Guest Stars and Notable Episodes
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor guest starred in the 1970 season opener, 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. Another noteworthy episode was "Lucy Visits Jack Benny." In addition to Jack Benny appearing, Jackie Gleason made a surprise cameo reprising his role of bus driver Ralph Kramden. During its run, Here's Lucy featured a number of famous guest stars, many of whom were Ball's real life friends, often playing themselves (as had also been the case during the final three years of The Lucy Show). Among the stars, Ann-Margret, Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, George Burns, Johnny Carson, Liberace, Petula Clark, Eva Gabor, Helen Hayes, Dean Martin, Eve McVeagh, Vincent Price, Tony Randall, Buddy Rich, Joan Rivers, Ginger Rogers, Dinah Shore, Danny Thomas, Lawrence Welk, Flip Wilson, Shelley Winters and Patty Andrews of The Andrews Sisters all appeared during the run of the show. In addition, Lucille Ball appeared as herself (in an episode in which Lucy Carter enters a Lucille Ball look-alike contest; the episode, designed to cross-promote Ball's then current film Mame, featured then fairly new technology, enabling Ball to appear on screen with herself).
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 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. According to Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, author of The Lucy Book, this was the point where the "Lucy" character was "finally allowed to age." Ball's reduced capacity for physical comedy gave the other members of the cast, such as Lucie Arnaz and featured players Mary Jane Croft and Vanda Barra a chance to shine.
In the spring of 1973, Here's Lucy had fallen to #15 in the ratings – the first time that a series starring Lucille Ball had fallen out of the top 10. Ball then decided that her fifth season would be her last. A final episode was filmed with Gale Gordon without a studio audience. In that installment, Harry's business was sold and he and Lucy reminisced together (using flashbacks) about their various adventures together. At the end of the episode, they both leave the office. Lucy then leaves a sign that says "closed temporarily", then she looks at the camera and winks. At the last minute, CBS president Fred Silverman convinced Ball to change her mind and return for a sixth season.
Read more about this topic: Here's Lucy
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“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
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