Among the accolades being heaped on Mary Tyler Moore following her death, she is being called the “greatest female television star ever”. That is untrue, illustrating only how ignorant of history Americans are.
In three consecutive decades, in 1951 through 1956, 1962 through 1969, and 1970 through 1972, among the top 10 television programs there was always one starring Lucille Ball: I Love Lucy, Here’s Lucy, or The Lucy Show. In many of those years her show was the top-rated show. No other television performer, male or female, has accomplished anything to equal that.
Additionally, the production company that she co-founded, Desilu, produced dozens of the most highly rated and significant programs in television history including, in addition to her own programs, The Jack Benny Program, The Danny Thomas Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, and Mission: Impossible, just to name a few. As the creative force behind Desilu Lucy was directly responsible for That Girl, the immediate antecedent of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in depicting a single woman trying to “make it on her own”, and Star Trek, cultivating them and promoting them. Practically every program featuring a single, independent woman with a career prior to The Mary Tyler Moore Show was produced by Desilu.
Desilu was the first production company to use film (rather than live production), the first to use a multi-camera setup, and the first production company to cast a black man as the star of a major television program. In a very real sense Desilu created modern television.
To say that Ms. Moore followed in Lucille Ball’s footsteps is no exaggeration. It is directly and specifically the truth.
So, hat’s off to Lucy. Personally, I never cared much for any of the incarnations of her own program (I loved her in the movies) but there’s no doubt in my mind that she was the greatest, the champ.
Mary Tyler Moore was, in my opinion, the greatest sitcom actress ever. She was a small screen natural. And then there were the famous capri pants, forerunners of yoga pants.
But there’s no question that Lucy was the queen of television, and I’d be willing to bet MTM would be the first to say so. As an aside, Desilu integrated its casts long before there was serious pressure to do so, and while there was still serious pressure not to. The role Cosby played on I Spy was not a token or a cliché, ditto Uhura on Trek and Barney on MI. Desilu took chances to do the right thing.
That’s what I was getting at in my post. Desilu was an important, forward-thinking company in many ways.
One of the things I didn’t mention in my post was that most of the television programs from the 50s that could be seen in syndication were Desilu productions because they had been shot on film. That’s a case of the interrelationship of technology and business that was extremely innovative.
Oh, I got that, I just wanted to point out that Lucy did the right thing before a consensus had formed that it was the right thing. She (and Desi) did the right thing when doing it meant risk, not praise.
I don’t remember watching much of her show growing up – I think we watched other things. Of course, it wouldn’t have been too interesting for a young boy.
We did watch Lucy quite a bit, probably as reruns. She reminded me a lot of my Mom, who was a fiery redhead and almost as beautiful, and also my Grandmother, who was also a Lucille. My fondest memories are for the work she did with Carol Burnett.