They Were Like Sisters

THE TELEVISION CO-STARS ENJOYED A WARM RELATIONSHIP THAT GREW STRONGER OVER THE YEARS

- LOUISE A. BARILE

In 1953, Lucille Ball gave her I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance a very special Christmas gift. Titled This Is Your Life — Vivian Vance, the binder contained a collection of personal photos and memories. “She assembled it all herself,” recalled Vivian. “It took her weeks of sending back to my childhood home for the pictures and mementos — little things like dance programs from high school.”

In less than two years, Lucille, star of I Love Lucy, and Vivian, who played landlady Ethel Mertz, went from strangers to close friends. It would become a relationship that survived career ups and downs, divorces, illness and many decades. “You could see the love they had for each other,” Michael Stern, author of I Had a Ball: My Friendship With Lucille Ball, tells Closer. “Lucille really respected her opinion on everything.”

It didn’t start out that way. Desi Arnaz first saw Vivian in a play at the La Jolla Summer Playhouse with I Love Lucy’s producer and director in 1950 just as they were casting Ethel. The three men offered her the job on the spot. “I was hired,” recalled Vivian. “Just like that, you put something so incredible in scope that it transforms your entire existence.”

Lucille, however, expected the actress who played Ethel to be much older and less attractive. “[Lucille] said, only one person wears false eyelashes on set — me,” relates Stefan Kanfer, author of Ball of Fire. “The director said [to Vivian], ‘You know, She’s pretty hard on you. Do you want me to say something?’ And she said, ‘No, because if this show goes, I’m going to learn to love that b***h.’ And she did learn to love her.”