I Live Lucy*

Another day in this literary-artistic environment, and here's what my reading material looks like:

Lucy was querulous and demanding on the set, hardest of all on her fellow performers. The star's makeup man, Hal King, was appalled when Lucy "went over to Vivian Vance and pulled off Vivian's false eyelashes. Lucy said, 'Nobody wears false eyelashes on this show but me.' " In the beginning, before they got to know each other, recalled script clerk Maury Thompson, "Lucille gave Vivian a hard time. I mean a really hard time. One day I pulled Viv aside and I said, 'What are you going to do about her?' Vivian was very smart. She said, 'Maury, if by any chance this thing actually becomes a hit and goes anywhere, I'm gonna learn to love that bitch.' "

Fabulous.

Lucille and Viv did get to know each other -- obviously -- and did become friends, just in case your fantasy, like mine, was starting to shatter. But Viv and William "Fred Mertz" Frawley? Hated each other. Though that's a pretty well-known fact. Yawn -- helloooo.

So sue me -- I'm trying to see how different biographies are done. This one is Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball by Stefan Kanfer. The writing is serviceable, thorough, and easy to speed through; the story, not surprisingly to anyone who has known me for more than a few years, fascinating. There's not much reflection and almost no flair, but hey, sometimes you need a break from breakfast-table conversations about the Nazis' Lebensborn program (the subject of a novel in progress by a children's author who left today; it's her first adult book -- sounds really interesting, actually, and she was great).

My reading tonight went very, very well. Lots of fawning fans and so forth. ;) I've finally satisfied everyone's curiosity about what the heck that quiet, skinny writer guy who's growing a beard (yes, again) is up to.

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*A typo on my part when I went looking for the Wikipedia page on I Love Lucy. Thought it was just the right Freudian slip for my title.