1977 Lucille Ball Special - Lucy Calls The President with Vivian Vance

Just a segment of the show is included here. Buy the dvd of this show, it's only like $12.00 and it comes with great 'extras!" This is the only official LUCY show/special to be shot on video tape and not filmed. This change gives the show a very different feel from other Lucy shows. The segment here is from the beginning of the show where Vivian Vance enters. This is the very last time Lucy works on tv with Vivian Vance (who played Ethel Mertz). Vivian who was recovering from a stroke (notice the side of her mouth seems paralysed) learned about this time in her life that she had cancer. Vivian Vance died in 1979.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Lucille Ball
• Vivian Vance
• Gale Gordon
• Ed McMahon
• Mary Wickes
• Lucy Calls The President
• Jimmy Carter

[MikeRia]

I'm not sure why so many people are focusing on Ms. Vance's facial issue, it does nothing to diminish her performance in this special, which, in my opinion, is what we should be focusing on. In the end she is very much missed.

[randallni]

Jeez, I worked on this! In rehearsal, Lucy certainly didn't look like Lucy. Hair pulled back, chain smoking, screaming "Where's Gary Morton?". But I tell you, with hair & makeup, she came out of the curtain to greet the audience and she had turned into Lucille Ball!

[nickdecarlo76]

@stevarino1989 It was in a book about her. I've read several books on her and all of them mentioned how nasty she was to Viv and to a lot of people that worked with her including being really bossy and demeaning to Jack Benny, George Burns, Joan Crawford, saying to Danny Kaye "Who the F*^k do you think you are?" And on the last special with Viv, Lucy was asked how a certain costume looked on Viv and she said "it doesn't matter, you look like a cow in anything you wear."

[stevarino1989]

@nickdecarlo76 where did you read that Lucy was being a b***h towards Viv? Yeah it was her special and she was the boss but I don't think she would've been like that towards a woman who she worked with on television for over 25 years. 

[RonMotta1972]

The amazing thing is, even though Vivian Vance had a stroke, she still doesn't miss a step.

[RonMotta1972]

Oh my God....I remember seeing this when I was five! For years, I couldn't remember what this was - for some reason I thought it was an "I Love Lucy" reunion special and Gordon Gale was William Frawley. I specifically remembered the "King of the Gypsies" line!

[WWEChampion16]

This would be Vivian Vance last appearance with Lucy and on TV.

[donovan79]

Mary Wickes!!!

[storrs19]

I thought maybe Lucy had a cold but I guess all those years of smoking had caught up with her. This looks good though. Vivian Vance was such an underrated actress.

[Brdj010]

Oddly enough the same thing happened to Lucy a decade later. She had a stroke the paralyzed one side of her face.

[nickdecarlo76]

Lucy hated the fact that her voice got so deep. She like so many other heaving smoking woman got a deep voice. Also a little bit of the behind the scenes info. This was Lucy's first appearance on TV without her mother in the audience, because she had died not to long before that and she was really upset and didn't know what to do without her mother there and also that she was being extremely nasty to Vivian back stage.

[OwlJulie]

What about Lucy and Desi smoking all those cigarettes? That's why her voice is so deep, and why Desi had dark teeth.