The Fifties

by David Halberstam

In 1950, when CBS executives asked her to do a weekly situation comedy on television, no one was unduly excited. That was their mistake, for Lucille Ball was destined for television, where her slapstick talents could be properly appreciated. Lucy had a marvelous comic voice but, like Berle, she was primarily a visual comedienne. She had a perfect sense of timing, a wonderfully expressive face, and was just wacky and naive enough to generate sympathy rather than irritation. In this early sitcom she would encounter weekly dilemmas of her own creation, but she always managed to stay just this side of the brink of disaster, remaining lovable to her husband and her friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz. Lucy and Desi Arnaz were an unlikely couple, not merely on television but in real life as well. If Lucy was to be a dizzy housewife, she deserved at the very least, in the minds of the CBS executives, a straight-arrow husband to put up patiently with her foibles, but no, she insisted that Arnaz be cast as her husband. The people at CBS, from Bill Paley on down, were appalled. So were the advertising people, who had a big say in the casting. Desi Arnaz was not exactly a household name; his English was poor. No one, a CBS executive told her, would believe a show in which she was married to a Cuban bandleader. “What do you mean nobody’ll believe it?” she answered. “We are married.” She remained adamant, and finally a reluctant Paley gave in. After the pilot was shot and shown to a high-lev...