"I Love Lucy" Fans RED ALERT!

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Pat:

Do you know something we don't? The IMDb has Edith Meiser's I Love Lucy credits listed only as two 1952 appearances as Phoebe Littlefield, wife of Alvin Littlefield, played of course by Gale Gordon. Norma Varden is listed for a 1953 appearance as Mrs. Benson. However, I'm asking here, not claiming anyone's incorrect, because it wouldn't be the first time IMDb got something wrong!
 
laundromat:

No, you're thinking of Norma Varden, who played Frau Schmidt, not Edith Meiser. Edith retired in '63, two years before The Sound of Music was filmed, after years of thankless "guest star" roles on TV that were really not worthy of her talents. She was a comedienne and singer, which Lucy understood, but the rest of Hollywood didn't always. Edith lived until '93.
 
Jeff:

I think the story you heard may have something to do with the claim that Lucy had a secret child before beginning I Love Lucy. The story was that she had a baby by Desi, but felt it wasn't good to be seen as a mother when she was playing a housewife a good ten years younger than her actual age. The story has it that she turned the baby over to another woman to raise as her own, buying a house in Laguna Beach for the woman to live in. I have absolutely no idea whether any of this story is true, except to say I suspect it isn't. There's a link below to a newspaper story about the kid, who's trying to prove the link between her and the Arnaz children (good luck with that, honey - they'd have to give up millions to you if you could):

www.fairfieldweekly.com

CTNow – Hartford Courant

Connecticut's place to go for things to do around Hartford and New Haven, including best restaurants, family events, live music, museums and more.
www.fairfieldweekly.com www.fairfieldweekly.com
 
in Lucy's autobiography...

She mentions her yearning for a child before Lucie was born. It reads very genuine to me; you can HEAR her voice in it. And I mean her real, throaty voice, not the childish one she used for Lucy Ricardo. Not that it would be out of the question for a star of that era to hide a child, but something inside me says NOT.
 
another Pheobe...

..does anyone remember another "Pheobe" from another episode?...played by another wonderful actress...she gave the girls their "CQ"...

what a terrific thread, like most of them on this very cool site :)
 
It does sound far-fetched, although Sandy's link mentions something about DNA testing. That should settle the question, if one of Lucy's kids agrees to it.

Back then there wasn't any talk about secret children or people being "kept" in that house. It was simply referred to as Lucille Ball's house. I looked it up on Google maps and it's still there:

JeffG++1-21-2010-13-43-55.jpg
 
Jeff:

"It does sound far-fetched, although Sandy's link mentions something about DNA testing. That should settle the question, if one of Lucy's kids agrees to it."

They probably wouldn't without a court order, because there's so much at stake if they do. I think it's unlikely, and you think it's unlikely, but what if there was something to this story? That resets the entire financial basis of whatever estates Lucy and Desi left, and there are probably huge financial stakes in companies, etc., because of all the shows in which Lucy and Desi had an interest.

You never know what parents have been up to outside the family that you know about - I've known more people who had the shocks of their lives when some secret or other was finally revealed. I know one guy in Atlanta who found out his yard guy was his half-brother - his dad had been, ahem, "seeing" their housekeeper on the side, and the yard guy was her son. He'd begun doing the yard work as a teenager. Blew my friend away, let me tell you.
 
Pat Do you know something we don't?

Sandy, I certainly do know something you don't...and that thing is that I got Norma Varden mixed up with Edith Miser LOL...........The both look kind of similar to me and they both have a unique kind of whine to their voices...........
 
Sandy, did you read the comments for the article you posted? Some interesting stuff, some of it from people involved in this case.

One post claims Ball had three miscarriages, in 1940, 1949 and 1950. If that's true, it makes the claim that she would conceive a child in secret and give it away in the late 1940's that much more implausible. Also, the logistics of hiding a pregnancy, especially in 1940's Hollywood, while not impossible, border on ludicrous. I just can't see Ball dropping everything she was involved with at the time (films, radio etc) just to accomodate a secret pregnancy.
 
Jeff:

I'm going to leave whether the story about Lucy is true or not to others to decide, but never underestimate the power of Hollywood studios to conceal stuff during the Classic Era. Loretta Young had a daughter, Judy Lewis, by Clark Gable, and passed her off as an adopted child, very successfully. If you listened to studio publicity departments, you believed Rock Hudson was straight, that Bing Crosby was a sweet-tempered, caring father, that Alan Ladd was six feet tall and that Joan Crawford was the perfect Mommie.
 

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