Joan’s Boomer Blog

Lucille Ball was born 100 years ago on August 6th, 1911. Even after all these years, everybody still loves Lucille Ball, as evidenced by the

New book about Lucille Ball

fact that a book and a DVD set were recently released relating to her. The book, Lucille Ball FAQ gives details of her life that go beyond the usual biography, proving that people are still fascinated by this talented red head.

The other offering is four Lucille Ball movies, The Long, Long Trailer, Forever Darling, Room Service and Du Barry Was a Lady.

Although Lucille Ball had been a movie actress since the 1930’s, (she appeared in 72 films during her career) whacky Lucy Ricardo, of the 1950’s TV show, I Love Lucy, is the persona she is best remembered for.

What I find fascinating about Lucille Ball, however, is the fact that she didn’t become Lucy Ricardo, Queen of Slap Stick, until she was already 40 years old and although she met and married Cuban bandleader Desi Arnez in 1940, she didn’t have her two children until she was also in her 40’s.

In today’s culture, where youth is not only worshipped but held on to with iron fists, and actresses over age 35 have trouble getting parts, Lucille Ball is still an inspiration to the AARP set!  I even remember one episode where Lucy was trying to lose 12 pounds to get into a size 12 dress to be in Ricky’s show. What! Lucy was famous and popular and a size 12? My how times have changed! Nowadays, most actresses are about a size zero.

Lucille Ball movies

Lucy was an inspiration not only because her age and her size 12 physique, and the fact that she was a powerhouse entertainer and comedian, she was also a smart, powerful businesswoman and the first female head of a major television production company, Desilu Productions. All this during the post World War II years when women were being told to stay home and be happy housewives to make room for returning servicemen in the job market.

Desilu produced I Love Lucy and other TV hits like the Dick Van Dyke Show and Star Trek when Lucy and Desi Arnez were running it together. In 1960, they divorced and two years later she and new husband Gary Morton bought Arnez out, and she managed the company alone for several years.

I have to admit, I’m a closet I Love Lucy fan. When nothing else is on TV and I’m cooking dinner in the kitchen, I can usually find an old episode to watch.

My daughter, who is now 25, was also fascinated with everything Lucy. She collected the Lucy doll set, she owned Lucy memorabilia and calendars. You name it, if it was about Lucy, she had it. I remember one time, I called the Lucille and Desi Center in Jamestown, New York to try and order a difficult to find Lucy item for my daughter’s birthday. I told the woman who answered the phone that my middle-school aged daughter loved Lucille Ball and she said, “You wouldn’t believe how often I hear that. Young girls still love Lucy!”

So, even after all these years, Lucy still has lessons to teach us. She showed us that true talent doesn’t depend on how young you are, or how thin. Although she’s best remembered as a whacky, comical redhead in a 1950’s TV show, Lucille Ball was a true trailblazer, both in comedy and in business.

Lucille Ball’s biography.

Father Knows Best was always one of my favorite TV shows when I was young. I was more like Kathy but I wanted to be Betty. In fact, because of Father Knows Best, I sort of followed Elinor Donahue’s career through her years on Andy Griffith and TV appearances.

Millions of people still do love the uncomplicated world of the Anderson family and I’m expecting a sort of resurgence in interest because on the TV soap Young and the Restless (yes, I admit that watching Y&R is one of my guilty pleasures) two of the main characters are enamoured with Father Knows Best. In fact, they recently went house hunting and the first house they looked at was a replica of the Anderson house that some TV buff had built and furnished to look just like the one on TV.

Some viewers may not have caught it, but when the two characters got married out in front of the house, Elinor Donahue was actually the judge who married them. One of her lines as even “This house reminds me so much of the one I grew up in.”

Father Knows Best began it’s life as a radio show and came to CBS in 1954. Watching the shows now, it’s easy to see that  Springfield, Ohio, insurance agent Jim Anderson (Emmy winner Robert Young) didn’t really have all the answers. He and his wife, Margaret (fellow Emmy winner Jane Wyatt), come close, though.

Back then, the Andersons slept in separate beds and Jim smoked but the family values of the show make it still popular with viewers today. The Season One DVD offers some extras like the special 1959 savings bond episode 24 Hours in Tyrantland and Robert Young’s home movies and rare behind-the-scenes footage, plus interviews with some of the cast members.

You can also watch old Father Knows Best episodes free on Hulu.com. Here’s a link to the first episode.

Those of us who lived in the 50’s will always look back nostalgically at at our childhood years, which seem so simple and uncomplicated by today’s standards. I guess that’s why I love watching Father Knows Best - it always takes me right back to those days.

I just discovered a terrific website where you can find out, not only what happened in your birth year, but in the decade of your birth. I was born in 1950. All About Eve won best picture, Judy Holliday won best actress for Born Yesterday and Jose Ferrer won best actor for Cyrano de Bergerac.

Beat the Clock and Jack Benny were on TV and the song Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy topped the music charts in my birth year.

The credit card was invented the year I was born too. In the 1950’s people mostly lived on the cash they had, which wasn’t always much but they weren’t in debt either.

In 1950, Snoopy the cartoon character, Jay Leno and Stevie Wonder were born the same year as I was too.

There is some info about the decade of the 50’s too when the economy was on the upswing and the Cold War and Anti-Communism consumed the news.

Reading about what happened in the year and decade I was born brought back some great memories! Not the Cold War part, of course, but looking back, even the Cold War seems kind of tame compared to terrorism. At least we knew who the “enemy” was then.

I look at the 1950’s as the last time of innocence for young people. I was a teen in the 60’s and by the end of that era, there was the Viet Nam War, drugs and a social revolution going on that forever changed that youthful naivete we used to have.

What happened the year you were born? Just click here and type in the year you’d like to revisit.

Take Me Back to the Fabulous Fifties

Fabulous Fifties

I grew up in the 1950’s and vividly remember the “fabulous fifties” - drive-in movies, blackjack gum and riding my bike downtown to get a cherry coke for a nickle. A friend sent me this video montage, Take Me Back to the Fifties, and it really did take me back to my childhood.

When we used to go to the dime store, where things really cost a dime, and agonize over which penny candy to get with our allowance, which was, I think a dime. Back when Ricky Nelson was my first crush and I couldn’t wait for Ozzie and Harriet to come on each week.

Visit Old Forty-Fives.com and find montages of growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, plus Growing up in the Fifties, What we Drove in the 50’s and 60’s, Old Westerns, Do you Remember These, When Life Was Black and White and others that are well worth a trip down memory lane.

Life was simpler in the fabulous fifties - at least for kids. We lived on a farm in Oregon and we could disappear in the morning, going down to the creek near our house, up on the mountain behind our house or take a bike ride downtown. We showed up for lunch, then took off again and my mom never once thought someone would kidnap us. Party lines and one telephone meant we couldn’t talk long to our friends - we’d ride our bikes to visit them instead.

Nobody had much money, our mom made our clothes and canned our food and everybody we knew lived pretty much like us. Nobody’s mom worked and none of my friends parents were divorced. Nobody seemed to worry what kind of education we got and all our free time was “unscheduled.” I know my parents worried a lot about “making ends meet” but living on a farm, we always had good healthy food to eat and healthy air to breathe.

I’d be the first to admit I love my computer with the Internet, connecting with old friends via Facebook, having my cellphone (now with text messaging because all our kids use it!), being able to DVR my favorite TV shows. Still, when I look at my young grandchildren, I feel sorry that they will never know the carefree freedom we had, learning to use their imaginations because that’s the only toys have, being on the run outdoors all day without anyone worrying about them.

I watch the grandchildren glued to videos, unable to go out their front door without supervision, going from activity to activity with no time to just lay out in the grass and watch the cloud shapes take form. I guess that’s why, when either of my 3 year old granddaughters comes to spend time with me, we always sit in the big swing out back and look at the trees and the birds and talk about things.

Just as my own parents were my link to the past which included World War II, the depression and life in the 30’s and 40’s, I guess I’ll be that link for my grandchildren to a simpler time to grow up-life in the Fifties.

What Did Ronald Reagan Have to Say About Socialized Medicine? Here it in his own words.

I was young when Reagan was President and, to tell the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to what he had to say back then. In the present, however, I’ve started paying more attention to what Ronald Reagan had to say about socialism and socialized medicine.

Here’s a real commercial from the 1950’s about the dangers of socialized medicine by Ronald Reagan. His message has a lot of relevance for us today.

Listen to Ronald Reagan’s own words about socialism and socialized medicine.

I used to love the Donna Reed show. Shelly Fabres was about 4 years older than I was and I wanted to be just like her. When she sang Johnny Angel, it was one of my favorite episodes. Since it’s the holiday season and nostalgic TV shows are on every list, I wanted to give you this link to The Donna Reed Christmas Show from 1960. You can watch this episode free on Retrovision.tv.

In this episode, Donna is tired of her family caring more for presents than the spirit of Christmas. We like to think things were different in “the old days” but were they really? I remember a similar old TV show from Father Knows Best in the 1950’s which dealt with the same Christmas theme.

Another nostalgic Christmas episode from an old TV show now on Retrovision is the Bewitched episode “A Vision of Sugar Plums” from 1962. This was the show’s first Christmas episode and stars Billy Mummy, along with Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York.

I love watching these old Christmas episodes at this time of year and make it one of my holiday traditions.