Here’s What Happened to ‘I Love Lucy’ Star Vivian Vance: It Was a Hard Life for TV’s Ethel Mertz

The Little Theatre

The above was not exactly a ringing endorsement. Nonetheless, as a teenager, Vivian moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she fared much better. It was then that she changed her last name to Vance and began performing at the Albuquerque Little Theatre in 1930, where her credits would include This Thing Called Love, The Cradle Song and, in 1932, See Naples and Die. Of the latter, the Albuquerque Journal enthused, “It was Vivian Vance’s night. Her entrance was marked by applause. She was stunning. Her gestures, her inflection of voice, her mannerisms — all Vivian Vance and all the business of a finished actress.”

Even before that, in 1930, she was getting rave reviews while performing in Whose Baby Are You in El Paso, Texas. The El Paso Evening Post buzzed, “Vivian Vance proves a pleasant surprise. In this show, she throws off some of the restraint that has handicapped her acting before and throws herself into the business of making herself beautiful and human. Miss Vance has demonstrated her ability to sing ballads. This week she puts over a ‘blues’ number that is splendid. We like this blond lady and hate to see her leave El Paso.”

Her Potential Recognized

Geoffrey explains, “The local theater people there saw her talent when she began to perform and, as a group, they sent Vivian Vance to New York, which is why, on episodes of I Love Lucy, they always referred to Ethel as coming from Albuquerque — Vivian wasn’t born there, but that’s where her heart was. They just felt she had so much talent and that there was nothing for her in Albuquerque and that she deserved to go where her talent could be recognized.”

How it happened was chronicled in the New York Daily News, which, in 1932, detailed, “Vivian had played in the Little Theatre for a couple of seasons — no salary — and the citizens decided she deserved fame and fortune in New York. So, on August 16, they opened an ancient opera house and staged a boom days revival much in the fashion of the widely publicized Central City, Colorado production of Camille. The show, however, was less ancient. It was The Trial of Mary Dugan, with Vivian as Mary. Box office receipts went to Miss Vance and she came to Broadway. No breaks yet, though.”

Vivian’s View

While speaking to New Jersey’s The Herald-News in 1942, Vivian remembered her journey to New York: “The money taken in at the box office got me to New York where I arrived as Vivian Vance. I soon verified what I had suspected all along: Broadway was no cinch. So I sang into the mikes of a couple of clubs and hoofed in a couple of choruses. My first break — it was almost a broken heart — came in Ed Wynn’s Hooray for What. I was a singing chorus girl and one had to find someone for the part in seven hours. The authors liked the way I spoke lines and I got the job.

“But,” she continued, “every performance a ‘name’ actress sat out front studying my part and I could see myself being shunted aside, which, praise the Lord, I wasn’t. You see, I had already had one disappointment — my part in Red, White and Blue had been whittled down in rehearsals to one word. Yes, I remember it. It was ‘who’ Just try to emote with one word. Then I got into a legitimate role or two, notably in Skylark, where the critics liked me, and Out from Under. But four years is a good par for the Broadway course.”

Nightclub Singer

As Geoffrey explains it, upon arriving in New York Vivian began performing in nightclubs, singing “The Japanese Sandman” song and appeared in the 1933 movie version of the Ethel Merman stage musical Take a Chance. “The big song from that,” he says, “was a slightly naughty number called ‘Edie Was a Lady.’ Ethel Merman didn’t get to do the movie, but the song is about a madam and her ladies who are singing about a deceased brothel prostitute. It’s naughty in the subject matter and it only has one funny line in it, which is almost spoken, not sung. It’s, ‘Now Edie could get plastered and call that guy a scoundrel’ — because they couldn’t say ‘bastard.’ As Vivian got cast in the film as one of the girls, the final line of the song, which makes the whole thing worthwhile, went to her.”

‘Anything Goes’

Continues Geoffrey, “When they were casting the stage musical Anything Goes, which was written for the comedy team of William Gaxton and Victor Moore and Ethel Merman, Vivian Vance became Ethel Merman’s understudy and, in fact, went on for her singing those classics like ‘Anything Goes,’ ‘You’re the Top’ and ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.’ Merman liked her so much that she considered Vivian to be a protégé of hers. And in 1936, when she had Red, Hot and Blue with Bob Hope, Vivian was again her understudy. The two of them became good buddies.”

‘Let’s Face It’

“This,” he adds, “led to Vivian eventually becoming a star in her own right on the Broadway stage in musicals. She, Danny Kaye and Eve Arden were the stars of the big hit musical Let’s Face It in 1941. And then she did a play where she played the bitch called The Voice of the Turtle [in 1945]. But while they’re running that play, Vivian had a nervous breakdown.”

Painful Past

That nervous breakdown, Geoffrey notes, was a result of the cumulative effect of being repressed by her father. “He made her afraid of men,” he says. “This came from Vivian, so it is not me being witty, but she only married gay men. She said, ‘I was so afraid of men that I spent my life hiding underneath them.’ She stopped performing because of her breakdown. It was in 1950 that she started to work again, doing regional theater to get her feet wet. She also had small parts in two movies made in Hollywood, The Secret Fury and The Blue Veil.”

‘The Voice of the Turtle’ Leads to ‘I Love Lucy’

She took to the stage in La Jolla, California for a local production of The Voice of the Turtle, which would really ultimately change her life. “You have to understand that people loved Vivian,” emphasizes Geoffrey. “It wasn’t just Ethel Merman, but people like Cole Porter, Eve Arden, Helen Hayes and Marc Daniels, who was the original director of I Love Lucy. Now the pilot of I Love Lucy did not contain Fred and Ethel, so when the concept was sold to Philip Morris cigarettes [the sponsor], those characters weren’t a part of the show.”

‘My Favorite Husband’ Becomes ‘I Love Lucy’

“Lucy,” he continues, “is a derivative, if you will, by Jess Oppenheimer, who had been the head writer on Ms. Ball’s hit radio show My Favorite Husband, which is very similar to I Love Lucy. About two dozen of the I Love Lucy plots are rewritten stories from the radio show. When they wanted to take the show from radio, it was Ms. Ball who said, ‘I want Desi to play my husband. I want a reason to do this show.’ Because it was actually a comedown financially for her. She had a thriving movie career, despite what people say, and was in a hit radio show. Why would you give that up except for personal happiness?”

And the Atterburys Become the Mertzes

He elaborates, “Ms. Ball had wanted Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet to play the older couple, because that’s what they played on the radio show. Gale was too expensive for them, because he was making a fortune on radio — he was on three or four programs a week making thousands of dollars and better. Bea Benaderet was already signed to the George Burns and Gracie Allen live show, so she wouldn’t be available for rehearsals. So when they decided they needed a Fred and Ethel, it was the hardest thing for them to do, but the hundred other people they needed to make the show happen, they got. They went and got the best and did it, but they couldn’t find a good Fred and Ethel. Then Marc Daniels, who knew Vivian from New York, said to Jess Oppenheimer and Desi, ‘I have this woman I think would be great.’”

Making an Enemy

Jess, Desi and Marc Daniels went to see Vivian perform in The Voice of the Turtle in La Jolla and were so impressed that they signed her up to play Ethel during intermission. “So,” Geoffrey picks up the scenario, “she comes to the first day of rehearsal and Jess is already there, Bill Frawley [hired to play Fred Mertz] and Desi is already there. Vivian shows up and asks, ‘Who’s that old coot sitting over there?’ and Desi say, ‘That’s William Frawley; he’s going to play your husband, honey.’ And she said, “Husband? He could play my grandfather.’ Well, Bill Frawley heard this and hated her for the rest of his life. But here’s the thing: the writers saw how much he disliked her and just wrote it into the show.”

Stage Performers Make the Difference

“The writers didn’t know when Bill Frawley and Vivian Vance were hired, that Bill had been a big vaudeville song and dance man, and that Vivian had been a musical comedy star. Once they found out that these two could sing and dance, they wrote it into the show to give them a chance to perform. And the reason that Vivian is so good as Ethel Mertz is the same reason Lucille Ball is so good as Lucy Ricardo: they weren’t stand up comedians. They were tremendous actresses who knew how to play comedy and knew how to play farce, because on I Love Lucy things that shouldn’t have happened, did, and Lucy and Ethel get the audience to believe that what couldn’t possibly be real, is. For instance, Lucy puts too much yeast into the ingredients to make bread, right? You’ve seen the episode and you’ve seen the kitchen. They bake it and somehow when she opens the oven door, the loaf of bread is three times as long as the oven is, and the shelf holding the bread up is three times deeper than the oven actually is. Well, that doesn’t happen in real life, but Lucille and Vivian so believe what is happening in front of them that they allow the audience to suspend disbelief.”

Selling the Unbelievable

He points to another episode that saw Lucy and Ethel on roller skates with shopping carts, delivering homemade salad dressed on the third floor of a tenement building with steps and no elevator, as well as all over New York City. “We believe that,” he says, “just like we believe that Lucy the character is punishing her husband for thinking she’s crazy and has an elephant in the bedroom. And you know what? Of course she does. Why wouldn’t she? It’s just wonderful writing, but with two lesser lights you would not believe these things are happening. That’s how good they are and why Vivian was so good at what she did. She wasn’t Ethel Mertz. She wasn’t anything like Ethel Mertz, which is why Miss Ball didn’t want her in the role at first.”

‘You’re Not Ethel Mertz!’

“Ms. Ball made an entrance on the first day of rehearsal and she walks to Vivian and says, ‘Hello, dear. What are you here to read for?’ And Vivian said, ‘What do you mean, read for?’ I’ve been hired to play Ethel Mertz.’ Ms. Ball said, ‘You can’t play Ethel. You’re my age. You have the same color hair. You have an attractive figure. You’re pretty.’ Vivian was smart. She said, ‘Miss Ball, what does Ethel Mertz look like?’ Miss Ball says, ‘Oh, she’s overweight and she has bleached blonde hair with a frizzy permanent and dark roots and she wears tacky clothes.’ She said, ‘Look, it’s Monday. I can’t give you that for Friday, but next Friday I can give you that.’”

Physical Transformation

Vivian was as good as her word and had indeed transformed herself by the following week, and because the episodes weren’t shown in production order, that first episode didn’t air until the fourth or fifth slot, so the audience could see the difference. Details Geoffrey, “She went to a hairstylist and had her hair dyed to a light yellow blonde with some dark roots, and she was over-permed. She went to a store and bought her bra, panties, stockings, dress and shoes a size too small, so no matter what weight she actually was, the clothing would look dumpy on her. And she didn’t wear a girdle, which every woman wore back then. Miss Vance, when she wasn’t playing Ethel, was in fact a very sexy woman, but she was willing to look the fool and was willing to give the show what it needed to succeed. And she went to therapy every morning, five days a week before coming to the set to work so that her head could be in the right place and she could focus on the work in front of her. And take the crap she had to take from Bill Frawley. And it took Ms. Ball a while, but she realized what she had in Vivian.”

No Spinoff for Vivian

I Love Lucy lasted six regular seasons and then three more as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour with 13 hour-long episodes spread out among them. Desilu was interested in doing a spinoff focusing on Fred and Ethel, but Vivian wouldn’t tie herself to William Frawley in that way. “She didn’t need the money,” points out Geoffrey, “and she’d become quite famous as Ethel Mertz. When Lucille divorced Desi, Vivian divorced Philip Ober, her husband at the moment. When Lucille married Gary Morton, Vivian married John Dodds, who was a book editor for a publishing company. Maybe with the closeness of the two ladies, one influenced the other. Their reasons for divorcing were very different. Vivian was not in love with Phil Ober, but Lucille was in love with Desi Arnaz and they remained friends the rest of their lives.”

During the run of I Love Lucy, Vivian seemed pleased with the job, despite the fact they were shooting 39 episodes a season. “It’s an actor’s dream,” she told the Austin American-Statesman in 1952. “You do the same character, but you don’t have the boredom of reading the same lines week after week, as on the stage. We also have what the movies lack: an audience to stimulate you.”

Every Time She’s Out, Lucy Pulls Her Back In

With the success of I Love Lucy behind her, Vivian began making guest appearances on different shows, including The Deputy, Guestward, Ho! and The Red Skelton Show as well as on stage in Here Today. As Geoffrey details, “Lucille shows up one day with this script in her purse and Vivian says, ‘Don’t even take it out. I’m not doing this again.’ And Lucille said, ‘Vivian, I can’t do this without you.’ And Vivian’s provisos were all honored: they had to pay for her to come out to California and her expenses, because she didn’t move back there. And on the new series, The Lucy Show, Vivian plays a character named Vivian, not Ethel Mertz. She has a modern hairstyle and modern hair color and can wear whatever clothes she wants. And she plays television’s first divorcée. And Lucy’s character is very similar — Lucy Ricardo and Lucy Carmichael may not have been the same person, but they were more or less sisters or cousins. Vivian Bagley, though, is nothing like Ethel Mertz. She’s much smarter, she’s much more secure, she’s much more confident, she’s got a boyfriend and she’s nobody’s fool. She doesn’t suffer quite as much with Ms. Ball’s antics; she puts up more of a fight.”

Satisfying Character

In a 1962 interview with The Record of Hackensack, New Jersey, Vivian explained, “Before we started the new show I kept talking with the writers, begging them to keep the part feminine — I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to be funny, but I wanted to get away from those tough, hard-bitten, masculine-sounding jokes. This character gives me a chance to wear some nice clothes, too.” As to working with Lucille Ball, she enthused, “We’re a couple of good, honest performers and we work well together. That’s not being immodest; I like to watch us work together as a member of the audience.

“I’ve read a lot of scripts and I think I can tell good comedy when I see it,” she continued. “I think that one of the things that makes our show good is that it is warm and that basically we like each other. That’s important on television. On the stage, two performers who loathe each other can get away with playing together, but television is like an X-ray. The audience gets the feeling we like each other.”

Negotiations Go South

The Lucy Show ran on CBS from 1962 to 1968. For the first six months, Desi Arnaz was still running the Desilu studio, but then Lucille bought him out and put others in his position. One of them claimed that Vivian Vance was looking for more money, control and in essence wanted to be a full partner on the show. Lucille Ball balked at this and had negotiations cut off. “Nothing they told her was true,” says Geoffrey. “Vivian did want script input. She’s worked with Lucy for 14 years and was, like, ‘You know, guys, I know what I’m doing here. I know this character. Let me clue you in on what she will and won’t do.’ She just wanted to make the character consistent. Also, she filmed I Love Lucy in the beginning for $250 a week — which grew much higher as the years went on — and was asking for what everybody else on television who was a costar on a show was getting. But all of this got turned down and she left the show.”

‘Lucy’ Without Vivian

After Vivian left the series, the formatting was changed and it just didn’t work the same way it had, though admittedly the audience stayed with it. “They moved the whole premise of the show to California,” Geoffrey explains, “got rid of Vivian and all of the kids that were a part of it, but moved Gale Gordon’s Mr. Mooney with her. The show became about stupid Lucy Carmichael and her overbearing boss. It wasn’t as good a show, but it worked; she was in the top five of the ratings the whole time the show was on. Behind the scenes, it took about a year for the hurts to heal and Vivian came back as a guest star and continued to be a guest star on all the shows Lucille did over the years. The friendship survived, because they liked one another and I think they both realized, ‘We let these men put a wedge between us that never should have been there.’”

Career Challenges

Following The Lucy Show, Vivian didn’t have an easy time with her career. She had a role in the film The Great Race, did a few TV movies, participated in some TV game shows and made guest appearances on Love, American Style and Valerie Harper’s Rhoda, which actually promised to start a new chapter for her. “They wanted to make her a regular on Rhoda,” says Geoffrey, “because her episode, ‘Friends and Mothers,’ didn’t have her being Ethel Mertz, but she was damn funny, because she was standing up to Rhoda’s mother on Rhoda’s behalf and it gives a whole new dimension to the show they could have gone places with. But Vivian was too sick. In the early ‘70s, unfortunately, she was diagnosed with cancer, which she conquered for a while, but then she developed Bell’s palsy on her face.”

‘Lucy Calls the President’

This 1977 one-hour sitcom special saw Lucille Ball playing Lucy Whittaker, who calls the White House to discuss a housing project and suddenly has to prepare for a visit from the president. Vivian plays her next door neighbor, Viv. Geoffrey reflects, “It was one of the saddest shoots Ms. Ball ever did, because, A, her mother had just died and this was the first time since 1951 that her mother was not in the audience when she was doing one of her shows; and, B, during that week they found out that Vivian’s cancer had returned and that she wasn’t going to make it. While they’re filming, the Bell’s palsy comes and goes during scenes, so some part of her face is drooping a little while she’s speaking. In footage that wasn’t in the special, you could see the lengths they had to go to to make Vivian look good.”

Retiring to San Francisco

After that TV special, Vivian retired to San Francisco to be near her sister. There she contacted Lucille Ball’s hairstylist who knew the color of hair and how she liked to wear it, requesting wigs. She sent out money to cover the cost, but by the time they were made, Vivian was gone. She died on August 17, 1979, at the age of 70 from bone and breast cancer. Reflects Geoffrey, “She suffered mightily physically and emotionally, because John Dodds, like her other husbands, was gay and would be gone. She would call asking, ‘Where is he?’ Where he was, was in gay bars looking to get what he wanted. But Vivian remained a champion of mental illness and a supporter of gay rights all of her life.”

The Power of Vivian Vance

The memory and legacy of Vivian Vance lives on, though it is somewhat disquieting that her work isn’t celebrated more than it is, given how much she brought to I Love Lucy. Muses Geoffrey, “Watch Vivian Vance and Bill Frawley, whose parts are not as large and who aren’t playing some sort of version of themselves. Look at what they’re doing, at the talent they’re bringing to the table, especially Vivian. Look at how consistent her character is from episode to episode to episode. More often than not, supporting players are one-note Sambas. The don’t have any dimension, because usually their parts aren’t large enough or the writers don’t give them enough to play with.”

A Perfect Storm

“With Vivian, which is what a great actor does, every word that came out of her mouth, you really believed she was saying it for the first time,” he adds. “And when Ethel talked about her dissatisfaction with her husband, you could almost imagine what life must’ve been like for her without Lucy and Ricky making it more pleasant. That’s why she’s always in their apartment, trying to get away from Fred. And you didn’t even have to have the episodes written to show it; you just knew from the way she said her lines and her body language. But it was the perfect storm of great writing, great directing and great acting. Vivian conveyed how much she loved Lucy. Ethel adored Lucy so much, because Lucy rescued her from a dull, unhappy life.”

Her Life in Reflection

Geoffrey elaborates, “Vivian had hard knocks. So did Ms. Ball, so did Mr. Arnaz, so did Mr. Frawley. What’s exceptional about Vivian is not that she had the hard knocks, not that she was a victim, but look at what she did to overcome them. In 1976 Ms. Ball was celebrating her 25^th anniversary on television and back then in Variety professionals would take out ads about other people they admired. So in the issue devoted to Ms. Ball’s 25^th anniversary on television, this was Vivian Vance’s ad: ‘Dear Lucy. You made me what I am today and I’m satisfied. Love, Viv.’ And she meant it.”