The main event started just after 8 pm in the Reg Lenna Civic Centre with a screening of Carole’s stellar performance on a January episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I think it is safe to say that the audience was completely blown away by her wonderful portrayal of Sophie. When this finished, there was a 10-15 minute retrospective of Carole’s career including many highlights with Lucy. Clips included scenes from the Desilu Revue (one scene with Lucy and the ‘beatnik’ musical number), Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet, Lucy Puts out a Fire At The Bank, Lucy Carter Meets Lucille Ball, and a great clip of Carole, Max Showalter, and Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. It was a fantastic tribute and one which completely avoided Lucy and Ma Parker! If Ma was featured and I just mentally tuned it out, please let me know.
After the tribute, Carole then came onstage to thunderous applause. Before Tom and Robert joined her onstage, Carole entertained the audience with a 20 minute or so monologue on her life in Texas as Mildred Cook, her “horrible” grandmother (“Mildred, pregnant women won’t look at you!”), and her weight. She said that she once read a movie magazine article on Rosalind Russell which said she weighed 129 pounds. “Great!,” Carole said she thought, “I’m just like Rosalind Russell! It didn’t enter my mind that I was only seven years old and 4’2.” During the monologue, Carole noticed a young girl in the audience just before she was going to tell a bawdy anecdote. After that, Taylor became Carole’s verbal prop for the rest of the evening. It was great!
Just before Tom came up onto the stage, Carole began talking about her their wedding. She said that she wanted to look as virginal as possible (before calling herself a tramp. HA!) by wearing yards of white fabric and powdering her face as much as possible. LOL
When Tom and Robert came on stage, Tom paid tribute to Robert saying that if it wasn’t for him, he and Carole would never have met. All three of them on stage was brilliant and everyone could have listened to them just talk for hours on end. In fact, their conversation went half an hour longer (or maybe 20 minutes) longer than all other “I Remember Lucy” evenings because everyone was having such a great time. Carole and Tom shared pictures of their wedding and talked about how Lucy, as matron of honour, almost stole the show.
Robert talked about how he first met Lucy when he was on the Desilu lot one day. He said a man at Desilu told him that Lucy was putting together a Desilu Workshop inspired by Lela Rogers’ work at RKO (Which, Robert says, was just a scheme by RKO to get Lela off Ginger’s movie sets). He asked how he would go about auditioning for the workshop so the man called Lucy up in her office and she told him to send Robert up for an audition. They chatted for a while, and Lucy wanted to see any film Robert had of himself, so he told her that he just helped another actress do a screen test at another studio. Lucy then called up the studio and had the test delivered within half an hour. Robert says Lucy seemed disappointed with the rest, but when he was invited over to Lucy’s house a little while later with a bunch of other people, she asked him if he had signed the contract she had sent to him the day before. That, Robert said, was the first time he had ever heard of it.
Robert said his university degree in Journalism really impressed Lucy because she, a high school dropout, thought anyone who had a university degree was automatically smart. This, Robert said, was untrue because Lucy was smarter than the rest of them. She was street smart.
Carole then went more in depth about her first meeting with Lucy. Robert said another actress was hired to be the resident comedienne in the Desilu workshop but that she bombed out and a replacement was needed right away. So, Carole’s name was then put forward. She was in between doing two stage shows, so Lucy and other members of the workshop went out for dinner with Carole as a sort of audition. When Lucy met Carole, she says Lucy said, “Okay, be funny!” Under pressure, Carole says she sort of clammed up and couldn’t be funny, but once she thought she didn’t get the job and as the pressure left while they ate dinner, Carole relaxed and was funny, and the rest is history. Robert said, “Carole became Carole.”
Carole then said that she noticed that Lucy kept writing the name “Carole” over and over and Carole thought that was a bit odd. When she asked what Lucy was doing, Carole says, “Lucy said, I know you love your name (I didn’t!), but you remind me so much of Carole Lombard. She had the same healthy disrespect of everything in the world that you do!” So Lucy asked her to change her name to honour Carole (and explained the Lucky “AR” letter combination). Carole said that at that point Lucy could have suggested she change her name to “Rin-Tin-Tin” and she would have readily agreed. Thus, Carole Cook was born!
Robert also told how Lucy encouraged him to become a writer instead of an actor as she thought there were so many actors and too few GOOD writers. Robert says that she was definitely right and that her advice led him to Turner Classic Movies. But this wasn’t the only advice Lucy gave him. He says he always marvelled at the way Lucy was able to handle so many things in her life – being wife, mother, actress, studio executive, etc. – that he asked her how she handled it all. She told him to think of your day as a chest of drawers and work your way from top to bottom. He used the top drawer as an example saying that Lucy’s top drawer of the day would be to get up, bathe, dress, and do makeup. When that would be done, close that drawer. Open up the next one which might be “go to the studio” and do it. Close that drawer. Move onto the next. Robert says this was very helpful and is something that he now does every day.
Tom also shared a few stories from his movie days and his current theatre life. One story that was a great crowd pleaser was in one of his earliest Hollywood films, “The Big Fisherman” with Howard Keel. Tom played one of the apostles and when the principle actors were on the set a limo would come and take them to the actual location. When they all piled into the limo (“Jesus” riding shotgun and the apostles in the back) they passed a gaggle of old bit players who begged for a ride, but “Jesus” passed them by. LOL
It was great to see Tom and Carole interacting. They seem like such a close, loving couple. They’ve been married for over 40 years, and Carole says they’re very happy: “I’ve never once thought of divorce. Murder PLENTY, but never divorce.”
Another favourite story that Carole told was when she, Tom, and Robert were over at the Roxbury house, they got a call from Ethel Merman who had just married to Ernest Borgine (Carole: “I tell ya, I wanted the first of THAT litter!” ROTF!). So Lucy and the gang trooped up the street to where Ernest was living at the time. Ernest took Lucy to go show her something to the rest of them were sitting around with the Merm and she was telling them how lucky she was because Ernest was the most wonderful man in the world. She also excitedly told them about their upcoming honeymoon cruise to Japan and that if they ran out of money, Ethel was bringing her music so she could sing her way back if she had to. Two weeks after this night they announced their divorce. LOL
It was then audience Question and Answer time. Robert was asked how movies are selected on Turner Classic Movies, etc., and Carole was asked (by me) what it was like to work with Gale Gordon (naturally! ;-) ), and how Desi and Gary compared as husbands, among other questions. Carole had some very interesting things to say about Gary and he seemed close to tears when she told how she felt Gary pushed many of Lucy’s friends including Carole out of her life. Very, very sad.
The show then ended right after the question and answer session and I wish it could have just gone on for hours. Everyone was having a blast listening to these stories, and I think Carole, Tom, and Robert were having just as much fun talking as we were listening. I really hope they are brought back for another festival soon for part two. Judging from the enthusiasm expressed by all three of them not just at the seminar but in the couple of times I talked to them throughout the weekend, I don’t think the idea will be tough to sell.
Onto the Private Party…
For some reason, I can’t remember one Lucy-Desi Days where rain hasn’t been on the agenda somewhere – please correct me if I’m wrong – so I was hoping that this year’s boat cruise wasn’t a wash-out. My first cruise on Lake Chautauqua was last August with Frank Gorey and Elisabeth Edwards. I was below deck, so the weather wasn’t really an issue for those of us in steerage (just kidding! It’s a great place!) but I was determined to be upstairs this year. Thankfully we got dealt a good hand in the weather stakes and the mostly grey skies of the morning broke way for sun in the afternoon just in time!
His Groovy-ness Dann Cahn (pictured above, naturally!) was flying solo and arrived on the plaza shortly after we did. Diane Vincent and Rhonda Medina -- as “Lucy” and “Ethel” respectively – soon followed him, as did Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi from the opposite direction.
