The Lucy Book: A Complete Guide to Her Five Decades on Television

by Geoffrey Mark Fidelman

Written with the cooperation of Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., who both consented to rare interviews, The Lucy Book is an amazing retrospective of the five-decade television career of America's favorite redhead. Containing hundreds of original interviews with cast members, guest stars, production people, contemporaries, family, and friends, this book will tell you for the first time what it was really like to work with Lucy.

Year by year, episode by episode, television appearance by television appearance, you can follow the meteoric careers of this comedy legend. Her five series--I love Lucy
(1951-57), The Lucille Ball-Dezi Arnaz Show (1957-1960), The Lucy Show (1962-68), Here's Lucy (1968-74), and Life with Lucy (1986)--are thoroughly covered, as are her myriad guest appearances on other situation comedies, dramas, games shows, talks hows, variety shows, commercials, and specials. All told, more than 1,000 television appearances are extensively chronicles in this book. The Lucy Book contains:

--cast and crew information, along with background anecdotes and current interview quotes for each entry.
--particulars about several Lucy TV scripts that were never produced.
--a critical analysis of Lucy's enormous effect on the television industry.

Genres: Biography, Reference

387 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1999

Reviews

[Pat Wahler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically a synopsis of everything Lucille Ball ever did on television (an astonishingly enormous resume) along with behind-the-scenes trivia and tidbits. Pure catnip for anyone who admires the talent of the most famous redhead of our time. The book is endorsed by Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an essential for any fan of Lucille Ball. It details a lot of behind the scene facts and summaries from all of her filmography.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can i add to the glowing comments above except to say that I've read everything on Lucy since Bart Andrew's original, but this book is just amazing for the depth of information, the scope of the interviews and the fact that its all presented so entertainingly. This is not a book you'll put on your shelf and just pick up to find out info on a specific episode of I LOVE LUCY. You'll want to read in from page one because its a fascinating oral-history biography without rose-colored glasses.

This book annotates every single TV appearance Lucille Ball made in chronological order. Not only does it detail every single episode of all four of Lucy's TV series, but every guest appearance on THE TONIGHT SHOW, other sitcoms, game shows, talk shows and specials. And most entries contain an insider's anecdote about the appearance/episode.


This is the perfect gift for Lucy fans! And it is sure to be the most sited reference tool for any Lucyphile.

[Kelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great! I gives a bit of background to each episode of all the shows Lucille Ball was involved it. Some of the info. contradicts other author's views on her life .