In Which the Only Thing Red About Lucy Is Her Hair

Lucy and Ricky

by KATHRYN SANDERS

On September 4^th 1953, Lucille Ball cut into her Labor Day weekend, leaving her family at their vacation home in Del Mar and drove into Hollywood. She arrived at 7046 Hollywood Boulevard, sailed through the lobby, and went to room 215, to meet with the House Un-American Activities Committee. They requested her presence for a “secret, closed-door” testimony as to why Lucille Ball, America’s Sweetheart, was a registered communist.

I Love Lucy first aired in 1951. By 1953, it was the number one show on television. The Arnazes were America’s sweethearts, the U.S. version of royalty.

When Lucille (Desi was the one who first coined the name ‘Lucy’ as he said that other men had called her Lucille, and Lucy was his alone) met with the committee, she told them exactly what she had when they questioned her a year prior about her registration as a communist in 1936. She told them that she, along with other members of her family, had officially registered as an appeasement to her ailing grandfather, who had been a staunch advocate for the working man his whole life. “If it made him happy, it was important at the time…. In those days, it was not a terrible thing to do. It was almost as terrible to be a Republican in those days.”

Lucille’s testimony on September 4^th went smoothly, and she was told upon leaving that all suspicion had been eradicated. She expressed concern about this information becoming public, but they assured her that the testimony would remain sealed, and she was free to go. She returned to the ranch in Chatsworth, CA, which she and Desi named Desilu, as an homage to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford’s estate “Pickfair.”

On Sunday evening, two nights after her testimony, she sat down to read the latest Lucy script while listening to Walter Winchell’s popular weekly radio program. Her ears perked up at the mention of a “blind” item, stating that “the top television comedienne has been confronted with her membership in the Communist party.”

Kenny Morgan, Desliu studio’s press man, was also listening to Winchell and immediately called Desi, who was at a poker game in Del Mar at Irving Briskin’s home. Kenny told him to go straight home to Chatsworth; he would meet him there.

Kenny met Desi and Howard Strickland, MGM’s head of publicity, at the Desilu ranch. They thought they would find Lucille distraught, but she had only questions. She thought Winchell must have meant either Imogene Coca or Eve Arden. However, when Strickland brought up the possibility of Imogene Coca, Lucille said, “I resent that, Howard. Everyone knows that I’m the top comedienne!”

Monday morning, Winchill’s newspaper column reiterated the news. It was upsetting to everyone, but especially Desi. He had known Walter since he was 17 years old. The fact that Winchell hadn’t contacted the Arnazes for a statement was a low blow that Desi took personally.

Friday, September 11 was the first day of shooting the third season of I Love Lucy. The first page of the Herald Express that morning featured a photo of Lucille’s 1936 Communist registration card, with the headline “Lucille Ball Named Red.” While Lucy and the cast spent the day rehearsing and avoiding reporters, Desi was in meetings with CBS and MGM executives. They all assured Desi that they were behind him and Lucy 100 percent, but that wasn’t what mattered for the show. What mattered for the show was what Phillip Morris, the advertiser and sole sponsor, thought. If the plug was pulled on I Love Lucy not only would Lucille’s career would be ruined, but hundreds of Desilu employees would be out of a job. 

Al Lyons of Phillip Morris called at 10:00 am. Lyons asked if there was anything to the rumors. Desi said no. Lyons said that Lucille could have half an hour the following Monday to tell her side of the story if it came to that, but it never did.

Desi hung up the phone and ran to the soundstage, where Lucy was rehearsing “The Girls Go Into Business.” Desi wept as he told her that Al Lyons was on their side. Lucille’s eyes remained dry. She said, “Well, that’s fine. I’ll get back to work.”

Two hours before the show was to begin filming that night, Representative Donald L. Jackson, the Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, was at the Statler Hotel to hold a press conference to publicly deny Lucille’s involvement with the Communist party. Despite this open display of support, Desi could not relax.

He stepped out into the lights a little after 8:00 p.m. and stared at the three hundred-plus audience members before him. He wanted to address the crowd, to explain, to clear the air.  There were so many things he wanted to say. He told them that his wife was not a Communist, that they both hated Communism and everything it stood for. He said that Lucille’s testimony would be released the following day, and everyone would see the truth. The crowd went wild with approval, shouting and clapping. Vivian Vance and Bill Frawley, who played Ethel and Fred Mertz respectively, came onstage for their introduction. “And now,” Desi said, “I want you to meet my favorite wife – my favorite redhead – in fact, that’s the only thing red about her, and even that’s not legitimate – Lucille Ball!”

Lucy had been alone most of the afternoon, steeling herself for any number of reactions she might encounter. Though she had people in her corner, she had also dealt with friends in the past week backing away as if she were contagious, cancelling plans with flimsy excuses. She was smiling when she came out for her introduction. The audience was far enough away that they couldn’t see the worry in her eyes. She was unsure how they would react, but she didn’t need to wait long. The moment her heels hit the stage, every audience member rose to their feet in a standing ovation. She smiled, fist pumped with both hands, bowed, and walked right back out the door. After they wrapped the show that evening and she received another standing ovation for her performance, she went to her dressing room and cried.

Lucy and Desi held another press conference the next day at the Desilu ranch. It was informal – sandwiches and beer for the press while Lucille held court dressed in pink toreador pants, a highball in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She thanked her fans for their support, and then stated, “I asked Congressman Jackson if I should make a public statement, and he said he saw no reason, that since I had never been a Communist, there was nothing to tell, and if someone had not broken the story on the radio, it probably would never have been printed.”

Desi repeated what was in her transcript, that she had been young and was trying to please her sick grandfather. “After thirteen years of happy marriage, I think I know her better than anyone else, and I know she hates everything Communistic as much as I do – and I have reason to hate them for what they did to my family. I was kicked out of Cuba by the Communists when the revolution hit there.”

Some of the reporters asked some nasty questions, but Lucy, cool as water, repeated her story. All of a sudden, writer Dan Jenkins stood up and said “Well, I think we all owe Lucy a vote of thanks, and I think a lot of us owe her an apology.” After a surprised silence, everyone in the room applauded. Desi cried. He walked over to where Dan was standing and gave him a huge hug. Lucy followed, and also hugged Dan. She didn’t say anything. Dan later said, “From that time on, we were very good friends.” 

Kathryn Sanders is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She twitters here and tumbls here.

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In Which John Lennon Is Split In Two

Was It Just a Dream?

by KATHRYN SANDERS

One morning in August of 1973, Yoko Ono walked through her apartment in the Dakota into the office of the Lennons’ 22-year-old personal assistant, May Pang. Yoko closed the door and sat down. She lit a Kool. She told May that she and John weren’t getting along, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone who had been in the company of the Lennons during that time. She said she knew John would start seeing other women, and she was worried he would choose poorly, picking someone who would only use him. “You don’t have a boyfriend,” Yoko continued. May balked; she had no interest in John. He was her employer. He was married. “Don’t worry,” Yoko said, between puffs of her cigarette. “I’ll take care of everything.”

Shortly afterward, John pursued May and they began a sexual relationship, shacking up in May’s studio apartment on the East side after evenings spent recording and mixing the album Mind Games. Despite the new dimension to their relationship, May continued working for the Lennons, helping John finish the album and acting as a gofer for Yoko. John was still officially living with his wife at the Dakota and it was starting to cramp his style, so in October, he and May headed to Los Angeles under the guise of promoting the album while staying in various friends’ homes.

John wanted to do two things in LA – he wanted to sing on an album of songs that inspired him to become a musician, and he wanted to produce another artist. He wanted to make music, but he didn’t want to make John Lennon albums. For the former, he enlisted Phil Spector to produce his oldies record, and the latter, he chose Beatles’ pal Harry Nilsson, whom Lennon once called his “favorite American artist.”

While preparing to record, John and May moved to a house in Santa Monica. Many of the other musicians were also friends who stayed in the house with them – Keith Moon, Klaus Voormann, and Ringo Starr, among others. Yoko called every day, usually multiple times, talking to John about everything from where she went shopping, how she was suicidal, her solo career, how she had a boyfriend. She wouldn’t say who it was, but John quickly guessed, and was right – David Alan Spinozza, a session guitarist who was working with Yoko on her latest album.

It was during this time in L.A. that John began giving interviews to promote the album. May saw first-hand the immediate difference between the public and private John. Public John was hilarious, warm, witty, brilliant. Private John could be these things, but was also moody, dark, and sometimes violent, particularly when he drank. John dealt with his fear of women by allowing them to manipulate him, and he dealt with his anger over that by manipulating men.

It is relatively well-known that John had issues with women. In art school he asked his first wife Cynthia for a date. After she told him she was engaged to someone else he walked away before turning back around and shouting at her, “I didn’t ask you to fuckin’ marry me!” Left by his mother at a young age and raised by his domineering Aunt Mimi, young John was constantly torn between longing for a hippie and a tyrant.

It is easy to see how Yoko’s extremism and intense attitude towards work appealed to John, especially in the wake of his post-Beatles uncertainty. Lennon was a man of many faces and Pang saw it early on in Los Angeles. There were several “scary drunk” moments where he exploded, crying, throwing things, shouting that nobody loved him. How sad to think that his most basic fear, and his deepest feeling about himself, was that no one loved him for just being John. He thought everyone loved “John Lennon” and acted accordingly.

The sessions with Phil Spector were a legendary nightmare. Phil would have all of the session musicians show up at once, though that was inefficient and the costs were exorbitant. Spector himself would show up hours late high on amyl nitrate and wearing costumes, as a doctor in scrubs one day, as a karate sensei the next, always with his gun visible in his hip holster. The sessions turned into parties soaked with booze, and musicians would mill about with nothing to do, those both hired to play and drop-ins, including Mick Jagger, Elton John, and Joni Mitchell with Warren Beatty (“Yet another of Joni’s trophies,” according to John). In one of the early sessions, John got so drunk that he grabbed guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and kissed him on the lips, and then punched him as hard as he could leaving him sprawling on the ground, John staring at him in disgust and calling him a faggot. This was one of the tamer scenes at the Spector sessions. He apologized to friends who called the day after, explaining, “It was a bad dream that has passed.”

Recording with Harry Nilsson wasn’t much better. John had cut back on alcohol but Harry was always a hard drinker. His vocal chords were so damaged at that time that after he’d sing, there would be blood on the microphone. Harry didn’t want to tell John, for fear he would post-pone their sessions. Harry went to see a doctor in Palm Springs, and John and May went along with him. That night, after many drinks and when they were all in the hot tub, John grabbed May’s throat and quite possibly would have strangled her to death if Harry hadn’t leapt to her defense, pulling John away.

To finish Harry’s album, John decided they needed to go back to New York, where he felt he would have more control of both Harry and himself. He asked May to stay in Los Angeles, but several weeks later, called and said he missed her. She flew to New York. May had been worried he was seeing other women, but as a mistress herself, had little right to call out that behavior.

In Japan, it wasn’t uncommon among the upper classes to have “wives” and “mistresses” who knew about and were cordial to each other. Yoko wanted to be the wife and made it clear to John that she was happy to allow May to remain the mistress. Yoko wanted to stay in the Dakota. She developed a shopping habit, regularly spending thousands every time she went to Henri Bendel’s, taking limousines everywhere she went. She was recording and performing as a solo artist. She was Yoko Ono, and she no longer had much use for John Lennon.

How do we know when to hold out and when to give in? When do we learn to differentiate between what we want, and what we need? May encouraged John to write, and also to stand on his own two feet; to be an adult. With May, he wrote and recorded the magical, and appropriately named, “Walls and Bridges” in record time. Yoko repeatedly told John he didn’t need to record anymore. He had already proven himself to the world. Yoko treated him like a child, controlling everything. In waffling between May and Yoko, John had to choose between becoming an adult or staying a child, the difference between his mother and Aunt Mimi.

Back in New York after completing Harry’s album Pussy Cats, John and May got their own apartment on East 52nd Street. Yoko still phoned them regularly. She initially had tried to talk them into getting their own apartment next to hers at the Dakota, an idea which May immediately vetoed. Meanwhile, Yoko’s solo album and career weren’t doing as well as she anticipated. She and David Spinozza had split up after he suggested Yoko stop using John’s money to produce her albums. He said that if she wanted to be an artist in her own right, she should stop using John’s name. She told David he was unsupportive.

Yoko called May one day and told her she was thinking of taking John back. May was scared, as she knew she was no match for Yoko’s will. In February of 1975, Yoko called John and told him she had found a cure for smoking. She herself had recently quit cold turkey. John had been trying to quit for some time. He went to Yoko’s, where he was with her and her hypnotist for two days. When he came back to May, he seemed dazed. She described him as looking “brainwashed.” He gave May a gift from Yoko, a vial of essential oil that reeked of sulfur. John had come to tell May he was moving out of their apartment and back in with Yoko. She had a month to vacate.

It is sad to think of John as being happier in a relationship that encouraged him to stay at home and not make music, to sever ties with those he loved. When John spoke of Yoko publicly, he seemed quite enamored of her, and willing to sacrifice much for the marriage. And perhaps that was part of the appeal. In being with Yoko, he could be ‘not John Lennon.’ With May, he was very much himself, seeing old friends, frequently in touch with his first son Julian, making music, living his life. While appealing to a degree, what he ultimately wanted was a break from himself. People paint Yoko as the domineering wicked puppet master who broke up the Beatles, but are we forgetting that John had a choice? He could have stayed John Lennon. He chose to be Mr. Ono.

Kathryn Sanders is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She tumbls here and tweets here. This is her first appearance in these pages.

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