a kid, I remember relatives who were gainfully employed as domestic help [[kitchen and other staff) who would always comment on the conversations that were had in their presence as though they weren't there. The invisibility still exists in a lot of business circles with their glass ceilings. A seat at the table isn't guaranteed, even with the letters behind the name and a wealth of experience. Some things have changed for the better while other things haven't changed enough.

Also remember that some sponsors would have pulled their advertising had Lucille Ball taken that bold step to be inclusive. Look at how the religious fundamentalists bully companies into removing sponsorship in order to have shows cancelled that don't agree with their world view. Ms Ball was known as a shrewd business woman and that was one risk she didn't take. I wouldn't necessarily label the non-inclusiveness as racism. It was more an act of knowing the source of your meal ticket.

Yes, nabob! Also, there has always been a lot of racism in Hollywood. As a producer, i'm not sure how much Ms. Ball exerted over casting, but the casting director, and/or the producer would be chiefly to blame the lack of Blacks on the show.

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Originally Posted by Jerry Oz

If "Southern USA" refers to everything south of the Canadian border, then you, sir, have been hearing correctly.

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Sounds like Alaska must be a haven of tolerance and understanding Jerry Oz. :)

Roger

I can't speak for the Alaskan natives, but I'm pretty sure they would disagree with that assessment. They've had their lands encroached upon and are minorities in the place that they've inhabited for centuries. At least they're all far enough away from each other to have fewer encounters, I'd suppose...

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Originally Posted by roger

Sounds like Alaska must be a haven of tolerance and understanding Jerry Oz. :)

Roger

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Don't believe it! I've met plenty of bigots from Canada.

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Originally Posted by gary_james

Nat "King" Cole, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald , Sammy Davis Jr. were all better than Desi and his band. Desi was not good singer and was not in the same league.

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Whether they were better than Desi's band or not, the exposure from being on such a hit show could have possibly made them even bigger than they already were.

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Originally Posted by glencro

Whether they were better than Desi's band or not, the exposure from being on such a hit show could have possibly made them even bigger than they already were.

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You kidding me? They didn't need Lucy's show!

Nat King Cole had his own TV show, the first Black man to have one, and that was in the 50s!

Sammy Davis, Jr. was one of the Rat Pack with Sean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.

Ella Fitzgerald was an accomplished jazz singer who made the scatting-style of singing famous.

Pearl Bailey...well, she was popular Tony Award actress and singer.

I think you are reading too much into it. There were hardly any black people on TV shows in the fifties, except as servants. Rochester was a servant. It's just the way it was then. No black people on Lassie, Burns & Allen, I Married Joan, December Bride, Our Miss Brooks, and many other sitcoms of the Lucy era.

Even in the sixties, it was unique to see a black person in a sitcom. Remember the episode of Dick Van Dyke when Laura thought they gave her the wrong baby in the hospital. She called the couple who she thought had her baby. They came over , rang the doorbell and when Laura answered the door, the couple was black.

Oprah used to say that she got excited when she saw black faces on TV because it did not happen that often.

Lucille Ball was not in charge of production of I LOVE LUCY. Desi was the executive producer.

Considering that CBS did not want Desi to play Lucy's husband and they had to prove themselves by first playing the vaudeville circuit to prove that they could be accepted by the audience as a couple; I doubt that either Desi or Lucy had any prejudice.

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Originally Posted by soulster

You kidding me? They didn't need Lucy's show!

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I didn't say that they NEEDED the Lucy Show but I don't think that it would have hurt any of them to have had that extra exposure. They were definitely already stars in their own rights.

Milven, my initial post also asked if it could have been just that they were living in a box. I just started teaching in an all special ed school where many of the children are non-verbal, in wheel chairs, experiencing various levels of autism. I almost feel guilty because I was so oblivious to how many children are in this condition because I was so busiy living in my own world. Just said that to say, I'm not saying that Lucy was racist or had to be some sort of activist. It could have been just they [[or we) weren't really a part of her world.

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Originally Posted by glencro

...Milven, my initial post also asked if it could have been just that they were living in a box...

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I think by today's standards, we were all living in a box. Last week, I watched the colorized broadcast of I LOVE LUCY . It was shocking to see Ricky bend down to talk to Little Ricky while smoking and blowing smoke in his face. It wasn't shocking to me years ago when I watched it for the first time, but it is totally unacceptable to see it today

The show was sponsored by Phillip Morris.

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Originally Posted by milven

Even in the sixties, it was unique to see a black person in a sitcom. Remember the episode of Dick Van Dyke when Laura thought they gave her the wrong baby in the hospital. She called the couple who she thought had her baby. They came over , rang the doorbell and when Laura answered the door, the couple was black.

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Oprah used to say that she got excited when she saw black faces on TV because it did not happen that often.

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I know. I remember those days. Black families would gather around the TV because it was so unique to see Blacks on TV that weren't maids, butlers, porters, or cooks. Even in the late 60s and early 70s, when we had Bill Cosby, Leslie Uggams, and Diahann Carroll with their own TV shows, or co-starts in TV shows, it was still a unique thing. It wasn't until Adam-12, The Partridge Family, All In The Family, The Brady Bunch, Room 222, Emergency, M*A*S*H, Maude, and many others, when it became commonplace to see Black faces on TV. And, still we had complaints about baffoonish behavior from RV characters like "Fred Sanford", "George Jefferson", and "J.J.".

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Considering that CBS did not want Desi to play Lucy's husband and they had to prove themselves by first playing the vaudeville circuit to prove that they could be accepted by the audience as a couple; I doubt that either Desi or Lucy had any prejudice.

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I don't think either one was prejudice, wither, but, like I said, it was Hollywood, and prejudiced against Blacks was still the rule of the day. Not only did they know that having Blacks during the time up racial upheaval would stir up problems, but casting directors had the power to hire whom they wanted.

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Lucille Ball was not in charge of production of I LOVE LUCY. Desi was the executive producer.

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You're correct. Desi Arnaz was the producer for both shows. However, as Lucille Ball was married to the guy until the early 60s, it seems logical that she also was involved in production as being unnamed. She still had influence.

Oh that's a bunch of hooey. Lucy's production company green lighted the first black character in a position of authority on Network TV.

Lucy has said she was just an actress and Desi took care of the business of Desilu in the 50s, she later had a more active role in the company and, I heard in a TV documentary that she green lighted Star Trek.

Haaaaaaaaaaa,blacks on i love lucy??she's lucky ricky got on there,america in the fifties folks there were places in america where a black person couldn't buy a tv to watch lucy and we asking about blacks on with her...america in the fifties.