Vivian Vance

Vance (center) with Charles Laughton and Jane Wyman in The Blue Veil, 1951

Vivian Vance was born on July 26, 1909, in Cherryvale, Kansas as Vivian Roberta Jones.

Vance was featured in a play at the LaJolla Playhouse when cast in I Love Lucy

During the early years of her career she played small roles in a few films, but worked primarily as a stage actress, appearing in a total of thirty-eight productions throughout her career. When casting his new sitcom I Love Lucy, starring himself and wife Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz's first choice for the role of landlady Ethel Mertz was Bea Benadaret. When he discovered she was unavailable due to a previous commitment, he went to the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego to see The Voice of the Turtle, a play featuring an actress who had been recommended to him. Upon seeing Vance, Arnaz instinctively knew he had found the perfect Ethel.

Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz with TV hubby Fred, portrayed by William Frawley, in a scene from I Love Lucy

A somewhat youthful looking and attractive woman who was actually younger than Ball, Vance was required by contract to remain overweight and wear frumpy clothes as the less-than-prosperous owner of a New York City brownstone owned by her and her husband Fred (William Frawley). She and Frawley were a perfect match as the bickering Mertzes, since they detested each other in real life. (Vance's then real-life husband, Phil Ober, frequently played small supporting roles on the series, most notably as producer Dore Schafer in one of the Hollywood episodes.)

Vance paired once again with Ball for The Lucy Show, her first post-Arnaz series, and this time was permitted to look more glamorous as Vivian Bagley, a divorced mother of one son. She remained with the show for three of its six years before retiring to Connecticut.

Over the next several years, Vance appeared occasionally alongside Ball on reunion shows and for guest appearances on Here's Lucy. During the mid-1970s she took small roles on sitcoms such as Rhoda. Her final television appearance was on the last CBS Lucy production, Lucy Calls the President, which aired November 21, 1977, and featured many of the cast members from The Lucy Show.

She was diagnosed with cancer in 1978 and died in 1979.

Vivan Vance played a significant part in the history of television She defined the role of second banana, paving the way for future female sidekicks. She was also the first person to win the Best Supporting Actress Emmy.

Reference

The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance by Frank Castelluccio & Alvin Walker, published by Knowledge, Ideas & Trends, Inc. (1998)

External link

IMDb page (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0888573/)

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