I am not talking about Charlie Brown’s Lucy, but I Love Lucy Lucy’s. There is an article in The National Catholic Reporter on Lucille Ball and more specifically on Nicole Kidman who plays her of the 1950’s period in a movie that is nominated for an Academy Award. The movie focuses more on the “real” Lucy rather than the Lucy part she plays although that is a part of it.
You can read the article here and tell me if it has any spiritual or Catholic worth. BTW the real Lucy was married to a Catholic although he was a pretty bad sinner when it came to fidelity to the real Lucy but apart from that seems to have been a nice guy that one would like to be friends with and Lucy remained friends with him after the divorce and seem to still be in love with him until he died although she was remarried. Nicole Kidman is Catholic who seems to take her Faith somewhat seriously as a celebrity.
Here it is with my commentary below:
In 'Being the Ricardos,' Nicole Kidman captures how Lucille Ball preached through joy
My comments: As a disclaimer, I am a Lucy fan and liked all her stuff especially I Love Lucy. The real Lucy always fascinated me even as a child. When she appeared as herself on talk shows or interviews she was always a very serious and no nonsense sort of person. Her early life was difficult. She worked hard and liked working hard and found meaning in life through her work.
I think she would have converted to Catholicism if Desi Arnaz had been a better example of it. I think his infidelity humiliated her in many ways. She found solace in more psychological brands of Christianity and the power of positive thinking.
But her children were baptized Catholic and reared as Catholics and Lucy and Desi saw to it that their civil marriage was convalidated in the Church. Lucie Arnaz I think practices her faith.
All of us are complex, face our demons and those who are demonic towards us and struggle throughout our pilgrimage in life. We don’t all walk together, some to the beat of our own drummer, yet we are all together in one way or another. Is that the Catholic message of Lucy?
4 comments:
I can't think of anyone who didn't like I Love Lucy. However, I have always held the position that Desi Arnaz was every bit as important to the success of the show as Lucille Ball. The man had a sense of comic genius that brought out the best in the other players, especially his wife. He was content to take a back seat to her, because he didn't need to be the star, but if you watch that show carefully, he was as funny, if not funnier than his wife. If you look at most of Lucille Ball's film career as a "B" movie specialist, she wasn't especially funny. Her partnership with Arnaz brought that out and I am convinced that is why her post-I Love Lucy shows (Here's Lucy, The Lucy Show, etc.) were never as good.
Marriage is a lot of things, but one of the things successful marriages do is partnership. For a while, Lucy and Desi had a very successful partnership and it showed.
Agreed. He was just as funny and had a comic genius in his own right and more than likely greater than Lucy’s. And I think he directed her and her ability to be a comic actor. She was not a comedian but an actor who knew how to act funny but without jokes, in situations. And yes, there is a chemistry between those two which is quite noticeable on I Love Lucy. I think their daughter would feel the same as you as well. But Lucy knew she needed others to play off of, and Vivian Vance was that person and when she left the subsequent Lucy Show the show wasn’t as good. And certainly Lucy without Ricky was not good at all, except the first year of her new Lucy Show without Desi, he was still behind the scenes and I think directing her and those black and white Lucy shows were quite funny.
I loved it when Desi Arnaz's eyes would bug out at Lucy and yell, "Lucy, you have some splaining to do!"
They were real trail blazers in many ways. They were initially married in a civil ceremony, but Desi's Mom, a Cuban Catholic, persuaded them to marry in a Catholic ceremony. She told them if they did, they would have children, and they did. Was it luck or something else?
Their brand of comedy is timeless. I never tire of watching reruns of I Love Lucy.
Along with his comedy, Desi is credited with having the business savvy that changed the television industry.
This was a "Planet Money" broadcast on NPR a couple of months ago - I found it fascinating.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/959609533
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