Laughs, Luck...and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time (with Lucille Ball Audio CD)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815604068 ISBN 13: 9780815604068

Publisher: Syracuse University, 1996

The creator of "I Love Lucy" gives an inside view of television history

Review:

Laughs indeed as Jess Oppenheimer charts his rise from radio station gofer to inventor of the sitcom, as he winds up writing--then producing--Lucille Ball's show, first on radio, then on television. Luck, too, as the author recounts the good fortune that has him, within minutes of arrival in Hollywood, sitting down at a lunch counter and getting a tip that secures a job within days and a career for life. Ironic, too, that this inveterate TV writer had to be cajoled for years to set down these Hollywood heyday memoirs. He never finished, and it was left to son Gregg to complete the book. All this, plus a reproduced Lucy script, and a CD-ROM filled with famous sketches!

From the Author:

If you love Lucy, e-mail me for a FREE Chapter! webmaster@Lucylibrary.com

I grew up on I LOVE LUCY. Yes, I know--YOU did, too. But in my family, it was different. For me, watching I LOVE LUCY has always been a little like watching home movies - and not just because I grew up in and around Desilu Studios. As creator, producer and head writer of I LOVE LUCY, my father infused the show with his own unique sense of humor - something he wielded with equal skill at the studio, at our dinner table, and on family outings. His greatest delight was to crack us up with comical off-the-cuff remarks and funny stories. Many of them ended up on I LOVE LUCY, and the best have made their way into LAUGHS, LUCK...AND LUCY. So this book, which Dad and I began together, is my own "gift of laughter" to Lucy fans everywhere.