Lucy Days in Chautauqua County

The Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, N.Y., contains vintage costumes and other memorabilia from the famous comedy couple.

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One-Tank Trip / Jamestown

Jamestown visitors get plenty to love about Lucy

By Hal Smith - SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Updated: 05/20/07 6:42 AM

 JAMESTOWN — If you think the late Lucille Ball, the "first queen of comedy," wasn't much more than the bird-brained redhead she played on television, consider this: She was the first woman to head a major Hollywood studio (Desilu).

Her sitcom, "I Love Lucy," in which she starred with husband Desi Arnaz, has been continuously broadcast all over the world for 56 years — a feat that probably will never be topped.

Today, Arab, Turkish and Chinese couch potatoes — and viewers who speak one of 18 other languages — are watching dubbed reruns of the show centered around her endearing character. After five decades on television, more people have seen her face than any other person who ever lived, according to TV Guide, which did its part by putting Lucy on its cover more than 45 times.

That explains, in part, why thousands of her fans will descend on Jamestown, her proud hometown, for the annual "Lucy-Desi Days" festival over the Memorial Day weekend.

Some will be diehard pilgrims from one of more than 75 countries that air "I Love Lucy." Others are simply out for some fun, remembering how they howled with delight as they watched Lucy stuff herself sick with chocolates as candy streamed by relentlessly on a conveyor belt.

Whoever they may be, visitors will not want for diversion. A nine-page printout of the festival's events includes screenings, memorabilia shows and auctions, tours of the city (including Ball's childhood home and gravesite), a boat cruise (related to a sitcom episode), "laughter yoga" workshops, musical revue, reunion picnic, comedy improv troupe, masquerade party, contests, photo ops with impersonators, and a concert by Ball's daughter, Lucie Arnaz.

The center of all this Lucy madness is downtown Jamestown, which includes three facilities operated by the Lucille Ball-Desi Center:

• The Lucy-Desi Museum is a pleasant storefront building that opened in 1996 and covers the personal lives of the comedy couple, including her youth in Jamestown and their married lives in Hollywood. Ball, who died in 1986, was very loyal to her hometown and insisted that the world premiere of one of the couple's feature films take place there. Jamestown references frequently appeared in "I Love Lucy" and she decorated her Beverly Hills home and TV set with furniture manufactured in the area, once renowned for the work of its Swedish-American craftsmen.

Changing exhibits may include wardrobes, costumes, props, awards (she won four Emmys), family photos, etc. Much of this is provided by the couple's two children, Lucie and Desi Jr., leading members of the Lucy-Desi Center's board.

• The Desilu Playhouse is fully devoted to the "I Love Lucy" show. It displays memorabilia (virtually all donated by fans) and exact replicas of studio sets, including the fictional Lucy and Ricky Ricardo apartment in New York City, and the Hollywood hotel suite where she pantomimed with Harpo Marx and set her nose on fire while trying to deceive William Holden.

Opened in 2005 in a former department store, the playhouse was established by major donors William Rapaport, a computer science professor at the University of Buffalo, and his wife Mary, a cancer survivor who believes that Lucy-brand laughter was among the best medicine in her recovery. In fact, the Lucy-Desi Center's mission is, in part, to "enrich the world through the healing powers of love and laughter."

• The Lucy-Desi Center Gift Shop offers about 800 items and tries, apparently with much success, to carry every Lucy-Desi bauble, blanket, book, board game and tchotchke available. If, for example, you are in the market for a set of Lucy-Desi wine glasses from which to quaff an insolent cabernet, this is your kind of place. How about a bottle of Vitameatavegamin, the fictional alcoholbased elixir that got the best of Lucy during multiple takes when filming the product's commercial?

Merchandise revenue, together with admission sales, enable the celebrity center to remain in the black without government support.

If any TV-based fan phenomenon were loosely comparable to "I Love Lucy," it would probably be the Trekkies' adoration of "Star Trek." Interestingly, it was Ball who greenlighted the science-fiction show when she was president of Desilu, which became the largest film studio in the world. (It also created "Mission: Impossible," "The Untouchables," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and many other classics gone to rerun heaven.)

It's long been fashionable to decry television's influence on American culture. But although TV is usually slavishly derivative, it also breaks ground. "I Love Lucy" was, for example, the first show to feature an interracial marriage (Ricky Ricardo was a Latino); and Ball was the first pregnant actress playing a pregnant woman on television when Little Ricky was born — though censors still banned uttering the word "pregnant." (In 1953, an "expectant" woman was "in a family way.")

So, as much fun as it may be to "people watch" and surrender to all the silliness at Lucy Days, a visitor might learn as much about TV history and pop culture as about the redhead Newsweek called the top female entertainer of the 20th century.

If you go

The Lucy-Desi Center manages three visitor facilities. All are open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. They are open daily except Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Day and New Year's Eve and Day.

• The Lucy-Desi Museum, 212 Pine St., Jamestown. Admission: $6 adults, $5 seniors, $4 ages 6-18.

• The Desilu Playhouse, 2 W. Third St., Jamestown. Admission: $10 adult, $9, seniors, $7 ages 6-18.

• The Lucy-Desi Center Gift Shop, 300 N. Main St., Jamestown. No admission charge.

"Lucy-Desi Days" events: The full list of special events taking place Friday through next Sunday can be found at www.luci-desi.com. They include: • "A Very Special Tribute to Vivian Vance," 10 a.m. Saturday in the Reg Lenna Civic Center, 116 E. Third St. Vance's sister, Lou Ann Graham, is the special guest. Tickets are $20.

• Lucie Arnaz moderates the fourth "Legacy of Laughter" (LOL) at 8 p.m. Saturday, in the Reg Lenna Civic Center. Arnaz will lead the panel and audience through an interactive celebration and exploration of the healing powers of humor.

• "Lucie Arnaz in Concert: A Daughter's Tribute," 7:30 p.m. next Sunday in the Reg Lenna Civic Center. Tickets are $30.

Lucy's childhood homes:

Lucille Ball's birthplace and childhood home are both nearby. Her birthplace is 69 Stewart Ave., Jamestown; her childhood home is 59 Lucy Lane (formerly Eighth Street), Celoron.

Murals:

Be sure to look for the works of local artist Gary Peters Jr. while you're in Jamestown including the Lucy-Desi Postage Stamp Mural on the Prendergast Avenue side of the Jamestown Post Office on the corner of Third Street and a 7-foot-tall bottle of Vitameatavegamin on the elevator tower of the Spring Street parking ramp, the corner of Third Street.

Information: (877) LUCYFAN (582-9326); www.lucy-desi.com,www.tourchautauqua.com.

 

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