“I Love Lucy” began more than 70 years ago, yet, in some ways, the show still feels modern. Sitcoms today still lift some of their best comedic bits straight from plots of the classic, plus the series was shaped by a woman and a Latino man who were both groundbreaking leaders in their industry. Unfortunately, though, one distressing story from the show’s production — in which a male director made the woman the show was named after break down in tears — also sounds like it could’ve happened yesterday.
The anecdote comes from a 2003 piece in DGA Quarterly documenting filmmaker William Asher’s takeover as director in the show’s second season. “Asher’s first day on the set though nearly ended his association with the show,” Ted Elrick wrote, explaining that when the filmmaker stepped away to deal with a technical problem, he came back to find Lucy herself, Lucille Ball, “giving directions backstage.” Even though Ball’s husband Desi Arnaz was the show’s executive producer, and Ball had made major decisions in the show’s first season (including demanding CBS cast Arnaz and acting while pregnant), this unspecified backstage thunder-stealing moment was apparently a bridge too far for Asher.
“I said, ‘Lucy, there’s only one director. I’m it,” Asher recalled per the DGA retrospective. “If you would like to direct, then don’t pay me and send me home,'” Ball didn’t take the chastising particularly well. “When I said that, she began to cry and ran off the stage. Everybody disappeared,” Asher said. The director had no office, so he said he retreated to the bathroom instead. “[I] sat on the toilet and didn’t know what the hell to do,” he said. “I realized I’d blown my first day of what was really a pretty good job.”
Lucy’s backseat directing bothered the new filmmaker on set
When Asher finally returned to the soundstage, he said that “Desi was there [and] he was furious.” The filmmaker got what he assumed was an expletive-laden dressing down — in Spanish. “I settled him down and said, ‘Look, Desi, here’s what happened,'” Asher said. Apparently, the director’s explanation was enough for Arnaz to take his side, but the producer and star still asked Asher to make peace with his wife. “‘What you should do is go into Lucy’s dressing room. She’s crying. Go talk to her and settle this thing,'” Asher recalled Arnaz saying.
In the end, the initial point of conflict did blow over. Asher apologized to Ball and said he started crying too when he saw her cry in her dressing room. The pair’s working relationship changed afterward, but Asher saw it as a positive thing. “I’ll tell you this,” he’s quoted as saying in DGA Quarterly. “I never had trouble from her after that. She had her opinion and would offer it, but nothing ever behind my back.” The utilitarian methods of early TV meant that Asher would go on to direct not just a few episodes of the show, but every single installment from season 2 through season 4, plus roughly half of the show’s final season.
Ball would eventually make her own official directing debut two decades later, shooting an episode of “Here’s Lucy” and helming the film “Bungle Abbey.” Half a century later, though, she’s still remembered as the unstoppable, hardworking comedic force behind “I Love Lucy,” despite never taking a turn in the director’s chair on the show.
