Podcast appearances and mentions of Lucie Arnaz

It is a pleasure to welcome Stonestreet Studios co-founder Alyssa Rallo Bennett and director of marketing and public relations Kelly Wong to The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast.Founded by Rallo Bennett and Gary O. Bennett, Stonestreet Studios celebrates 34 years as a fully operational, multi-purpose, visual motion picture production studio based in New York City. Stonestreet's work ranges from award-winning socially speculative feature films such as ReRun (starring Christopher Lloyd), Rain Without Thunder (starring Jeff Daniels, Linda Hunt, Steve Zahn, and Ming Na Wen), and The Pack (starring Lucie Arnaz and Elizabeth Moss) to pilots and web series.The Stonestreet Residency has welcomed an all-star group of performers to its program. Emmy and Tony-winning actress Idina Menzel, Miles Teller, Camila Mendes, Rachel Brosnahan, Jack Quaid, Beanie Feldstein, and Danny Ramirez are some of the program's alumni. Stonestreet has become known as an incubator of diverse, socially conscious, culturally provocative films that explore the passions, eccentricities, politics, and humor of character-driven, no-holds-barred stories that seek to inspire and enlighten. Stonestreet has been an exclusive ‘Stonestreet Screen Acting & Production Residency Program' for Tisch Drama since 1990.  On this episode of The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Alyssa Rallo Bennett and Kelly Wong spoke about the Stonestreet Residency, the success of their most memorable alumni, and defined Stonestreet Studios' legacy as it prepares to celebrate its upcoming thirty-fifth anniversary in 2026.Let's connect on social media: A) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JacobElyachar/B) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacobelyachar/C) Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jacobelyacharD) Twitter (X): https://x.com/JacobElyacharE) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JacobElyacharshow lessBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.

TVC 676.4: A return appearance by Jeffrey Sitcov, founder and president of Doors of Change, the non profit organization that uses arts and music to help keep teenage homeless youths off the streets (and, in many cases, find safe forever homes), and Lucie Arnaz, one of the celebrity spokespeople for Doors of Change. Topics this segment include the many partnerships that Jeffrey has forged with such music superstars as Billy Joel and Elton John to help create awareness of Doors of Change among the general public; some of the many “sustainable” services that Doors of Changes provides homeless teenagers beyond finding them shelter; and why the performing arts particularly resonates with “transitional age” (i.e., teenagers between the age of seventeen and twenty-four) homeless youth. To learn more about Doors of Change, including how you can become involved for as little as $18/month, go to DoorsofChange.org.

TVC 676.5: Jeffrey Sitcov, founder and president of Doors of Change, and Lucie Arnaz, one of the celebrity spokespeople for Doors of Change, talk to Ed about the annual Concert of Hope that will benefit Doors of Change, and which is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 6 in San Diego. Also in this segment: Lucie shares a few memories of working with Neil Simon, Marlin Hamlisch, Carole Bayer Sager, and Robert Klein in the original Broadway production of They're Playing Our Song. To learn more about Doors of Change, including how you can become involved for as little as $18/month, go to DoorsofChange.org.

This week is packed with Disney updates, news, and history! Dinoland U.S.A. has officially closed as Disney's Animal Kingdom begins the first phase of its exciting new expansion. Over at Magic Kingdom, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is track removal, while more construction walls have been spotted throughout the park. Meanwhile, a crane has arrivd at Astro Orbiter. "Starport Seven Five," a nod to Space Mountain's Opening Year, and today is the 50th Anniversary of Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom. Did you know the Carousel of Progress also opened at Walt Disney World that same day? We'll take a nostalgic trip back to the opening celebration, featuring Mickey Mouse and Lucie Arnaz. If you're a D23 member, don't miss the chance to enjoy 23% off tickets to Cirque du Soleil's Drawn to Life at Disney Springs. And finally, the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts kicks off this Friday with an exciting lineup of visual, culinary, and performing arts to enjoy. Join us for all this and more as we dive into the latest happenings and historical milestones from the Most Magical Place on Earth! You can find the video version of the show here  https://youtube.com/live/-0eauC5WO28  

Bex Scott is back for a new season of Pyrex with Bex and in this first episode of the season, she's diving into the rabbit hole of collectible salt and pepper shakers. Her own collection started when she found lots of them in an online estate sale and discovered that her favorites are the kitschy anthropomorphic shakers. Why were so many made? When were they popular and why? Which ones are most valuable now? Bex reveals what she learned in this episode. Salt and pepper shakers were easy to collect because of their size, small, and they were also very affordable. They date back to around 1858 though there is some dispute over the exact person who created them. Strangely, the kitschy eye-catching salt and pepper shakers were one of the few things whose sales didn't dip during the Great Depression. Because they were small and cheap, they were easy to continue producing and still affordable to collect or gift. Bex explores how salt and pepper shaker designs reflected the time periods they were created in, the themes that became most popular, the rarest and most valuable salt and pepper shakers to look for now, and a family who collected 80,000 sets and started a museum just to house them. You don't want to miss this episode. It will make you look twice at salt and pepper shakers when you come across them.Resources discussed in this episode:Lefton Bluebirds salt and pepper shakersExtra long dachshund salt and pepper shakersPink poodle chef salt and pepper shakersHolt Howard pixieware salt and pepper shakers“Would You Like Some Salt and Pepper? How About 80,000 Shakers' Worth?” by Derek Workman, Smithsonian Magazine, January 23, 2012—Contact Rebecca Scott | Pyrex With Bex: Website: PyrexWithBex.comInstagram: @pyrexwithbex—TranscriptBex Scott: [00:00:02] Hey everybody, it's Bex Scott and welcome to the Pyrex with Bex podcast, where, you guessed it, I talk about vintage Pyrex, but also all things vintage housewares. I'll take you on my latest thrifting adventures, talk about reselling, chat with other enthusiasts about their collections, and learn about a bunch of really awesome items from the past. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you love listening to podcasts so you don't miss a beat. Hey, everybody, this is Bex Scott and you are listening to the Pyrex with Bex podcast. And on today's episode it's salt and pepper time. We are talking all about salt and pepper shakers. And for me, this is a super fun topic because I have been collecting salt and pepper shakers on and off for the last couple of years. I don't have a huge collection, but they are one of the easiest things I've found to collect and to unfortunately amass in large quantities. Bex Scott: [00:01:04] So my salt and pepper shaker collection started back when I found a bunch of huge lots of them in an online estate sale, and I didn't actually know how many I was buying until I picked them up. And I probably had three moving boxes full of them, and unpacking them and cataloging them and photographing them was a massive endeavor. But one of the most fun things you can do as a collector, as you guys probably know, is unboxing and seeing what's inside, what you've bought from a sale or an online auction, and finding the little nuggets of maybe a really collectible item or something that you really love. Bex Scott: [00:01:53] So most of these salt and pepper shakers that I did buy, I ended up selling online on Facebook Marketplace or on Poshmark and some of them even on Whatnot now. And I've had a few friends on Whatnot who have had full on salt and pepper shaker sales, and it's so fun to watch them go through each of the shakers and to see just how fun they were. My favorite ones, hands down, are the kitschy salt and pepper shakers, and my great grandma had an absolute love of Lefton Bluebird, so I've been lucky enough to inherit some of her bluebirds. I have the salt and pepper shakers. I also have some of the more kitschy anthropomorphic ones. I have little kittens that are sitting on balls of yarn. I have some skunks that are sitting on logs and they're just very fun, cute, and you can store a lot of them in a small place. So this led me down a hole of looking into salt and pepper shakers, their appeal, their history. And I actually learned quite a bit about them. Bex Scott: [00:03:07] So. Salt and pepper shakers were easy for people to collect because of their size, and they were so affordable and they were just really easy to come across as well. They held on to them or passed them down. And you could, before, get a figural set of a dog, a cat, a bird for 5 to $7. Now the prices have gone up a little bit because they are in higher demand. People are reselling them and there are more that are collectible, some more than others. Salt and pepper shakers, they go back to about 1858 and they were created, some believe, by a man named John Mason who also created the Mason jar. So some people kind of refute this and are questioning whether that's actually true. But this is what I've found so far in my research. And before the salt and pepper shaker came to be, people used a bowl of salt called a salt cellar. And I've come across a lot of salt cellars in my collecting days, and a lot of the really cute ones are the little hens on the nest. I didn't actually know the purpose of a salt cellar. I knew that it was called that and you scooped the salt up with a spoon. People often added rice to it to keep the moisture at bay. And then it wasn't until 1911, when the brand Morton Salt Company introduced magnesium carbonate into salt that helped it to not clump, which is why people don't often put rice into their salt shakers now. Bex Scott: [00:05:02] So with these cute little kitschy and fun sets on home and restaurant tables, there was a high demand for the aesthetically appealing styles, and it was important for homemakers to have these on their table to show them off and to just have fun collecting them. So many people purchased them on road trips back in the day. One of the most popular types of salt and pepper shakers was the souvenir shaker that you got on your road trip that may have said the location it was from and where you got it. Now the Great Depression came along and there was no dip in salt shaker sales because it was one of the cheapest items in the kitchen. And during the 1930s and into the 1940s, the salt shakers went from glass and tin containers to the ceramic or plastic figurines. Most were from occupied Japan after a halt in production during the war. And the kitschier the better. So salt and pepper shakers became more cute, more eye-catching, and the number of salt and pepper shakers sold at local five and dimes and the fancier stores was just increasing. So some of the fun ones that you could find were the anthropomorphic fruit, fish, dogs. There's a set called the Extra Long Daschund that is really cute if you want to look up these funny little skinny wiener dog salt and pepper shakers. Bex Scott: [00:06:45] So by the 1970s, these cute figural shakers had completely gone out of style, out of production, and they were replaced by what we now have, which is a more standard boring cylindrical-style salt and pepper shaker. Don't get me wrong, there's some beautiful salt and pepper shakers out there now still, but it's just not the same anymore. And some of the ones that they were replaced by that people still collect are the Tupperware salt and pepper shakers, which were really popular during that time and not so much the conversation starters of all the cute, anthropomorphic, kitschy ones that you used to be able to find. So by the 1990s, people started to realize that the salt and pepper shakers were worth something because of the demand that collectors had made for them. And some of the most popular ones are cute little ones hanging from trees that have little baskets. I just sold a set. It was an adorable little dog that had two hanging baskets on the left and the right that you could remove, and those were the salt and pepper shakers. And the baskets were filled with flowers. Lots of kissing and hugging shakers. I have two little bears that when you put them together, their arms wrap around each other. Lots of Christmas ones. And some of the most sought after are from Lefton, Napco, Holt Howard. Bex Scott: [00:08:18] So a lot of this information that I found from my friend Worthpoint, and in this article that I was reading they went through the most collectible shakers from Lefton, Napco and Holt Howard, which I thought was super interesting because as a collector, I'm always wondering which ones I should be on the lookout for. So if you want to start the hunt, Lefton's most collectible are Bluebirds, Christmas angels, Miss Dainty, which is the girl with the red and white hat, Mr.Tootles the Maltese dog, Miss Priss the Blue Kitten, Thumbelina, The Green Fairy, Kissing Santa and Mrs. Claus, Christmas birds which are green, the Puppy Pal dogs wearing blue hats, and pink poodle chef, which in brackets they say is beyond expensive. I've actually never seen the pink poodle chef. Bex Scott: [00:09:21] Napco, you have number one, Miss Cutie Pie, two anthropomorphic fruit people, so that would be the artists, musicians, kissing Valentine birds, the bowler and hard hats, devils, flower girls, and long neck animals. And then Holt Howard, you have the Nodder Rock and Roll on springs, merry mice,they are pink and mischievous, Holly Poinsettia girls, winking Santa, Daisydorables, rooster, and pixieware are the most desirable of all the Holt Howard shakers I've seen. Not in person, but on a lot of my favorite collectors Instagrams and some on Facebook Marketplace. The pixieware salt and pepper shakers. They are so cute! Next up we have Enesco. Number one is the Sweet Shop. It says very pricey and rare. Anything anthropomorphic, fruits, vegetables, forks and spoons. I have had some forks and spoons. They're very cute. You can't really hold a lot of salt and pepper in them though, so definitely more for display. Golden Girls, Country Kids, Snappy the Snails, Missy Mouse, Doctor WO Owl, and Jonah and the whale. Bex Scott: [00:10:37] So going into more of the research, I discovered as well that people have local chapters of salt and Pepper shaker clubs. I didn't know that, but it makes sense. There are clubs for Pyrex collectors, Facebook groups and pages, many of which I'm a part of. So it would make sense that these salt and pepper shaker lovers would come together and sell and swap stories about their salt and pepper shakers. So after digging into some of this research about salt and pepper shakers and finding out that there was a salt and pepper shaker museum, I looked into this article by the Smithsonian magazine by Derek Workman, and it goes over this family's 80,000 shakers worth of salt and pepper shakers. So they have 40,000 pairs of shakers. They are called the Ludden family. And they have enough shakers to fill two museums. So it's Andrea, her son Alex, and her daughter, and they are in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with all of their salt and pepper shakers. So andrea said she started completely by chance when she bought a pepper mill at a garage sale in the mid 1980s. I'm sure that most of the collectors out there listening can totally relate to this. You find one item at a garage sale and it takes you down a spiral of collecting. I know that that's how things usually start for me with my addictive collecting personality. That's how my Pyrex started with finding it in my grandparents garage. So Andrea says that she had this pepper mill. It didn't work, so she bought a couple more, and she used to stand them on the window ledge of her kitchen, and her neighbors thought she was building a collection. Bex Scott: [00:12:32] She said nothing could have been further from her mind, but her neighbors started to bring new ones over, and eventually she had 14,000 on shelves all over her house, even in her bedrooms. And her husband Rolf told her that she needed somewhere else to put these or they're going to get divorced. So that's when they decided to create this museum. So you can wander around the museum. It says there's fat chefs, ruby red tomatoes, guardsmen in bearskins, Santas, feet sticking from a chimney, pistols and potatoes, a copy of the salt and pepper shaker cufflinks worn by Lady Diana. That is very cool. And Andrea, she was or is an archeologist by training, and when she moved to the States, she couldn't find work in her field. So she turned her attention to social anthropology, and she studied everyday life since the early years through her growing collection of salt and pepper shakers. And she says here in the article, "there's almost nothing you can imagine that hasn't been copied as a salt and pepper shaker. And many of them reflect the designs, the colors and the preoccupations of the period", which is very true. And when you think about it, when you look at a salt and pepper shaker you don't really think that deeply about it, but a lot of these designs were reflections of what was going on in the time. Bex Scott: [00:13:58] So they go into how, in the article, it was because people could travel more freely, either for work or on vacation, that the souvenir industry came about. And salt and pepper shakers were cheap, easy to carry, and colorful, and they made ideal gifts. So among the earliest producers of salt and pepper shakers were the German fine pottery maker Goebel. They introduced its first three sets in 1925, and today its Hummel shakers, introduced in 1935, are highly collectible. And ironically, it was the Great Depression of the 1930s that gave a major boost to the popularity of salt and pepper shakers as a household item and a collectible item, and ceramic producers worldwide were forced to restrict production and concentrate on lower priced items, and this helped because salt and pepper shakers were small, easy to produce, bright and cheery, and really could be bought for a few cents at most local hardware stores. Soon other ceramic companies got into the act, and Japanese firms had a large share of the market from the late 1920s through the 1930s. As well, from the late 1940s through the 50s, and production halted during World War Two. So the shakers they produced in postwar years labeled 'made in occupied Japan' or simply 'occupied Japan' are extremely rare and highly sought after. In the 1950s and 60s, they began producing shakers made from plastic. Plastic was very fragile, so fewer of these examples exist, making them extremely valuable. Which is another good thing to know because I have seen a lot of the plastic shakers around. Bex Scott: [00:15:49] Sometimes they're not in the greatest shape, but knowing this, that they are more rare and collectible, definitely makes that a bit exciting for me to try and find the plastic ones over some of the other ceramic ones that you can find. So they go into how, at first glance, the museum seems bright and happy, if a bit haphazard. The displays are well thought out and organized, especially considered the many models on display. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it would be to categorize and organize that many salt and pepper shakers. And because you can work by style, age, subject matter, color, Andrea says they try to do it in a way that combines all of the elements at the same time. There are hundreds of themes, and in those themes there will be many colors. But her mom has a way of laying out displays that are highly planned so that the colors within a theme are displayed together. For example, she continues, all the greens, yellows and reds of the vegetables are arranged in vertical rows. You get bright color bands, but all the shakers are on the same theme. It's a lot more complicated than it sounds because there are so many. A large number of the shaker sets are humorous. There's an aspirin salt shaker, a martini glass pepper shaker, and when they're all set up, there's sometimes an opportunity to create a visual joke. Andrea says that you see what looks like models of the southwest US Adobe houses of the style found in New Mexico with cactus and cowboys and Indians but behind them are two UFOs that have crashed and two aliens that glow in the dark. Bex Scott: [00:17:33] It's amazing how many of these shakers tell a tale that isn't obvious to everyone. One of her favorites is a chef holding a cat in one hand and a cleaver in the other. I always thought it was just a fun item, says Andrea, but her mom explained that it was very significant to older people who had been through the Depression and major wars. Food was short, but you still had to eat, so if a cat strayed by, it went into the pot and came out as chicken surprise! Oh my. As they continue the tour, they're absorbed by all the weird and wonderful shakers. Coca Cola cans, Dolly Parton's photo on a souvenir from Dollywood, the Smokies most fun place, Mickey and Minnie in chef tucks and aprons, the Beatles with the cropped hair and collarless jacket of the early days, a turquoise TV with Lucie Arnaz and her neighbor Ethel Mertz on the screen, and a sofa with an I Love Lucy heart shaped cushion, alligators with sunshades from Florida, bullfighters and bulls from Spain, kangaroos from Australia, a bobby and double decker bus from London, before and after versions of Mount Saint Helens made from the actual volcanic ash. Very cool. There are also familiar ones, shakers your grandmother used to have, or you saw when you went on vacation somewhere, or you gave as a gift once. Bex Scott: [00:18:48] "People come back over and over again and think that we are adding to the displays," says Andrea, "but we aren't. It's just that they didn't see them the first time around." The museum doesn't display all the shakers it owns, but it does exhibit a few Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom shakers, the cook and butler stereotypical characters from the 1950s, knowing some people might be offended by the negative portrayal of African Americans. They are part of the history of salt and pepper shakers. We display them, but we do it discreetly, she says. You can't change history by simply pretending it didn't happen or ignore it. So that article, if you want to read more in-depth, Smithsonian Magazine, 'Would You Like Some Salt and Pepper? How About 80,000 Shakers Worth?' by Derek Workman. And diving into the world of salt and pepper shakers has definitely been a fun one. I would love to know your favorite salt and pepper shakers, how many you might have in your collection, where you find most of them. It is a super fun topic, and if you do want to find salt and pepper shakers out there, I would highly suggest looking at Facebook Marketplace. A lot of the Canadian sellers that I know, including myself, we sell them on Whatnot, so find us there and also on eBay. Bex Scott: [00:20:11] They can get a little bit pricey, but I really find that the thrill is in the hunt. So check out garage sales. Even ask your family members. I'm sure your grandparents, your parents might even have some stuffed in their china cabinets that they're not using. It's just fun to see how many were produced, how many different kinds are out there, and just to see the evolution of them over time. And if you are buying them to resell them, it is really important to look for damage on them. They, I've found, are one of the easiest things to chip and to break, even the smallest little bump. They chip quite easily, especially if you have, like the little Lefton bird shakers, looking on the ears of animals and the beaks. And just anywhere where there's a corner that they may have been hit against something, just keep an eye out. But if it's for your own personal collection, then it's a lot easier just to pick them up in any condition that they are. So I'd love to connect. You can find me on Instagram @PyrexWithBex. You can find me on Whatnot. Selling weekly on Fridays at usually around 2 p.m. Mountain Standard, and my username on Whatnot is Pyrex with Bex. I sell a variety of vintage items, including Pyrex, of course, but a lot of smaller items and jewelry as well. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of salt and pepper shakers. And when you're sitting down at dinner tonight, you might think of the shakers on your table in a different light. 

The 2024 Architecture and Design Film Festival, or ADFF, starts up next week in New York.  This long-running series is led by returning podcast guest Kyle Bergman, who founded the ADFF in New York in 2008 and hosts versions all over the world.  ADFF seeks out films with impassioned, human stories that appeal to both architects and the general design-loving public.  Today we'll talk with filmmakers who've shown at ADFF including Sabine Gisger, Beatrice Minger, Katerina Kliwadenko and Mario Novas. Plus, we'll talk with Kyle about the highlights for 2024.  Then, it's a great conversation with actor and singer Lucie Arnaz about architecture and jazz - and Spock's half-brother.

On this special final episode of Lifestyles, Lillian speaks with performer Lucie Arnaz and showcases clips of guests over the past 6.5 years.

Lucie Arnaz, actress, singer and daughter of the late great Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, joins John Landecker to talk about celebrating Lucille Ball’s heavenly birthday, her tour, and more!

Working mothers often worry that their work may negatively affect their kids. But Kathy Wyse Goldman wrote a book caelled My Mother Worked and I Turned Out OK. This 1993 interview features Kathy Wyse Goldman and her mom, noted advertising executive Lois Wyse. Get My Mother Worked and I Turned Out OK by Kathy Wyse Goldman & Lois WyseAs an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.You may also enjoy my interviews with Lucie Arnaz and Barbara Bush For more vintage interviews with celebrities, leaders, and influencers, subscribe to Now I've Heard Everything on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and now on YouTube #MothersDay #mothers #workingmothers #parenting

In this episode of  'Cooking By Heart,' long-time show business actress/producer Lucie Arnaz talks about growing up with famous working parents, having meals made by the family's help and by her grandmother, followed by weekends with father Desi's improvisational Cuban cooking and her mother Lucy's basic All-American, health-conscious cuisine, fun family picnics, and dining out at exotic LA eateries. She bravely recounts her early culinary mistakes when she moved from home as a teen and then she catered the wedding dinner for her first marriage! Later she made a point of cooking with her kids and continues culinary traditions with her love of making meals with friends and the community it brings. Don't forget to follow all of the social media!   @Sarandon_Chris on Twitter  @TheOfficialChrisSarandon on Instagram  Chris Sarandon on Facebook   www.chrissarandon.com  linktr.ee/theofficialchrissarandon Subscribe on Youtube at https://youtube.com/shorts/-vGUyj0TK-Q --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cookingbyheartpodcast/support

Our very special guest on this episode is Lucie Arnaz, who was born into show business as the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  She's performed on television, in movies, nightclubs and on Broadway.   She shares some wonderful observations and stories with us.  Her website is http://www.luciearnaz.com/   Our sponsor, Green Chef, is a CCOF-certified meal kit company that makes eating well easy with plans to fit every lifestyle.  Whether you're Keto, Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, or just looking to eat more balanced meals, Green Chef offers a range of recipes to suit your preferences.  Fill up with Protein Packed, Green Chef's newest collection of recipes fit for a high-protein dietary preference.  Choose from three weekly menu items, each including at least 40 grams of protein per serving.  You can expect a variety of satisfying and flavorful recipes like Greek Chicken Salad with Mint Olive Tapenade, Enchilada-Spiced Turkey Bowls and Almond-Crusted Barramundi. Cut down on meal prep with pre-portioned and prepped ingredients, including pre-measured sauces, spices and dressings.  Go to GreenChef.com/nobody60 and use code nobody60 to get 60% off plus free shipping!

Randy tells Paul about the Jury Duty summons he gets right before he has to host the Grammys. A caller wants to know what brands of nail polish Randy recommends. Randy loves Lucie Arnaz! She's on the podcast to discuss working with Neil Simon, how she discovered she could sing, and what it was like to grow up with famous parents.  To leave Randy a message go to: https://bit.ly/TheRandyRainbowPodcast Host: Randy Rainbow Executive Producers: Randy Rainbow, Rebecca Eisenberg & Todd Milliner Associate Producer: Bobby Rice Coordinator & Researcher: Riley Villiers Production & Editing by: Rabbit Grin Productions Booking Producer: Emily Cagan Music by: Jesse Kissel Lyrics by: Randy Rainbow Vocal and Musical Arrangements by: Jesse Kissel Theme Music Produced by: Michael J. Moritz Jr.  For more information about The Randy Rainbow Podcast and other Hazy Mills Podcasts go to HazyMills.com  For more information on Randy or to buy tickets to his tour go to: www.randyrainbow.com

For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/zmdvvH30EIo I, however, will be celebrating National Book Blitz Month with some surprise guests to discuss books with quite a few surprises! Let's see how cheesy we all will be... CREATE! How Extraordinary People Live to Create and Create to Live by RONALD RAND Create Sharing their insights on the process of creativity and the importance of the arts for humankind CREATE! features over 100 rare Interviews — actors, artists, choreographers, composers, dancers, designers, directors, musicians, composers, mime artists, playwrights, poets musicians, and writers — including Edward Albee, Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Ellen Burstyn, Martha Carpenter, Carol Channing, Brian Cox, Jacques d'Amboise, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Katherine Dunham, Eve Ensler, Kelsey Grammer, Joel Grey, Al Hirschfeld, Julie Harris, Sheldon Harnick, Bill T. Jones, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Chaka Khan, Stephen Lang, Robert Lepage, Arthur Laurents, Mario van Peebles, Christopher Plummer, Harold Prince, Bill Pullman, Tony Randall, Luise Rainer, Phylicia Rashad, Chita Rivera, Roy Scheider, Tim Stevenson, Charles Strause, Tadashi Suzuki, Tommy Tune, Ben Vereen, Sir Derek Walcott, Elie Wiesel, Robert Wilson, and Eugenia Zukerman. CREATE! features over 150 iconic photographs, paintings, and illustrations including Al Hirschfeld, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Tim Stevenson, Jim Warren, Martha Carpenter, Michael Shane Neal, Thomas V. Nash, Tommy Tune, Stephen Lang, Joel Grey, Tara Sabharwal, Carolyn D Palmer, Ming Cho Lee, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Fred Hatt, Gregg Goldston, David Pena, Parish Kohanim, Andre Gregory, Lucie Arnaz, Allan Warren, Stan Barouh, Jacques d'Amboise, Jimmy Turrell, Jillian Edelstein, James McMullan, Mary Gearhart, Alvin Colt, Sir Derek Walcott and Ronald Rand

If you've ever listened to "A Musical Theatre Podcast," you already know a little bit about THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK. Find out how by tuning into our first episode of 2023 featuring one of the original "West End Witches," Lucie Arnaz (Broadway's THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, PIPPIN). Lucie gives us a generous look inside the creation of this sexy, magic-filled show and shares how she found musical theatre while growing up with television legend parents, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Packed with funny stories and fascinating insights, this is definitely an episode you've been "wishing" for. Follow Lucie and see her upcoming tour dates by visiting luciearnaz.com New for January 2023, leave us a nice review and get a free year of PATREON! full of bonus episodes. Simply post the review, take a screenshot, and email it to amusicalpodcast@gmail.com. Also be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Don't forget about our TeePublic Store, the profits of which are donated to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Most of all, thank you for being part of this wonderful podcasting community! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our first episode of the new year, which is also our first episode of Season 5. Thank you for continuing to join us on this amazing journey. On today's episode, we head back to Christmas of 1980, when pop music superstar Neil Diamond would be making his feature acting debut in a new version of The Jazz Singer. ----more---- EPISODE TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the entertainment capital of the world, this is The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   It's 2023, which means we are starting our fifth season. And for our first episode of this new season, we're going back to the end of 1980, to take a look back at what was supposed to be the launch of a new phase in the career of one of music's biggest stars. That musical star was Neil Diamond, and this would end up becoming his one and only attempt to act in a motion picture.   We're talking about The Jazz Singer.   As I have said time and time again, I don't really have a plan for this show. I talk about the movies and subjects I talk about often on a whim. I'll hear about something and I'll be reminded of something, and a few days later, I've got an episode researched, written, recorded, edited and out there in the world. As I was working on the previous episode, about The War of the Roses just before my trip to Thailand, I saw a video of Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline on opening night of A Beautiful Noise, a new Broadway musical about the life and music of Mr. Diamond. I hadn't noticed Diamond had stopped performing live five years earlier due to a diagnosis of Parkinson's, and it was very touching to watch a thousand people joyously singing along with the man.   But as I was watching that video, I was reminded of The Jazz Singer, a movie we previously covered very lightly three years ago as part of our episode on the distribution company Associated Film Distribution. I was reminded that I haven't seen the movie in over forty years, even though I remember rather enjoying it when it opened in theatres in December 1980. I think I saw it four or five times over the course of a month, and I even went out and bought the soundtrack album, which I easily listened to a hundred times before the start of summer.   But we're getting ahead of ourselves yet again.   The Jazz Singer began its life in 1917, when Samson Raphaelson, a twenty-three year old undergraduate at the University of Illinois, attended a performance of Robinson Crusoe, Jr., in Champaign, IL. The star of that show was thirty-year-old Al Jolson, a Russian-born Jew who had been a popular performer on Broadway stages for fifteen years by this point, regularly performing in blackface. After graduation, Raphaelson would become an advertising executive in New York City, but on the side, he would write stories. One short story, called “The Day of Atonement,” would be a thinly fictionalized account of Al Jolson's life. It would be published in Everybody's Magazine in January 1922.   At the encouragement of his secretary at the advertising firm, Raphaelson would adapted his story into a play, which would be produced on Broadway in September 1925 with a new title…   The Jazz Singer.   Ironically, for a Broadway show based on the early life of Al Jolson, Jolson was not a part of the production. The part of Jake Rabinowitz, the son of a cantor who finds success on Broadway with the Anglicized named Jack Robin, would be played by George Jessel. The play would be a minor hit, running for 303 performances on Broadway before closing in June 1926, and Warner Brothers would buy the movie rights the same week the show closed. George Jessel would be signed to play his stage role in the movie version. The film was scheduled to go into production in May 1927.   There are a number of reasons why Jessel would not end up making the movie. After the success of two Warner movies in 1926 using Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc system that could play music synchronized to a motion picture, Warner Brothers reconcieved The Jazz Singer as a sound movie, but not just a movie with music synchronized to the images on screen, but a “talkie,” where, for the first time for a motion picture, actual dialogue and vocal songs would be synchronized to the pictures on screen. When he learned about this development, Jessel demanded more money.    The Warner Brothers refused.   Then Jessel had some concerns about the solvency of the studio. These would be valid concerns, as Harry Warner, the eldest of the four eponymous brothers who ran the studio, had sold nearly $4m worth of his personal stock to keep the company afloat just a few months earlier.   But what ended up driving Jessel away was a major change screenwriter Alfred A. Cohen made when adapting the original story and the play into the screenplay. Instead of leaving the theatre and becoming a cantor like his father, as it was written for the stage, the movie would end with Jack Robin performing on Broadway in blackface while his mom cheers him on from one of the box seats.   With Jessel off the project, Warner would naturally turn to… Eddie Cantor. Like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor was a Jew of Russian descent, although, unlike Jolson, he had been born in New York City. Like Jolson, he had been a star on Broadway for years, regularly performing in and writing songs for Florenz Ziegfeld' annual Follies shows. And like Jolson, Cantor would regularly appear on stage in blackface. But Cantor, a friend of Jessel's, instead offered to help the studio get Jessel back on the movie. The studio instead went to their third choice…   Al Jolson.   You know. The guy whose life inspired the darn story to begin with.   Many years later, film historian Robert Carringer would note that, in 1927, George Jessel was a vaudeville comedian with one successful play and one modestly successful movie to his credit, while Jolson was one of the biggest stars in America. In fact, when The Vitaphone Company was trying to convince American studios to try their sound-on-disc system for movies, they would hire Jolson in the fall of 1926 for a ten minute test film. It would be the success of the short film, titled A Plantation Act and featuring Jolson in blackface singing three songs, that would convince Warners to take a chance with The Jazz Singer as the first quote unquote talkie film.   I'll have a link to A Plantation Act on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, if you're interested in seeing it.   Al Jolson signed on to play the character inspired by himself for $75,000 in May 1927, the equivalent to $1.28m today. Filming would be pushed back to June 1927, in part due to Jolson still being on tour with another show until the end of the month. Warners would begin production on the film in New York City in late June, starting with second unit shots of the Lower East Side and The Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, shooting as much as they could until Jolson arrived on set on July 11th.   Now, while the film has been regularly touted for nearly a century now as the first talking motion picture, the truth is, there's very little verbal dialogue in the film. The vast majority of dialogue in the movie was still handled with the traditional silent movie use of caption cards, and the very few scenes featuring what would be synchronized dialogue were saved for the end of production, due to the complexity of how those scenes would be captured. But the film would finish shooting in mid-September.   The $422k movie would have its world premiere at the Warner Brothers theatre in New York City not three weeks later, on October 6th, 1927, where the film would become a sensation. Sadly, none of the Warner Brothers would attend the premiere, as Sam Warner, the strongest advocate for Vitaphone at the studio, had died of pneumonia the night before the premiere, and his remaining brothers stayed in Los Angeles for the funeral. The reviews were outstanding, and the film would bring more than $2.5m in rental fees back to the studio.   At the first Academy Awards, held in May 1929 to honor the films released between August 1927 and July 1928, The Jazz Singer was deemed ineligible for the two highest awards, Outstanding Production, now known as Best Picture, and Unique and Artistic Production, which would only be awarded this one time, on the grounds that it would have been unfair to a sound picture compete against all the other silent films. Ironically, by the time the second Academy Awards were handed out, in April 1930, silent films would practically be a thing of the past. The success of The Jazz Singer had been that much a tectonic shift in the industry. The film would receive one Oscar nomination, for Alfred Cohn's screenplay adaptation, while the Warner Brothers would be given a special award for producing The Jazz Singer, the “pioneer outstanding talking picture which has revolutionized the industry,” as the inscription on the award read.   There would be a remake of The Jazz Singer produced in 1952, starring Danny Thomas as Korean War veteran who, thankfully, leaves the blackface in the past, and a one-hour television adaptation of the story in 1959, starring Jerry Lewis. And if that sounds strange to you, Jerry Lewis, at the height of his post-Lewis and Martin success, playing a man torn between his desire to be a successful performer and his shattered relationship with his cantor father… well, you can see it for yourself, if you desire, on the page for this episode on our website. It is as strange as it sounds.   At this point, we're going to fast forward a number of years in our story.   In the 1970s, Neil Diamond became one of the biggest musical stars in America. While he wanted to be a singer, Diamond would get his first big success in music in the 1960s as a songwriter, including writing two songs that would become big hits for The Monkees: I'm a Believer and A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.   And really quickly, let me throw out a weird coincidence here… Bob Rafelson, the creator of The Monkees who would go on to produce and/or direct such films as Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, was the nephew of Samson Raphaelson, the man who wrote the original story on which The Jazz Singer is based.   Anyway, after finding success as a songwriter, Diamond would become a major singing star with hits like Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon, Sweet Caroline, and Song Sung Blue. And in another weird coincidence, by 1972, Neil Diamond would become the first performer since Al Jolson to stage a one-man show at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.   By 1976, Neil Diamond is hosting specials on television, and one person who would see one of Diamond's television specials was a guy named Jerry Leider, an executive at Warner Brothers in charge of foreign feature production. Leider sees something in Diamond that just night be suited for the movies, not unlike Elvis Presley or Barbra Streisand, who in 1976 just happens to be the star of a remake of A Star Is Born for Warner Brothers that is cleaning up at the box office and at records stores nationwide. Leider is so convinced Neil Diamond has that X Factor, that unquantifiable thing that turns mere mortals into superstars, that Leider quits his job at Warners to start his own movie production company, wrestling the story rights to The Jazz Singer from Warner Brothers and United Artists, both of whom claimed ownership of the story, so he can make his own version with Diamond as the star.   So, naturally, a former Warners Brothers executive wanting to remake one of the most iconic movies in the Warner Brothers library is going to set it up at Warner Brothers, right?   Nope!   In the fall of 1977, Leider makes a deal with MGM to make the movie. Diamond signs on to play the lead, even before a script is written, and screenwriter Stephen H. Foreman is brought in to update the vaudeville-based original story into the modern day while incorporating Diamond's strengths as a songwriter to inform the story. But just before the film was set to shoot in September 1978, MGM would drop the movie, as some executives were worried the film would be perceived as being, and I am quoting Mr. Foreman here, “too Jewish.”   American Film Distribution, the American distribution arm of British production companies ITC and EMI, would pick the film up in turnaround, and set a May 1979 production start date. Sidney J. Furie, the Canadian filmmaker who had directed Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, would be hired to direct, and Jacqueline Bisset was pursued to play the lead female role, but her agent priced their client out of the running. Deborah Raffin would be cast instead. And to help bring the kids in, the producers would sign Sir Laurence Olivier to play Diamond's father, Cantor Rabinovitch. Sir Larry would get a cool million dollars for ten weeks of work.   There would, as always is with the case of making movies, be setbacks that would further delay the start of production. First, Diamond would hurt his back at the end of 1978, and needed to go in for surgery in early January 1979. Although Diamond had already written and recorded all the music that was going to be used in the movie, AFD considered replacing Diamond with Barry Manilow, who had also never starred in a movie before, but they would stick with their original star.   After nearly a year of rest, Diamond was ready to begin, and cameras would roll on the $10m production on January 7th, 1980. And, as always is with the case of making movies, there would be more setbacks as soon as production began. Diamond, uniquely aware of just how little training he had as an actor, struggled to find his place on set, especially when working with an actor of Sir Laurence Olivier's stature. Director Furie, who was never satisfied with the screenplay, ordered writer Foreman to come up with new scenes that would help lessen the burden Diamond was placing on himself and the production. The writer would balk at almost every single suggestion, and eventually walked off the film.   Herbert Baker, an old school screenwriter who had worked on several of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies, was brought in to punch up the script, but he would end up completely rewriting the film, even though the movie had been in production for a few weeks. Baker and Furie would spend every moment the director wasn't actively working on set reworking the story, changing the Deborah Raffin character so much she would leave the production. Her friend Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, would take over the role, after Cher, Liza Minnelli and Donna Summer were considered.   Sensing an out of control production, Sir Lew Grade, the British media titan owner of AFD, decided a change was needed. He would shut the production down on March 3rd, 1980, and fire director Furie. While Baker continued to work on the script, Sir Grade would find a new director in Richard Fleischer, the journeyman filmmaker whose credits in the 1950s and 1960s included such films as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Compulsion, Fantastic Voyage and Doctor Doolittle, but had fallen out of favor with most studios after a string of flops. In fact, this would be the second film in a year where Fleischer was hired to replace another director during the middle of production, having replaced Richard C. Sarafian on the action-adventure film Ashanti in 1979.   With Fleischer aboard, production on The Jazz Singer would resume in late March, and there was an immediate noticeable difference on set. Where Furie and many members of the crew would regularly defer to Diamond due to his stature as an entertainer, letting the singer spiral out of control if things weren't working right, Fleischer would calm the actor down and help work him back into the scene. Except for one scene, set in a recording studio, where Diamond's character needed to explode into anger. After a few takes that didn't go as well as he hoped, Diamond went into the recording booth where his movie band was stationed while Fleischer was resetting the shot, when the director noticed Diamond working himself into a rage. The director called “action,” and Diamond nailed the take as needed. When the director asked Diamond how he got to that moment, the singer said he was frustrated with himself that he wasn't hitting the scene right, and asked the band to play something that would make him angry. The band obliged.    What did they play?   A Barry Manilow song.   Despite the recasting of the leading female role, a change of director and a number of rewrites by two different writers during the production, the film was able to finish shooting at the end of April with only $3m added to the budget.   Associated Film would set a December 19th, 1980 release date for the film, while Capitol Records, owned at the time by EMI, would release the first single from the soundtrack, a soft-rock ballad called Love on the Rocks, in October, with the full soundtrack album arriving in stores a month later.   As expected for a new Neil Diamond song, Love on the Rocks was an immediate hit, climbing the charts all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.   Several days before the film opened in 241 theatres on December 19th, there was a huge, star-studded premiere at the Plitt Century Plaza Cinemas in Los Angeles. Peter Falk, Harvey Korman, Ed McMahon, Gregory Peck, Cesar Romero and Jon Voight were just a handful of the Hollywood community who came out to attend what was one of the biggest Hollywood premieres in years. That would seem to project a confidence in the movie from the distributor's standpoint.   Or so you'd think.   But as it turned out, The Jazz Singer was one of three movies Associated Film would release that day. Along with The Jazz Singer, they would release the British mystery film The Mirror Crack'd starring Angela Lansbury and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Richard Donner drama Inside Moves. Of the three movies, The Jazz Singer would gross the most that weekend, pulling in a modest $1.167m, versus The Mirror Crack'd's $608k from 340 screens, and Inside Moves's $201k from 67 screens.   But compared to Clint Eastwood's Any Which Way You Can, the Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder comedy Stir Crazy, and Dolly Parton/Lily Tomlin/Jane Fonda comedy 9 to 5, it wasn't the best opening they could hope for.   But the film would continue to play… well, if not exceptional, at least it would hold on to its intended audience for a while. Sensing the film needed some help, Capitol Records released a second single from the soundtrack, another power ballad called Hello Again, in January 1981, which would become yet another top ten hit for Diamond. A third single, the pro-immigration power-pop song America, would arrive in April 1981 and go to number eight on the charts, but by then, the film was out of theatres with a respectable $27.12m in tickets sold.   Contemporary reviews of the film were rather negative, especially towards Diamond as an actor. Roger Ebert noted in his review that there were so many things wrong in the film that the review was threatening to become a list of cinematic atrocities. His review buddy Gene Siskel did praise Lucie Arnaz's performance, while pointing out how out of touch the new story was with the immigrant story told by the original film. Many critics would also point out the cringe-worthy homage to the original film, where Diamond unnecessarily performs in blackface, as well as Olivier's overacting.   I recently watched the film for the first time since 1981, and it's not a great movie by any measurable metric. Diamond isn't as bad an actor as the reviews make him out to be, especially considering he's essentially playing an altered version of himself, a successful pop singer, and Lucie Arnaz is fairly good. The single best performance in the film comes from Caitlin Adams, playing Jess's wife Rivka, who, for me, is the emotional center of the film. And yes, Olivier really goes all-in on the scenery chewing. At times, it's truly painful to watch this great actor spin out of control.   There would be a few awards nominations for the film, including acting nominations for Diamond and Arnaz at the 1981 Golden Globes, and a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album, but most of its quote unquote awards would come from the atrocious Golden Raspberry organization, which would name Diamond the Worst Actor of the year and Olivier the Worst Supporting Actor during its first quote unquote ceremony, which was held in some guy's living room.   Ironically but not so surprisingly, while the film would be vaguely profitable for its producers, it would be the soundtrack to the movie that would bring in the lion's share of the profits. On top of three hit singles, the soundtrack album would sell more than five million copies just in the United States in 1980 and 1981, and would also go platinum in Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. While he would earn less than half a million dollars from the film, Diamond's cut of the soundtrack would net him a dollar per unit sold, earning him more than ten times his salary as an actor.   And although I fancied myself a punk and new wave kid at the end of 1980, I bought the soundtrack to The Jazz Singer, ostensibly as a gift for my mom, who loved Neil Diamond, but I easily wore out the grooves of the album listening to it over and over again. Of the ten new songs he wrote for the soundtrack, there's a good two or three additional tracks that weren't released as singles, including a short little ragtime-inspired ditty called On the Robert E. Lee, but America is the one song from the soundtrack I am still drawn to today. It's a weirdly uplifting song with its rhythmic “today” chants that end the song that just makes me feel good despite its inherent cheesiness.   After The Jazz Singer, Neil Diamond would only appear as himself in a film. Lucie Arnaz would never quite have much of a career after the film, although she would work quote regularly in television during the 80s and 90s, including a short stint as the star of The Lucie Arnaz Show, which lasted six episodes in 1985 before being cancelled. Laurence Olivier would continue to play supporting roles in a series of not so great motion pictures and television movies and miniseries for several more years, until his passing in 1989. And director Richard Fleischer would make several bad movies, including Red Sonja and Million Dollar Mystery, until he retired from filmmaking in 1987.   As we noted in our February 2020 episode about AFD, the act of releasing three movies on the same day was a last, desperate move in order to pump some much needed capital into the company. And while The Jazz Singer would bring some money in, that wasn't enough to cover the losses from the other two movies released the same day, or several other underperforming films released earlier in the year such as the infamous Village People movie Can't Stop the Music and Raise the Titanic. Sir Lew Grade would close AFD down in early 1981, and sell several movies that were completed, in production or in pre-production to Universal Studios. Ironically, those movies might have saved the company had they been able to hang on a little longer, as they included such films as The Dark Crystal, Frances, On Golden Pond, Sophie's Choice and Tender Mercies.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 99 is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Neil Diamond and The Jazz Singer.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Welcome to our first episode of the new year, which is also our first episode of Season 5. Thank you for continuing to join us on this amazing journey. On today's episode, we head back to Christmas of 1980, when pop music superstar Neil Diamond would be making his feature acting debut in a new version of The Jazz Singer. ----more---- EPISODE TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the entertainment capital of the world, this is The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   It's 2023, which means we are starting our fifth season. And for our first episode of this new season, we're going back to the end of 1980, to take a look back at what was supposed to be the launch of a new phase in the career of one of music's biggest stars. That musical star was Neil Diamond, and this would end up becoming his one and only attempt to act in a motion picture.   We're talking about The Jazz Singer.   As I have said time and time again, I don't really have a plan for this show. I talk about the movies and subjects I talk about often on a whim. I'll hear about something and I'll be reminded of something, and a few days later, I've got an episode researched, written, recorded, edited and out there in the world. As I was working on the previous episode, about The War of the Roses just before my trip to Thailand, I saw a video of Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline on opening night of A Beautiful Noise, a new Broadway musical about the life and music of Mr. Diamond. I hadn't noticed Diamond had stopped performing live five years earlier due to a diagnosis of Parkinson's, and it was very touching to watch a thousand people joyously singing along with the man.   But as I was watching that video, I was reminded of The Jazz Singer, a movie we previously covered very lightly three years ago as part of our episode on the distribution company Associated Film Distribution. I was reminded that I haven't seen the movie in over forty years, even though I remember rather enjoying it when it opened in theatres in December 1980. I think I saw it four or five times over the course of a month, and I even went out and bought the soundtrack album, which I easily listened to a hundred times before the start of summer.   But we're getting ahead of ourselves yet again.   The Jazz Singer began its life in 1917, when Samson Raphaelson, a twenty-three year old undergraduate at the University of Illinois, attended a performance of Robinson Crusoe, Jr., in Champaign, IL. The star of that show was thirty-year-old Al Jolson, a Russian-born Jew who had been a popular performer on Broadway stages for fifteen years by this point, regularly performing in blackface. After graduation, Raphaelson would become an advertising executive in New York City, but on the side, he would write stories. One short story, called “The Day of Atonement,” would be a thinly fictionalized account of Al Jolson's life. It would be published in Everybody's Magazine in January 1922.   At the encouragement of his secretary at the advertising firm, Raphaelson would adapted his story into a play, which would be produced on Broadway in September 1925 with a new title…   The Jazz Singer.   Ironically, for a Broadway show based on the early life of Al Jolson, Jolson was not a part of the production. The part of Jake Rabinowitz, the son of a cantor who finds success on Broadway with the Anglicized named Jack Robin, would be played by George Jessel. The play would be a minor hit, running for 303 performances on Broadway before closing in June 1926, and Warner Brothers would buy the movie rights the same week the show closed. George Jessel would be signed to play his stage role in the movie version. The film was scheduled to go into production in May 1927.   There are a number of reasons why Jessel would not end up making the movie. After the success of two Warner movies in 1926 using Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc system that could play music synchronized to a motion picture, Warner Brothers reconcieved The Jazz Singer as a sound movie, but not just a movie with music synchronized to the images on screen, but a “talkie,” where, for the first time for a motion picture, actual dialogue and vocal songs would be synchronized to the pictures on screen. When he learned about this development, Jessel demanded more money.    The Warner Brothers refused.   Then Jessel had some concerns about the solvency of the studio. These would be valid concerns, as Harry Warner, the eldest of the four eponymous brothers who ran the studio, had sold nearly $4m worth of his personal stock to keep the company afloat just a few months earlier.   But what ended up driving Jessel away was a major change screenwriter Alfred A. Cohen made when adapting the original story and the play into the screenplay. Instead of leaving the theatre and becoming a cantor like his father, as it was written for the stage, the movie would end with Jack Robin performing on Broadway in blackface while his mom cheers him on from one of the box seats.   With Jessel off the project, Warner would naturally turn to… Eddie Cantor. Like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor was a Jew of Russian descent, although, unlike Jolson, he had been born in New York City. Like Jolson, he had been a star on Broadway for years, regularly performing in and writing songs for Florenz Ziegfeld' annual Follies shows. And like Jolson, Cantor would regularly appear on stage in blackface. But Cantor, a friend of Jessel's, instead offered to help the studio get Jessel back on the movie. The studio instead went to their third choice…   Al Jolson.   You know. The guy whose life inspired the darn story to begin with.   Many years later, film historian Robert Carringer would note that, in 1927, George Jessel was a vaudeville comedian with one successful play and one modestly successful movie to his credit, while Jolson was one of the biggest stars in America. In fact, when The Vitaphone Company was trying to convince American studios to try their sound-on-disc system for movies, they would hire Jolson in the fall of 1926 for a ten minute test film. It would be the success of the short film, titled A Plantation Act and featuring Jolson in blackface singing three songs, that would convince Warners to take a chance with The Jazz Singer as the first quote unquote talkie film.   I'll have a link to A Plantation Act on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, if you're interested in seeing it.   Al Jolson signed on to play the character inspired by himself for $75,000 in May 1927, the equivalent to $1.28m today. Filming would be pushed back to June 1927, in part due to Jolson still being on tour with another show until the end of the month. Warners would begin production on the film in New York City in late June, starting with second unit shots of the Lower East Side and The Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, shooting as much as they could until Jolson arrived on set on July 11th.   Now, while the film has been regularly touted for nearly a century now as the first talking motion picture, the truth is, there's very little verbal dialogue in the film. The vast majority of dialogue in the movie was still handled with the traditional silent movie use of caption cards, and the very few scenes featuring what would be synchronized dialogue were saved for the end of production, due to the complexity of how those scenes would be captured. But the film would finish shooting in mid-September.   The $422k movie would have its world premiere at the Warner Brothers theatre in New York City not three weeks later, on October 6th, 1927, where the film would become a sensation. Sadly, none of the Warner Brothers would attend the premiere, as Sam Warner, the strongest advocate for Vitaphone at the studio, had died of pneumonia the night before the premiere, and his remaining brothers stayed in Los Angeles for the funeral. The reviews were outstanding, and the film would bring more than $2.5m in rental fees back to the studio.   At the first Academy Awards, held in May 1929 to honor the films released between August 1927 and July 1928, The Jazz Singer was deemed ineligible for the two highest awards, Outstanding Production, now known as Best Picture, and Unique and Artistic Production, which would only be awarded this one time, on the grounds that it would have been unfair to a sound picture compete against all the other silent films. Ironically, by the time the second Academy Awards were handed out, in April 1930, silent films would practically be a thing of the past. The success of The Jazz Singer had been that much a tectonic shift in the industry. The film would receive one Oscar nomination, for Alfred Cohn's screenplay adaptation, while the Warner Brothers would be given a special award for producing The Jazz Singer, the “pioneer outstanding talking picture which has revolutionized the industry,” as the inscription on the award read.   There would be a remake of The Jazz Singer produced in 1952, starring Danny Thomas as Korean War veteran who, thankfully, leaves the blackface in the past, and a one-hour television adaptation of the story in 1959, starring Jerry Lewis. And if that sounds strange to you, Jerry Lewis, at the height of his post-Lewis and Martin success, playing a man torn between his desire to be a successful performer and his shattered relationship with his cantor father… well, you can see it for yourself, if you desire, on the page for this episode on our website. It is as strange as it sounds.   At this point, we're going to fast forward a number of years in our story.   In the 1970s, Neil Diamond became one of the biggest musical stars in America. While he wanted to be a singer, Diamond would get his first big success in music in the 1960s as a songwriter, including writing two songs that would become big hits for The Monkees: I'm a Believer and A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.   And really quickly, let me throw out a weird coincidence here… Bob Rafelson, the creator of The Monkees who would go on to produce and/or direct such films as Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, was the nephew of Samson Raphaelson, the man who wrote the original story on which The Jazz Singer is based.   Anyway, after finding success as a songwriter, Diamond would become a major singing star with hits like Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon, Sweet Caroline, and Song Sung Blue. And in another weird coincidence, by 1972, Neil Diamond would become the first performer since Al Jolson to stage a one-man show at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.   By 1976, Neil Diamond is hosting specials on television, and one person who would see one of Diamond's television specials was a guy named Jerry Leider, an executive at Warner Brothers in charge of foreign feature production. Leider sees something in Diamond that just night be suited for the movies, not unlike Elvis Presley or Barbra Streisand, who in 1976 just happens to be the star of a remake of A Star Is Born for Warner Brothers that is cleaning up at the box office and at records stores nationwide. Leider is so convinced Neil Diamond has that X Factor, that unquantifiable thing that turns mere mortals into superstars, that Leider quits his job at Warners to start his own movie production company, wrestling the story rights to The Jazz Singer from Warner Brothers and United Artists, both of whom claimed ownership of the story, so he can make his own version with Diamond as the star.   So, naturally, a former Warners Brothers executive wanting to remake one of the most iconic movies in the Warner Brothers library is going to set it up at Warner Brothers, right?   Nope!   In the fall of 1977, Leider makes a deal with MGM to make the movie. Diamond signs on to play the lead, even before a script is written, and screenwriter Stephen H. Foreman is brought in to update the vaudeville-based original story into the modern day while incorporating Diamond's strengths as a songwriter to inform the story. But just before the film was set to shoot in September 1978, MGM would drop the movie, as some executives were worried the film would be perceived as being, and I am quoting Mr. Foreman here, “too Jewish.”   American Film Distribution, the American distribution arm of British production companies ITC and EMI, would pick the film up in turnaround, and set a May 1979 production start date. Sidney J. Furie, the Canadian filmmaker who had directed Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, would be hired to direct, and Jacqueline Bisset was pursued to play the lead female role, but her agent priced their client out of the running. Deborah Raffin would be cast instead. And to help bring the kids in, the producers would sign Sir Laurence Olivier to play Diamond's father, Cantor Rabinovitch. Sir Larry would get a cool million dollars for ten weeks of work.   There would, as always is with the case of making movies, be setbacks that would further delay the start of production. First, Diamond would hurt his back at the end of 1978, and needed to go in for surgery in early January 1979. Although Diamond had already written and recorded all the music that was going to be used in the movie, AFD considered replacing Diamond with Barry Manilow, who had also never starred in a movie before, but they would stick with their original star.   After nearly a year of rest, Diamond was ready to begin, and cameras would roll on the $10m production on January 7th, 1980. And, as always is with the case of making movies, there would be more setbacks as soon as production began. Diamond, uniquely aware of just how little training he had as an actor, struggled to find his place on set, especially when working with an actor of Sir Laurence Olivier's stature. Director Furie, who was never satisfied with the screenplay, ordered writer Foreman to come up with new scenes that would help lessen the burden Diamond was placing on himself and the production. The writer would balk at almost every single suggestion, and eventually walked off the film.   Herbert Baker, an old school screenwriter who had worked on several of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies, was brought in to punch up the script, but he would end up completely rewriting the film, even though the movie had been in production for a few weeks. Baker and Furie would spend every moment the director wasn't actively working on set reworking the story, changing the Deborah Raffin character so much she would leave the production. Her friend Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, would take over the role, after Cher, Liza Minnelli and Donna Summer were considered.   Sensing an out of control production, Sir Lew Grade, the British media titan owner of AFD, decided a change was needed. He would shut the production down on March 3rd, 1980, and fire director Furie. While Baker continued to work on the script, Sir Grade would find a new director in Richard Fleischer, the journeyman filmmaker whose credits in the 1950s and 1960s included such films as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Compulsion, Fantastic Voyage and Doctor Doolittle, but had fallen out of favor with most studios after a string of flops. In fact, this would be the second film in a year where Fleischer was hired to replace another director during the middle of production, having replaced Richard C. Sarafian on the action-adventure film Ashanti in 1979.   With Fleischer aboard, production on The Jazz Singer would resume in late March, and there was an immediate noticeable difference on set. Where Furie and many members of the crew would regularly defer to Diamond due to his stature as an entertainer, letting the singer spiral out of control if things weren't working right, Fleischer would calm the actor down and help work him back into the scene. Except for one scene, set in a recording studio, where Diamond's character needed to explode into anger. After a few takes that didn't go as well as he hoped, Diamond went into the recording booth where his movie band was stationed while Fleischer was resetting the shot, when the director noticed Diamond working himself into a rage. The director called “action,” and Diamond nailed the take as needed. When the director asked Diamond how he got to that moment, the singer said he was frustrated with himself that he wasn't hitting the scene right, and asked the band to play something that would make him angry. The band obliged.    What did they play?   A Barry Manilow song.   Despite the recasting of the leading female role, a change of director and a number of rewrites by two different writers during the production, the film was able to finish shooting at the end of April with only $3m added to the budget.   Associated Film would set a December 19th, 1980 release date for the film, while Capitol Records, owned at the time by EMI, would release the first single from the soundtrack, a soft-rock ballad called Love on the Rocks, in October, with the full soundtrack album arriving in stores a month later.   As expected for a new Neil Diamond song, Love on the Rocks was an immediate hit, climbing the charts all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.   Several days before the film opened in 241 theatres on December 19th, there was a huge, star-studded premiere at the Plitt Century Plaza Cinemas in Los Angeles. Peter Falk, Harvey Korman, Ed McMahon, Gregory Peck, Cesar Romero and Jon Voight were just a handful of the Hollywood community who came out to attend what was one of the biggest Hollywood premieres in years. That would seem to project a confidence in the movie from the distributor's standpoint.   Or so you'd think.   But as it turned out, The Jazz Singer was one of three movies Associated Film would release that day. Along with The Jazz Singer, they would release the British mystery film The Mirror Crack'd starring Angela Lansbury and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Richard Donner drama Inside Moves. Of the three movies, The Jazz Singer would gross the most that weekend, pulling in a modest $1.167m, versus The Mirror Crack'd's $608k from 340 screens, and Inside Moves's $201k from 67 screens.   But compared to Clint Eastwood's Any Which Way You Can, the Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder comedy Stir Crazy, and Dolly Parton/Lily Tomlin/Jane Fonda comedy 9 to 5, it wasn't the best opening they could hope for.   But the film would continue to play… well, if not exceptional, at least it would hold on to its intended audience for a while. Sensing the film needed some help, Capitol Records released a second single from the soundtrack, another power ballad called Hello Again, in January 1981, which would become yet another top ten hit for Diamond. A third single, the pro-immigration power-pop song America, would arrive in April 1981 and go to number eight on the charts, but by then, the film was out of theatres with a respectable $27.12m in tickets sold.   Contemporary reviews of the film were rather negative, especially towards Diamond as an actor. Roger Ebert noted in his review that there were so many things wrong in the film that the review was threatening to become a list of cinematic atrocities. His review buddy Gene Siskel did praise Lucie Arnaz's performance, while pointing out how out of touch the new story was with the immigrant story told by the original film. Many critics would also point out the cringe-worthy homage to the original film, where Diamond unnecessarily performs in blackface, as well as Olivier's overacting.   I recently watched the film for the first time since 1981, and it's not a great movie by any measurable metric. Diamond isn't as bad an actor as the reviews make him out to be, especially considering he's essentially playing an altered version of himself, a successful pop singer, and Lucie Arnaz is fairly good. The single best performance in the film comes from Caitlin Adams, playing Jess's wife Rivka, who, for me, is the emotional center of the film. And yes, Olivier really goes all-in on the scenery chewing. At times, it's truly painful to watch this great actor spin out of control.   There would be a few awards nominations for the film, including acting nominations for Diamond and Arnaz at the 1981 Golden Globes, and a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album, but most of its quote unquote awards would come from the atrocious Golden Raspberry organization, which would name Diamond the Worst Actor of the year and Olivier the Worst Supporting Actor during its first quote unquote ceremony, which was held in some guy's living room.   Ironically but not so surprisingly, while the film would be vaguely profitable for its producers, it would be the soundtrack to the movie that would bring in the lion's share of the profits. On top of three hit singles, the soundtrack album would sell more than five million copies just in the United States in 1980 and 1981, and would also go platinum in Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. While he would earn less than half a million dollars from the film, Diamond's cut of the soundtrack would net him a dollar per unit sold, earning him more than ten times his salary as an actor.   And although I fancied myself a punk and new wave kid at the end of 1980, I bought the soundtrack to The Jazz Singer, ostensibly as a gift for my mom, who loved Neil Diamond, but I easily wore out the grooves of the album listening to it over and over again. Of the ten new songs he wrote for the soundtrack, there's a good two or three additional tracks that weren't released as singles, including a short little ragtime-inspired ditty called On the Robert E. Lee, but America is the one song from the soundtrack I am still drawn to today. It's a weirdly uplifting song with its rhythmic “today” chants that end the song that just makes me feel good despite its inherent cheesiness.   After The Jazz Singer, Neil Diamond would only appear as himself in a film. Lucie Arnaz would never quite have much of a career after the film, although she would work quote regularly in television during the 80s and 90s, including a short stint as the star of The Lucie Arnaz Show, which lasted six episodes in 1985 before being cancelled. Laurence Olivier would continue to play supporting roles in a series of not so great motion pictures and television movies and miniseries for several more years, until his passing in 1989. And director Richard Fleischer would make several bad movies, including Red Sonja and Million Dollar Mystery, until he retired from filmmaking in 1987.   As we noted in our February 2020 episode about AFD, the act of releasing three movies on the same day was a last, desperate move in order to pump some much needed capital into the company. And while The Jazz Singer would bring some money in, that wasn't enough to cover the losses from the other two movies released the same day, or several other underperforming films released earlier in the year such as the infamous Village People movie Can't Stop the Music and Raise the Titanic. Sir Lew Grade would close AFD down in early 1981, and sell several movies that were completed, in production or in pre-production to Universal Studios. Ironically, those movies might have saved the company had they been able to hang on a little longer, as they included such films as The Dark Crystal, Frances, On Golden Pond, Sophie's Choice and Tender Mercies.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 99 is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Neil Diamond and The Jazz Singer.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

My guest today is Lucie Arnaz (Actress, Singer, Producer) & Jeffrey Sitcov, Founder of doorsofchange.org

For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/9ePwK9prXTc Suzanne LaRusch made her acting debut at the ripe old age of 18 months in a Kodak commercial. As a child actress she was featured in numerous television commercials and shows. After high school, Suzanne immediate began touring in dinner theater. Barefoot in the Park, Sweet Charity, Guys and Dolls and Born Yesterday just to name a few. Two years as dance captain for the Los Angeles Rams Cheerleaders launched several television acting appearances. Suzanne started in the world of impressions and LUCY in 1991 under special assignment to Universal Studios. She quickly came to the attention of Lucie and Desi Arnaz Jr., who authorized LaRusch to portray their mother's work in other venues. Desilu, too, Inc. and CBS Worldwide TV, Inc. (whom own the I LOVE LUCY property) have since recognized Suzanne as THE OFFICIAL LUCY PERFORMER. Over the years, she has entertained for former President George Bush, was a surprise guest for Roseanne at the 1997 Women in Film LUCY AWARDS, appeared on such national television programs as The Better Half with Dick Clark, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, hosted 5 appearances on HSN (Home Shopping Network) selling out of every I LOVE LUCY product offered. In 2007, Suzanne appeared for ABC on their number one rated hit reality show THE NEXT BEST THING. A national competition and Search for the Greatest Celebrity Impersonator. Suzanne wrote and performed all original material for the show. The Result? America voted her fourth runner up and Number One Female Celebrity impressionist in the country! 2009-2011 Suzanne toured in a woman show, AN EVENING WITH LUCILLE BALL which she co-authored with Lucille Ball's daughter Lucie Arnaz who also directed the piece.

Episode 17: Here is the lineup: The 1950s: The People's Choice, the 1960s: Atom Ant, the 1970s: The Blue Knight, the 1980s: The Lucie Arnaz Show, the 1990s: Amazing Grace, the 2000s: Blind Justice, and 2010s: Crowded. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pete-kastanes0/message

TVC 588.5: Ed welcomes singer, actress, producer, philanthropist, and Broadway star Lucie Arnaz (Here's Lucy, They're Playing Our Song, The Lucie Arnaz Show). Lucie recently joined forces with Doors of Change—the nonprofit organization that uses arts and music to keep homeless youth off the streets and, in many cases, help them find safe forever homes—to create awareness of the plight of homeless youth in the United States. There are more than 4 million homeless youth in the U.S. today, many of whom are between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. Topics this segment include how a desire to “go local, but think global” spurred Lucie's interest in becoming involved with Doors of Change. Jeffrey Sitcov, founder of Doors of Change, co-hosts. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TVC 588.6: Singer/actress Lucie Arnaz talks to Ed about how both Lucy and Desi, the Emmy-nominated documentary produced by Ron Howard and directed by Amy Poehler, and Let's Talk to Lucy, the daily talk show that Lucille Ball hosted for CBS radio in 1964-1965 (and which Lucie recently re-released as a podcast), present the personal side of her famous mom. Lucie Arnaz recently joined forces with Doors of Change, the nonprofit organization, founded by Jeffrey Sitcov, that uses arts and music to keep homeless youth off the streets and, in many cases, help them find safe forever homes. There are more than 4 million homeless youth in the U.S. today, many of whom are between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. Jeffrey Sitcov co-hosts this segment. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Dale is joined by Lucie Arnaz who has one of the most famous TV dads ever, Desi Arnaz, and people know her mom too, Lucille Ball. The two discuss the foundation for sitcoms that her parents made and how sitcoms compare now. Among other topics, they talk about parenting, the opening night of her […]

Host Tim Kash interviews Lucie Arnaz to discuss “Lucy and Desi,” the documentary about her parents, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.Prime Video Presents is a Prime Video podcast and an AT WILL MEDIA production. Watch the Amazon Original documentary Lucy and Desi, streaming now on Prime Video.

Our very special guest on this episode is Lucie Arnaz, who was born into show business as the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  She's performed on television, in movies, nightclubs and on Broadway.   Her website is http://www.luciearnaz.com/ Thanks to our sponsors of this episode! -->Castus: CASTUS is a team of business development experts that enables B2B e-commerce to streamline the relationship between wholesalers and resellers. They create custom digital storefronts that cater to both your products and buyers to drive online orders and strengthen brand loyalty. Castus's in-depth expertise working in backend logistics to frontend consumer experiences, and everything in between makes them the perfect full-cycle partner for your business growth.  Visit their website, castusglobal.com/nobodytoldme to set up a no-obligation, one-on-one consultation with one of their experts and learn more! -->Aurate: Aurate is a fine jewelry brand which offers amazing quality at affordable prices. Because Aurate sells directly to you, without the middleman markup, they can offer the same quality as traditional 5th avenue brands at a fraction of the cost. Aurate's gold feels substantial and the diamonds sparkle and shine. Aurate is looking to set the standard for women because they deserve the best—always reminding them to set the gold bar high!  Go to www.auratenewyork.com/nobodytoldme and use promo code nobodytoldme to get 20% off. --> AirMedCare Network: AirMedCare Network provides world-class air transport services to the nearest, appropriate hospital or trauma center. AMCN Members have the added value of knowing their flight expenses are completely covered when flown by an AMCN provider. For as little as $85 a year, it covers your entire household, every day, 24/7, even when traveling. AMCN is the largest medical air transport membership in the country, covering 38 states. For just pennies a day, you can worry less about what matters most. This is security no family should be without. Now, as a Nobody Told Me! listener, you'll get up to a $50 eGift Card when you join.  Visit www.airmedcarenetwork.com/nobody and use the offer code NOBODY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth interview with Mark Sendroff, Superstar Entertainment “Lawyer to the Stars” About Harvey's guest: It's often said that show business is 10% “show” and 90% “business”.  So lawyers play a HUGE role in the entertainment industry.   Today's guest is Mark Sendroff, one of the most respected and accomplished entertainment lawyers in America.   He's commonly referred to as “the lawyer to the stars”, because his client list is a veritable who's who in the world of theatre, film, television and music, including Linda Lavin, Frank Langella, Lucie Arnaz, Bob Mackie, Marc Shaiman, AND some of the giants in the business who are no longer with us, including Bette Davis, Rosemary Clooney, Rex Harrison, Barbara Cook and so many more.   He represents writers, directors, musicians and choreographers of such Broadway shows as “Kinky Boots”, “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”, “Hairspray”, “Rock of Ages”, “The Full Monty”, “Legally Blonde”, and dozens more, including the upcoming Broadway musicals, “Some Like it Hot” and “Smash”.    He's represented the stars of TV shows like “The Nanny”, “Two and a Half Men”, and “Black-ish”.  He's a much sought-after speaker and lecturer at law schools, and he was named “Broadway's Top Legal Eagle” by Broadway World.com.  And he's been on the New York Times prestigious list of Super Lawyers every year since 2010. For more interviews and podcasts go to: https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com/ https://sendroffbaruch.com/mark-d-sendroff/https://www.linkedin.com/company/sendroff-&-baruch-llp #MarkSendroff   #harveybrownstoneinterviews 

Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth interview with Lucie Arnaz, Star of Stage, Screen, TV, Recording and Concert Artist, Daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz About Harvey's guest: Today's special guest, Lucie Arnaz, first appeared as Kim Carter, on her legendary mother's wonderful TV show, “Here's Lucy”.   For 6 seasons, she was America's favourite teenager, singing and dancing not only with her fabulous Mom, Lucille Ball, and her brother, Desi Arnaz Jr., but with everyone from Ginger Rogers to Wayne Newton to Donny Osmond.   On the big screen, she won a Golden Globe nomination for her performance opposite Neil Diamond and Sir Lawrence Olivier in “The Jazz Singer”.  She also co-starred in “Billy Jack Goes to Washington”, “Second Thoughts”, “Down to You”, “Wild Seven”, and the thought-provoking and multi-award winning film, “Smoking Non-Smoking”.  She starred in numerous TV movies including “Who Killed The Black Dahlia?”, “Washington Mistress”, “The Mating Season”, “Who Gets The Friends?” and “Abduction of Innocence”.    On Broadway, she played the unforgettably wacky Sonia Wolsk, in “They're Playing Our Song”, which earned her The Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award, the Theatre World Award, and the Outer Critic's Circle Award.  She's also starred on Broadway in “Lost in Yonkers”, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “Pippin”.  She's demonstrated incredible versatility on the stage, in dozens of productions ranging from “Seesaw” to “Whose Life Is It Anyway?”, “Vanities”,  “My One and Only”, “The Witches of Eastwick” and so many more great shows.  As a vocalist, she dazzled us with her albums entitled, “Just in Time”, “Latin Roots” and “Lucie Live at FINESTINE's at the Niko”.   And if that weren't enough, she's a spectacular nightclub and concert artist, most recently performing for sell-out crowds in her hit show, “LUCIE ARNAZ: I GOT THE JOB! SONGS FROM MY MUSICAL PAST”.    In 1993, she won an Emmy Award for her documentary TV special about her parents entitled, “Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie”.  In 2001, she got ANOTHER Emmy nomination for “The I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special.”  And most recently, she appeared in the highly acclaimed, intensely emotional Amazon documentary about her parents, entitled, “Lucy and Desi”.  For more interviews and podcasts go to: https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com/ http://www.luciearnaz.com/https://www.facebook.com/luciearnazofficial/https://twitter.com/realluciearnazhttp://instagram.com/luciearnazofficial #LucieArnaz   #harveybrownstoneinterviews

For Video Editon, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/OKnJSAuc1z4   Lucie Arnaz began her long career in a recurring role on the television program “The Lucy Show.” At fifteen, she became a series regular on “Here's Lucy,” and she later starred in her own series “The Lucie Arnaz Show.” On film, Lucie has co-starred in The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond and Sir Laurence Olivier, as well as starring in several made for television movies including Who Killed The Black Dahlia and Down to You. On the stage, Lucie created the role of Kathy in the West Coast Premiere of Vanities at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles before starring as Gittel Mosca in the first national company of Seesaw alongside Tommy Tune. Lucie's Broadway credits include They're Playing Our Song, Lost in Yonkers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Pippin. Arnaz and her husband of thirty-eight years, actor/writer Laurence Luckinbill, teamed up to form ArLuck Entertainment, a film and television production company, and together produced the documentary Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie, which was honored with an Emmy. During her distinguished career, Lucie has received numerous accolades including a Golden Globe nomination, a Theatre World Award, and Chicago's famed Sarah Siddons award.  

It's mother's Day weekend. So today on Now I've Heard Everything a conversation with a woman whose mother was, and is, one of the world's most famous women, the great Lucille Ball. I met Lucie Arnaz in 1997 when she was on tour promoting a CD-ROM project she had created called "Lucy and Desi: The Scrapbook. She was also promoting a companion project, a kind of do-it-yourself family, scrapbook and album, and she was encouraging other sons and daughters to create family memories. Now, you'll probably chuckle a bit when you hear us discussing such "cutting edge" technologies as the CD-ROM, but in 1997, they really were.

Steve Dale speaks with actress and jazz singer Lucie Arnaz, daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (stars of I Love Lucy). Lucie shares her opinion on the tribute performances at the Oscars and also talks about what it feels like to be back on the road performing. She also shares stories about her parents, talks […]

Hollywood legend Lucie Arnaz stops by to discuss her career on stage, screen and television. 

We finally review and share our opinions and thoughts on the much anticipated and beautifully directed documentary on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, 'Lucy and Desi' from Amy Poehler currently streaming on Amazon Prime. The film certainly feels like a modern version of the "Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie" from the early 90's produced by Lucie Arnaz. We discuss what we loved about the film and some of the bits of information and hardly or never-before seen videos of Lucy and Desi at the start of 'I Love Lucy'. We have some fun discussing the friendships Lucille created with such great icons as Carol Burnett and Bette Midler and how Desi shaped the world of television and entertainment for the Latin community. •• Please rate and review our podcast! ••• Connect with all things 'Having A Ball' ••• YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDXuCxbfhUNJzJ_8wMfMD_w/featured Having A Ball Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Having-a-Ball-Podcast-103319291812682 Having A Ball Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/havingaballpod/ Erika on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikamurrietta/ Erika on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erika.murrietta.3 Erika on Twitter: https://twitter.com/erikamurrietta Ziva on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/luciana.ehrlinger Ziva on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziva_e/ Email: havingaballpod@gmail.com ••• Photos: CBS/ Getty/ Desilu Music provided by: Feather Duster via SilvermanSound https://www.silvermansound.com/free-music/feather-duster

Actress Lucie Arnaz is the daughter of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Her brother is Desi Arnaz Jr. Her first acting appearance was playing Kim Carter, the daughter of Lucy, who was played by her real-life mother. She appeared in many TV shows including “Fantasy Island,” “Murder She Wrote,” and “Law and Order.” She won an Emmy for her 1993 documentary about her parents “Lucy and Desi: A Home movie.” She won the theatre world award in her Broadway debut, the musical “They're Playing Our Song.” She appeared in other stage shows including an award-winning tour with Tommy Tune in “My One and Only.” Lucie's film credits include “The Jazz Singer” with Neil Diamond. She had her own TV series “The Lucie Arnaz Show” which lasted less than a year. Lucie and her brother produced the Amazon film “Being the Ricardos.” She thought Nicole Kidman's portrayal of her mother was amazing.  Lucie was amazingly nice when I gave her an early morning wake up call.

Actress and comedian Amy Poehler tells “The View” about taking a deep dive into the personal lives of Lucille Ball and Desie Arnaz with the help of their daughter Lucie Arnaz while directing the new documentary “Lucy and Desi.” In Hot Topics, the co-hosts react to Florida Gov. DeSantis scolding students for wearing masks, and more.

For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/IpI_P8zHKCA Blink & You Might Miss Me is a humorous look back at Larry Blum's personal journey in show business. Sharing engaging stories, rare clips and photos from his long and varied career, Larry illustrates the unique opportunity he has had to experience celebrity up close and personal. Whether dancing in A Chorus Line onstage, in the feature film cult classic Xanadu or on TV's Solid Gold, or acting on every major daytime drama, Larry's love of the business is apparent. He also enjoys the honor of escorting the glamorous women of Hollywood as they ascend the stairs to the stage to accept various awards. Though his name may not be a household word, Blink & You Might Miss Me is his moment to take center stage. The show is skillfully directed by film and television producer/writer Stan Zimmerman. It was originally produced in Los Angeles by Combined Artform. Larry Blum began his career in show business dancing in productions of I Married An Angel starring Phyllis Newman, Bye Bye Birdie starring Lucie Arnaz and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying starring Van Johnson. After playing the role of Greg in the international production of A Chorus Line, Larry settled in Los Angeles and danced on The Third Barry Manilow Special, The Bea Arthur Special, The Tonight Show, the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics, The People's Choice Awards, and Solid Gold. His film credits include Xanadu and 18 Again (with George Burns), and he has appeared on the television series Roseanne, The Jeffersons, The Golden Girls, and The Garry Shandling Show, among others.

More from Ben Mankiewicz's fascinating interview with Lucie Arnaz, who speaks about working with her mom, growing up on the RKO studio lot, and what made I Love Lucy special. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WTOP Entertainment Reporter Jason Fraley marks the release of the new film "Being the Ricardos" by chatting with Lucie Arnaz, daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. They spoke in 2019 when Fathom Events screened five classic, colorized episodes of "I Love Lucy" in movie theaters nationwide.

Lucie Arnaz has given the Amazon production "Being The Ricardos" the thumbs up. Way up! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alva-riley/support

Download the episode Front Row Classics ends the month of September with a very special conversation. Brandon is honored to spend some time with the incredible, Lucie Arnaz. The interview covers a breadth of topics including Arnaz’s career as an actress, singer, Broadway & nightclub performer, award-winning producer and business woman. Lucie also shares personal … Continue reading Ep. 86- Interview with Lucie Arnaz →

Front Row Classics ends the month of September with a very special conversation. Brandon spends some time with the incredible, Lucie Arnaz. The interview covers a breadth of topics including Arnaz's career as an actress, singer, Broadway & nightclub performer, award-winning producer and business woman. Lucie also shares personal memories of her legendary parents, Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz. We also touch on the upcoming 70th anniversary of I Love Lucy. Many special Lucy projects are also coming down the pipeline and Lucie generously provides insight on several.  For more information on Lucie's upcoming performance dates, you can go to LucieArnaz.com. You can also find the Let's Talk to Lucy podcasts on your favorite podcast app. 

Download the episode Front Row Classics ends the month of September with a very special conversation. Brandon is honored to spend some time with the incredible, Lucie Arnaz. The interview covers a breadth of topics including Arnaz’s career as an actress, singer, Broadway & nightclub performer, award-winning producer and business woman. Lucie also shares personal … Continue reading Ep. 86- Interview with Lucie Arnaz →

Lucille Ball made her name on TV, but she also had a radio show called “Let's Talk to Lucy.” A trove of old reel-to-reel tapes has been pulled from her archives. They include interviews with the biggest stars of the day, plus her close friends and co-stars. Most of these conversations haven't been heard since they originally aired in the mid-1960s. Now hundreds of them are airing on SiriusXM and will eventually be available wherever you get your podcasts. Ball used many of those interviews to gauge how well she performed as a real-life mom. That's according to her daughter Lucie Arnaz. “She was always searching for answers herself. So she would talk to Jeanne Martin … or Debbie Reynolds, other women who had children, and she asked them, ‘How do you do it?'” Arnaz says. She adds, “She didn't have much of a happy-go-lucky, bonded childhood with her own mother. So when she decided to have kids, she was kind of flying blind, as most of us are.” Press Play also gets reviews of the latest films: “Cinderella,” “Karen,” and “Unapologetic.”

This week, Paul goes behind the curtain with Lucie Arnaz the actress/singer/dancer daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Who knew that Lucille Ball hosted a radio interview show back in 1964 – 66 which aired on the CBS Network. What an historical archive of interviews with Hollywood heavyweights including: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Dean […]

Lucie Arnaz reports that a segment in the upcoming movie "Being The Ricardos " never happened! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alva-riley/support

The daughter of the late-great Lucille Ball, Lucie Arnaz joins Lisa and David Friedman to dish on her mother's recently unearthed radio show recordings. Photo:  iStock / Getty Images Plus batuhan toker

08/23/21 - Lucie Arnaz And David Freidman by The Lisa Wexler Show

In part 2 of our conversation, Dana stops by a number of important way-stations as he takes us back and forth between Ohio and New York...We visit bottoming-out, the distorted world of "a musical maestro of self-destruction," finally facing the truth of who he was - and finding alignment, responsibility, compassion, self-acceptance, freedom and gratitude.That's a lot - and barely speaks to the ground we cover!Dana is a New York-based American composer and musical director whose works have been performed in NYC, the West End, and around the world. His off-Broadway musical, Zombie Prom, has reached cult status and was filmed starring RuPaul and Katy Mixon. There have been more than 3,000 different productions around the world.Dana’s next two musicals – The Fix and The Witches of Eastwick - were produced by Sir Cameron Mackintosh. The Fix premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, starring John Barrowman and directed by Academy Award® winner Sam Mendes. The Witches of Eastwick premiered at the Drury Lane Theatre on the West End starring Ian McShane and Lucie Arnaz. It subsequently has had major productions in Australia, Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United States. Both The Fix and The Witches of Eastwick were nominated for four Olivier awards (including Best New Musical) and, subsequently, Washington’s Helen Hayes Award.There are over 300,000 performing artists in the US and the majority make $25,000 a year or less. As a certified coach, Dana helps performers and creative artists worldwide increase their income and creative opportunities by utilizing his 30-plus years of professional theatre experience working with the world's foremost producers and musical theatre artists.You can learn more about Dana, his music and his work on LinkedIn, on Facebook and by visiting danaprowe.com.  You can reach him at dana@danaprowe.com

Dana Rowe grew up in a home surrounded by art and music, the latter of which, as he puts it, "became my first language" and "safe place."In this first part of our conversation, Dana shares the story of how the wisdom of an early teacher - Mrs. Martin - pointed him toward a lifetime of writing music "for the dramatic moment.  We also touch on what art is, why it matters and so much more...Dana is a New York-based American composer and musical director whose works have been performed in NYC, the West End, and around the world. His off-Broadway musical, Zombie Prom, has reached cult status and was filmed starring RuPaul and Katy Mixon. There have been more than 3,000 different productions around the world.Dana’s next two musicals – The Fix and The Witches of Eastwick - were produced by Sir Cameron Mackintosh. The Fix premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, starring John Barrowman and directed by Academy Award® winner Sam Mendes. The Witches of Eastwick premiered at the Drury Lane Theatre on the West End starring Ian McShane and Lucie Arnaz. It subsequently has had major productions in Australia, Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United States. Both The Fix and The Witches of Eastwick were nominated for four Olivier awards (including Best New Musical) and, subsequently, Washington’s Helen Hayes Award.There are over 300,000 performing artists in the US and the majority make $25,000 a year or less. As a certified coach, Dana helps performers and creative artists worldwide increase their income and creative opportunities by utilizing his 30-plus years of professional theatre experience working with the world's foremost producers and musical theatre artists.You can learn more about Dana, his music and his work on LinkedIn, on Facebook and by visiting danaprowe.com.  You can reach him at dana@danaprowe.com

Our guest is Tedd Firth was born on November 16, 1976 and grew up in Hudson Falls, NY. Raised in a musical family, (parents Pam and Ted were both music teachers and performing musicians in the area, brother Patrick is also a musician) Tedd began playing the piano at an early age and started taking lessons when he was five. Tedd's jazz piano studies began as a teenager with Lee Shaw in Albany, NY. Following graduation from Hudson Falls High School in 1994, Tedd attended William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ, receiving a BM in jazz piano performance in 1998. He went on to receive a MM degree in jazz piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music in 2000. While in college, Tedd began laying the groundwork for his professional career as a musician. Over the last 20 years Tedd has become one of the first-call pianists in the New York City area for performance and recording work in several styles. In particular, specializing as an accompanist for vocalists, he has appeared in concert many times with some of the brightest stars on Broadway and the biggest names in the jazz world including: Barbara Cook, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Maureen McGovern, Michael Feinstein, Marilyn Maye, Tom Wopat, Joshua Bell, Elaine Paige, Tony DeSare, Linda Lavin, Christine Ebersole, Lucie Arnaz, Lee Ann Womack, Faith Prince, John Schneider, Melissa Errico, Karen Akers, Mary Cleere Haran, Margaret Whiting, Carol Sloane and Jennifer Roberts. New York appearances include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Blue Note, Birdland, the Iridium, the Algonquin, the Cafe Carlyle and Feinstein's/54 Below. Numerous national appearances include a performance at the White House. As an arranger/orchestrator, Tedd's work has been performed by most major American symphony orchestras as well as Bernadette Peters and Liza Minnelli. Television appearances include "The Today Show," "Live From Lincoln Center --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/RickLertzman/support

Our guest is the legendary talk show host and author Bill Boggs. For nearly 50 years, Bill has interviewed the greats on his talks shows that include Midday Live (for 11 years) in New York City, Bill Boggs Corner Table on The Food Network, My Generation on PBS, Comedy Tonight (syndicated) and others. He has also written several best selling books. Bill also has a new talk show that starts today (Friday) with Lucie Arnaz. His new book is “The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog as Told to Bill Boggs” and much more! Hear about it on this wonderful podcast --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/RickLertzman/support

A REBROADCAST:LUCIE ARNAZ has had an extremely diversified career spanning over forty years in show business.  She has starred on the Broadway stage in THEY'RE PLAYING OUR, LOST IN YONKERS, GRACE AND GLORIE and DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS; in First National companies of SEESAW, WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY?, SOCIAL SECURITY, and MY ONE AND ONLY; and in regional theatres in WONDERFUL TOWN, MASTER CLASS, CABARET, THE GUARDSMAN, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, I DO! I DO!, EDUCATING RITA, VANITIES, L'IL ABNER, BYE BYE BIRDIE, ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, MACK AND MABLE, as well as in the London premiere of WITCHES OF EASTWICK, and at Florida's Coconut Grove Playhouse in ONCE REMOVED, A PICASSO, ANN AND DEBBIE, and SONIA FLEW. She has appeared on television in THE LUCIE ARNAZ SHOW, ABDUCTION OF INNOCENCE, SONS AND DAUGHTERS, THE BLACK DAHLIA, THE MATING SEASON, WHO GETS THE FRIENDS?, WASHINGTON MISTRESS, DEATH SCREAM and HERE'S LUCY; on the big screen in THE JAZZ SINGER, DOWN TO YOU, SECOND THOUGHTS, BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON, WILD SEVEN and THE PACK. Lucie has performed on the ACADEMY AWARDS, at THE WHITE HOUSE, and internationally in concert.  She was Executive Producer of the I LOVE LUCY 50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL and LUCY & DESI: A HOME MOVIE.  She produced two CD-ROMS, and two albums, JUST IN TIME and LATIN ROOTS.  She also travels the lecture circuit (SURVIVING SUCCESS). Lucie currently serves on the Board of Directors of The American Theatre Wing. With her brother, Desi, she manages Desilu, too, LLC.  With her husband, actor-writer Laurence Luckinbill, she manages five children.  Lucie invites you to visit her online at WWW.LUCIEARNAZ.COM.