Post by TheGoodMan19 on Sept 5, 2021 21:47:24 GMT
Ball was a very intelligent woman. She founded and ran Desilu Productions, Arnaz had little to do with the day to day operations. They had huge TV shows, Mission Impossible, The Untouchables, Mannix, Star Trek. She sold it 1968 for a ton of money. She also showed amazing foresight in making I Love Lucy. She insisted the show was shot on film instead of cheap Kinescope. Had it been shot on Kinescope, it wouldn't have been rerun to this very day. She also fought CBS tooth and nail to make ILL the show SHE wanted. CBS wanted her to play Liz Cooper, a housewife of a banker in Minneapolis. The husband would be just a straight Ward Cleaver guy. Yawn. Lucy insisted on the premise of a talentless wife of a Cuban bandleader who wanted in show business. She wanted Arnaz, partly to keep a eye on his philandering ass but she knew that his character could get laughs. Judge the results, in its prime, I Love Lucy was the most watched show ever, percentage wise.