We start rehearsals in Laguna for I LOVED LUCY exactly one month from today. Searching for rotary dial phones now for the set.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
LUCY IN THE 21ST CENTURY
When I knew LUCY very well, in the 1980's she still had rotary dial phones in all her homes--Beverly Hills, Palm Springs, Snowmass, Colorado, even New York City. I remember her personally ordering phones for that apartment which she got circa 1985: "I want three white rotary phones, and none of that 'princess' stuff." I had to use of those contraptions that you put up to the mouthpiece of the phone in order to convert the rotary dial clickety sound to touchtone pulses. So I can't help but wonder how LUCY would take to email and texting and tweets and blogs and the ultimate social network facebook. I mean, after all CBS was basically the only network she loved. I wonder how many facebook friends she might have had--if allowed? Two hundred million worldwide? I could see her face now if I would have thrown my iphone on the table each morning as we started to play endless hours of backgammon. "What the hell is this? You talk on that? You've got to be kidding? I wonder what else would have drove LUCY nuts in the 21st century? Thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If Lucy were with us today, I don't think she would have cared for all this new social technology. I remembered reading by more than one source that she still had the rotary dial phones in her homes. I think to a certain degree Lucy, like others of her generation, felt that if it isn't broken, don't fix it. When Lucy was Madame President of Desilu in the 1960's, she liked to look into a person's eyes, shake his hand, know that he cared, as she did, before she sold Desilu to Charles Bluhdorn, who in 8 years of wheeling and dealing had gobbled up some 65 companies and molded them into a $65M conglomerate giant known as Gulf & Western Industries. The year was 1967. Lucy was a very loyal person, in a lot of ways. She cared about all her staff that worked with her for many years. That personal touch still goes a long way even in this day and age, I think. It's almost something forgotten in this hi-tech age, but I still like the art of writing. While I have adapted well to this new technology, I don't think Lucy would have, because of her business and personal ethics. She would still be saying, "Lee, why do I need that? -- a cell phone, a computer, a facebook etc etc." and you, Lee, would probably still be trying to explain the benefits to her, and she would come back and say, but I'm too old. It reminds me of my grandmother, who turned 100 in April of this year, and was born just 1 year and 3 months before Lucy. It's sad, but true ... age steps in unannounced, and messes up everything.
ReplyDelete