After six seasons on the air, the hugely successful I Love Lucy sitcom ended. The stars had tired of the weekly grind but transitioned to the more expensive The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show specials. A baker’s dozen of those were produced over three years. By the end, the writers had run dry and the marriage of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball had fallen apart. The day after the production wrapped, Ball filed for divorce.
Before the show ended, it was proposed that the Mertz’s, played by William Frawley and Vivian Vance, continue in their own spin-off. The two had never liked each other off-screen but Frawley realized that the show could be very lucrative and agreed. Vance didn’t want any part of it and refused.
Sadly, the end of the specials was the last time that the four actors would ever play their iconic characters. Arnaz continued to produce and direct and acted occasionally before eventually retiring. Ball went on to act in three more series, movies, and specials. Vance co-starred on The Lucy Show for three seasons and then did guest shots and commercials after that.
After the end of the Lucy-Desi series of specials, Frawley went directly into a regular role on My Three Sons, playing Fred MacMurray’s gruff father-in-law. Despite the persona of the characters he played, Don Grady and Stanley Livingston have both indicated that he was very warm and affectionate to them off-screen.
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Frawley did have his nasty side though and still didn’t care for Vance. It seems that The Lucy Show and My Three Sons were produced on neighboring soundstages. According to a recent interview on Stu’s Show, Grady and Livingston said that Frawley would give them Frisbees and tell them to toss them into the Lucy soundstage, just as Vance was filming a complicated scene.
In 1965, after five seasons on My Three Sons, Frawley was fired. His health had become so poor that it was no longer possible to insure him for the show. The actor wasn’t pleased about being let go and reportedly returned to the set on a regular basis until he was asked to stop. He died on March 3, 1966.
Fittingly, Frawley’s last on-screen appearance came in October 25, 1965 on The Lucy Show. Vance had already left the series and Frawley appears in just a brief cameo with Ball. For one brief moment, it’s like Lucy Ricardo and Fred Mertz are together again.
Funny how ‘I Love Lucy’ (ILL) is often cited as a clean, wholesome program. At the time it was on primetime tv, Desi Arnaz was constantly being harassed by right-wing groups who attacked his being Cuban and Catholic and his marriage to ‘a white Christian’. The show was always at or near #1 rated but still had people who thought it was going to ruin American social and religious cultural values because of Arnaz and his personal background. They’d probably gone bonkers had they known of his wild private life. They managed to keep most of that out of the… Read more »
I wish Hollywood would return to making clean wholesome not-dirty-sexy: as it used to be! Dear ones, today what is good is bad – and what is bad is good! Almost no thought of what our nation was founded upon: the Bible — and the glorious life-changing wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ to set us free from sin! I watch mostlly christian television — none of the immoral so called comodies that have no respect for decency: just immoral crap! I hate it! I love JESUS! Who definiitely is about to return in His Glorious return RAPTURE! To make heaven:… Read more »
Me TOO, can’t allow my grandchildren to watch, very much. They love l Love Lucy
[…] Tim Considine (another Mickey Mouse Club vet) playing his younger and older brothers respectively. I Love Lucy’s William Frawley rounded out the cast as maternal grandfather “Bub” […]
For you I love Lucy fans, get the book Meet the Mertzes. Gives info on Ethel and Fred, Vivian and William. .
@Bobby: Great suggestion.
After 50 years “I Love Lucy” is still number 1 among the young and the old. Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel were the best. I really do miss them.
I LOVED LUCY AND ALL OF THE GANG. ITS ASHAME VIVIAN DIDNT GET ALONG WITH BILL , I WISH THEY HAD WORKED MORE TOGETHER . I MISS THEM ALL AS I ALWAYS WILL. I GREW UP WATCHING THEM AND I WATCH THE SHOWS EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE ON DVD. GOD BLESS THEM ALL
As a kid I never missed “I Love Lucy,” maybe because it was one of the few shows on TV at the time. But I do remember it fondly and I did like William Frawleys’ character. As for “My Three Sons,” that was another show that I never missed. I didn’t know at the time that when William Frawley went missing that he had been forced out and subsequently past away. Knowing that the studio fired him is very disheartening. It’s just another example of Hollywood’s cold cold heart. Rotten ********!