There was no love lost on the set of "I Love Lucy." In fact,
this iconic sitcom couple absolutely hated each other's guts!
When Vanity Fair talked to J.K. Simmons about his dual role as William Frawley and Fred Mertz in
"Being the Ricardos," he described his approach as "a painting, not a photograph." That meant there
was some creative license there, but one thing he had discovered in his research — beyond the shadow
of a doubt — was that the real life Frawley and Vivian Vance absolutely hated each other.
Everyone he spoke to agreed that things started off badly at the first read-through for the pilot
episode. The much younger Vance remarked on their age difference — she was born in 1909,
Frawley in 1887 — and rather ungraciously referred to her on-screen husband as an "old
coot." Simmons said the two kept their working relationship professional and didn't let personal
animosity get in the way of the show. But when the cameras were off, it was all downhill from there.
“Hi, honey bunch.” “Oh, shut up.”
Frawley would go on to "My Three Sons," and it was co-star Tim Considine who
told Page Six they were backstage with some military personnel who were getting a tour
when one asked what Vance was like. Frawley's response is unprintable,
but it reportedly was a four-letter word, usually directed at a woman.
Their hatred for each other even torpedoed a planned spinoff. According to "The Forgotten
Desi and Lucy TV Projects," Vance turned down a Mertzes spinoff — and a $50,000
bonus — because she didn't want to work with Frawley again.
Vivian Vance and William Frawley grew up decades apart, but they had something
weirdly specific in common: mothers who condemned their careers as being the work of the devil.
Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, the author of "The Lucy Book,"
talked to Closer Weekly about some of the things he'd learned about Vance while
writing about the show. She was one of six children born to a conservative Kansas family,
and when she told her mother she wanted to become an actress, the reaction wasn't great:
Her mother accused her of pursuing a career that would tempt men into committing sinful acts.
That belief stayed when Vance hit it big. According to "The Other Side of Ethel Mertz,"
her mother refused to watch a single episode of anything her daughter was in. When Vance
offered her parents financial assistance, she was refused because it was, quote, "Satan's money."
Frawley's upbringing wasn't far removed, adds Closer Weekly. He was born into a devout Irish
Catholic family, and his mother also strongly disapproved of his forays into the entertainment
world. His early days were spent moving around the country at his mother's whim,
and his career had a series of false starts because of her disapproval.
William Frawley's addition to the "I Love Lucy" cast came with some massive stipulations:
Screw up once, and lose a week's pay. Screw up twice, and you're fired.
“Ha ha ha, you're fired."
"The Lucy Book" author Geoffrey Mark Fidelman explained what was going on.
By the time Frawley sat down to talk to Desi Arnaz about the possibility of playing Fred Mertz,
he'd already gotten a bad reputation for being difficult to work with.
And he'd fallen a long way. His career started out on the vaudeville stage,
where he and his wife, Edna, had a wildly successful act,
and he'd been front and center as a popular song-and-dance man. After vaudeville he
went on to star in more than 100 movies, sometimes alongside big names like Bob Hope.
By the time "I Love Lucy" was in the works, Frawley's career was in decline for a few reasons.
For starters, there was his reputation as not being the most dependable name in the business.
With so many people vying for roles, that's a big reason to get cut from consideration.
Then there was the simple fact that he was aging out of the song-and-dance roles for
handsome young men. Hollywood was a young person's game even then.
When Entertainment Weekly took a look at what was true and what was false in "Being the Ricardos,"
they found that one big truth was William Frawley's struggles with alcohol. It was
so widely known that it was one of the major reasons he was having difficulty finding work.
It's also why CBS initially said no to his casting in "I Love Lucy."
“Are you drunk?” “It’s ten a.m., Vivian, so you know, of course.”
Desi Arnaz took a stand, though, and Frawley got the role — with the caveat that if he slipped
up more than once due to drinking, he would be written out. Frawley kept his end of the bargain,
but when it came time for J.K. Simmons to play him, he told Awards Daily that
he included something in his performance that he'd noticed in Frawley's, saying,
"His hands tended to shake. As I watched film of him, he's always protecting himself,
so I put my hands in my pockets and on my hips in order to hide my hands."
When Frawley made the switch to "My Three Sons," restrictions on his drinking were no
longer in place. Audrey Kupferberg, co-author of "Meet the Mertzes," told Page Six that Frawley
would spend most of the day drinking at a place near the studio called Nickodell. It
was actor Tim Considine's job to go fetch him from the bar when it was time for his scene.
Fred Mertz is best described with words like curmudgeon and cranky, but according to those who
worked with William Frawley, Mertz was basically a subdued version of the actor who played him.
"The Lucy Book" author Geoffrey Mark Fidelman said there were a limited number of people that
Frawley reportedly didn't have a problem with. Those who knew him described him as anti-Semitic,
racist, and almost unfailingly misogynistic. Fidelman explained,
"He didn't particularly care for people. He liked to hang out with his Irish drinking
buddies and gambling friends. [...] So the writers wrote a lot of that into Fred Mertz,
who developed based on the actual personality characteristics Bill Frawley had."
Let's go back to that part about Frawley being misogynistic, because Fidelman says
that's undoubtedly part of the reason Frawley and Vivian Vance didn't get along. Fidelman
described him as "disrespectful of any female he didn't think was worth trying to get into bed."
In 2015, the Albuquerque Museum staged an exhibition on the life of Vivian Vance. Vance
had moved to the city when she was a teenager, and it was there that she first really broke into show
business. The community was so impressed with her work that, in 1932, they crowdsourced the funds to
send her to New York City, in hopes of kicking off her career in a huge way. Later, she continued to
return to the same Albuquerque theater for regular performances and helped fund theater expansions.
It wasn't all glitz and glamour, though. According to Alibi, museum curator Deb Slaney says that the
stress of working with William Frawley and Vance's frustration at always playing the
frumpy sidekick took a toll on her, and that as a result, she had at least one "nervous breakdown."
As noted in "The Other Side of Ethel Mertz," Vance was one of the first celebrities to discuss
depression and mental illness. She was well-known around Albuquerque for her
volunteer work with women in care homes, where she would regularly visit. Slaney explained,
"She would listen as they talked, because she knew how important it
was for people with mental illness to know that somebody was hearing them."
According to her obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Vance advocated for mental health on a
national level, too: She was a board member for the National Mental Health Association.
William Frawley was in his 60s while filming "I Love Lucy." "The Lucy Book" says that when the
show ended, he was still under contract with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball's company, Desilu. He broke
the contract and accepted a role on "My Three Sons." It was there that his health and cognitive
function started to noticeably decline. Actor Stanley Livingston recalled that, while Frawley
started out as something like the fun grandfather, it wasn't long before he was forgetting his lines.
"What did I say? Come on now, let me in on it."
At first, the show's writers accommodated him by writing scenes where his character could sit
rather than stand. Then he started falling asleep mid-scene, and eventually, he was
unable to remember more than a line of dialogue at a time. Finally, Frawley suffered a stroke.
According to Livingston, the show's producers were told that Frawley might not survive for
the rest of the season, so his character was written out of the show. Livingston explained:
"All [Frawley] really had at that time was 'My Three Sons,' and when
they took that away from him, he really had nothing to live for."
When William Frawley died in 1966, his obituary in The New
York Times called him a "good-natured rascal." The paper also reported that,
after leaving "My Three Sons," he had undergone surgery for a "prostate condition."
Frawley spent most of his career —about 40 years in total — living on the top floor of a Hollywood
hotel called the Hotel Knickerbocker, something that was typical of old vaudeville stars. His
only companion had been his sister, and they had only recently moved to a nearby apartment in a
complex called the El Royale. On March 3, 1966, he was walking past the Hotel Knickerbocker when
he suffered a massive heart attack. He died on a lobby couch after concerned citizens dragged
him inside. He was 79. His New York Times obit quoted his opinion of "I Love Lucy."
"I didn't think the thing had a chance. We did the lines over and over again,
and it was like eating stew every night — stale and not a bit funny."
Vivian Vance also had an obit in The New York Times when she died in 1979 at age 70. Vance
had retired to a home in Belvedere, California, after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1973.
Vance's friend Paige Peterson recalled Lucille Ball visiting Vance for the last time while
Vance was living in Belvedere — where, Peterson said, she was truly happy. Peterson told People,
"You could hear them laughing, and toward the end
there was a lot of sobbing. It was an amazing thing to witness, the love of these two women."
Peterson also shared that when Ball left she could see the pain on her face, the tears.
Vance died a few days after Ball's visit. Ball's daughter,
Lucie, spoke often about how devastated Ball was after Vance's death, saying
"She cried about losing Viv for months after that.
Viv was, in many ways, like a sister to my mother."
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).