Spoiler : I loved her work. Happy Heavenly birthday, Vivian!

Spoiler : she was so pretty and young...I could care less about her political views

Spoiler : I heard she had to gain weight so she would look closer in age to William Frawley (Fred Mertz.) He was quite a bit older, but Lucille Ball wanted her friend Vivian Vance on the show. Understandably, Vance wasn't thrilled about having to look older.

Spoiler : Vivian Vance (born Vivian Roberta Jones; July 26, 1909 – August 17, 1979) was born on this date 108 years ago. Vance is best known for her role as Ethel Mertz, sidekick to Lucille Ball on the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, and as Vivian Bagley on The Lucy Show. When Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball were casting their new television sitcom I Love Lucy in 1951, director Marc Daniels, who had previously worked with Vance in a theater production, suggested her for the role of landlady Ethel Mertz. Lucille Ball had wanted either Bea Benaderet or Barbara Pepper, both close friends, to play the role. CBS refused Pepper on the grounds that she had a drinking problem,[citation needed] and Benaderet was already playing Blanche Morton on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.[4] Arnaz then began searching for another actress and Daniels took him and producer Jess Oppenheimer to the La Jolla Playhouse to see Vance in the John Van Druten play The Voice of the Turtle. Watching her perform, Arnaz was convinced he had found the right actress to play Ethel Mertz. Ball was less sure. She had envisioned Ethel to be much older and less attractive; Vance was closer to Ball's age and attractive. Also, Ball, firmly entrenched in film and radio, had never heard of Vance, who was primarily a theater actress. Ultimately, the 42-year-old Vance won the role on the new television program, which debuted October 15, 1951 on CBS. Throughout the show's run, Ethel Mertz was usually dressed in less-stylish clothing than Ball's character, to make her look older and less attractive. Vance's and Ball's friendship was lukewarm at first, but Ball gradually overcame her resistance to Vance and grew to respect her as a friend and an actress, and the two became close friends. Vance's Ethel Mertz character was the landlady of a New York City brownstone she and her husband Fred owned on East 68th Street. The Fred role was played by William Frawley, who was actually 22 years her senior in real life. Despite their exceptional chemistry, comedic timing, and musical prowess together onscreen, Vance and Frawley did not get along offscreen. According to some reports, things first went sour when Frawley overheard Vance complaining about his age, stating that he should be playing her father instead of her husband. She used to skim through the script before she memorized her lines to see how many scenes she had with "that stubborn-headed little Irishman." Others recall that they practically loathed each other on sight and that Vance was put off by Frawley's cantankerous attitude. Honored for her work in 1953, Vance became the first actress to win an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Supporting Actress"; she accepted her award at the Emmy ceremony in February 1954. She was nominated an additional three times (for 1954, 1956, and 1957) before the series ended. In 1957, after the highly successful half-hour I Love Lucy episodes had ended, Vance continued playing Ethel Mertz on a series of hour-long specials titled The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show (later retitled The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour). In 1959, she divorced her third husband, Philip Ober, who allegedly physically abused her. When I Love Lucy was reformatted into the hour-long Lucy-Desi shows in 1957, Desi Arnaz offered Vance and Frawley the opportunity to star in their own "Fred and Ethel" spin-off show. Although Frawley was very interested, Vance declined, mainly because she did not want to work on a one-on-one basis with Frawley as they already did not get along. Also, she felt the Mertz characters would be unsuccessful in a show without the Ricardos. Vance's choice to decline the would-be show intensified the animosity between her and Frawley. Instead, Vance was interested in doing a series based on the life of Babs Hooten, a New York socialite who moves to New Mexico to run a hotel and ranch. Desi Arnaz financed a pilot starring Vance as Hooten titled Guestward, Ho! which was shot in 1958 by Desilu; however, the show was rejected by CBS and Vance continued playing Ethel Mertz. Arnaz would later retool the show with model and actress Joanne Dru taking the lead role, selling the series to ABC, where it was subsequently cancelled after one season. On January 16, 1961, Vance married literary agent, editor, and publisher John Dodds (1922 – October 9, 1986). The couple established their home in Stamford, Connecticut, although they moved to California in 1974; the marriage lasted until Vance's death. In 1962, Lucille Ball was planning to return to television in a new series, The Lucy Show. The series starred Ball as Lucy Carmichael, a widow with two children living in Danfield, New York. Vance reluctantly agreed to be her co-star on the condition that she be allowed to appear in more glamorous clothes as well as having her character be named "Vivian". By this time in her life, Vance had grown tired of the public addressing her as "Ethel". She appeared on The Lucy Show from 1962–65, as Vivian Bagley, a divorced mother of one son, sharing a house with Ball's character. The character was the first divorcee ever on a weekly American television series. The strain of commuting from her home in Connecticut to Hollywood was too hard on her. In the third season, Vance didn't appear in seven of the season's 26 episodes. In 1965, after completing her third year on the series, Vance decided to leave. At the start of the 1965–66 season, the format of the sitcom had changed. The "Lucy" character moved out to Los Angeles. Vivian Bagley remarried and she, her son, and her new husband remained in Danfield. Before she departed the show, Vance was offered a new contract with Desilu Studios, giving her the opportunity to direct. This never came to fruition as Vance could not reach an agreement on salary. She made only three more guest appearances on the remaining seasons of The Lucy Show. Following her departure from The Lucy Show at the end of the third season, Vance signed on to appear in a Blake Edwards film, The Great Race; she saw this as an opportunity to restart a movie career which never really took off. The film was a moderate success, receiving several Academy Award nominations; however, it did little to help her establish a career as a movie actress. Vance was slated to make her return to Broadway in the Woody Allen comedy Don't Drink the Water. However, she left the play during its out-of-town tryouts, later saying she felt the role was not right for her and asking the show's producers to be let out of her contract. Vance would end up making her Broadway return several years later in 1969 in the comedy My Daughter, Your Son. However, the show was not a success and lasted only five weeks. A national tour proved to be more successful.[citation needed] After her departure from The Lucy Show, Vance appeared occasionally alongside Ball on reunion shows and made several guest appearances on Ball's third sitcom, Here's Lucy (1968–1974). In 1973, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The following year, she and her husband moved to Belvedere, California, so she could be near her sister. It was during this period that Vance's agent got her an endorsement deal with Maxwell House Coffee. Over the next several years she could be seen in numerous commercials for Maxwell House. The 1970s saw Vance making a number of TV guest appearances, including a well-remembered 1975 episode of Rhoda, as well as appearing in a number of made for TV movies including The Front Page (1970), Getting Away From it All (1972) and The Great Houdini Vance made her final television appearance with Lucille Ball on the CBS special Lucy Calls the President, which aired November 21, 1977. That same year, she suffered a stroke which left her partially paralyzed. She died on August 17, 1979, of bone cancer (secondary to breast cancer). After her death, Desi Arnaz remarked, "It’s bad enough to lose one of the great artists we had the honor and the pleasure to work with, but it’s even harder to reconcile the loss of one of your best friends."

Spoiler : Vance may have been a left-winger, but Lucy was almost blackballed in Hollywood for her political leanings. If Lucy hadn't caught a German boat in WWII off the coast of the US (by way of her new fillings picking up the signals), she wouldn't have retrieved her career and gone from screen to TV.

Spoiler : John Brower Lucy's case was so famous and she was deemed such a heroine for the wartime effort her political past was overlooked. But it became the fodder for many jokes, sitcoms and urban myths. Without this feat, she would have been blackballed and never gotten to make more post-war movies nor gone to TV. Once she became the biggest star of TV (along with Milton Berle), all was forgotten and "forgiven". She survived the McCarthy era because of it.

Spoiler : I understand but that Lucy made them always have her looking frumpy because in reality she was very attractive.

Spoiler : Lucy wanted her friend Gail Gordon (Mr. Mooney) to play the role of Fred Mertz, but he was already under contract playing Osgood Conklin on 'Our Miss Brooks'. Lucy was jealous of Ms. Vance's looks and was also intimadated by Eve Arden.(Miss Brooks) Lucy was the one who was afraid of looking frumpy.

Spoiler : She was so beautiful. The studio had no clue how to deal with he comedic talent. The first film I remember seeing her in was Top Hat with Fred and Ginger. I totally screamed out loud 'that's Lucy'!!!! She had a bit part too in Roberta as a model.

Spoiler : “Lucille Ball had wanted either Bea Benaderet or Barbara Pepper, both close friends, to play the role. CBS refused Pepper on the grounds that she had a drinking problem,[4] and Benaderet was already playing Blanche Morton on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.[5] Arnaz then began searching for another actress and Daniels took him and producer Jess Oppenheimer to the La Jolla Playhouse to see Vance in the John Van Druten play The Voice of the Turtle. Watching her perform, Arnaz was convinced he had found the ideal actress to play Ethel Mertz.[citation needed] Ball was less sure. She had envisioned Ethel to be much older and less attractive; Vance was closer to Ball's age and attractive. Also, Ball, firmly entrenched in film and radio, had never heard of Vance, who was primarily a theater actress.”

Spoiler : ow pretty she was. What a revelation. I've never seen her in anything other than Lucy.

Spoiler : Vivian was a real left winger in her youth. almost didn't get the part as ethel but lucy stuck up for her.