Word: desi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...long, unsponsored night. Like the others, Kraft and Studio One have both been in a long slide downward; both have been subjected to recent, last-gasp transfusions; neither revived. Studio One will be replaced by Desilu Playhouse, a series of 48 hour-long films produced in Hollywood by Desi Arnaz. Westinghouse paid $11 million for the package, claimed to be the largest single deal in TV history. Kraft will cut down to half an hour, which will be occupied by Comedian Milton Berle-his first steady job on television since...
...wife started I Love Lucy on a shoestring, they knew so little about the business that they sent their cameraman to Manhattan to pick up pointers from live shows. Today even the janitors on his payroll of 2,500 still call him by his first name, but Desi is equally authoritative behind the cameras directing a pilot film or rattling off shrewd decisions in long-distance calls with network brass, sponsors and ad agencies...
...make a deal. He beat two major bidders for the RKO studios when he strolled off a Lucy set one day last fall and made a phone call nailing down the purchase from General Tire & Rubber Co., RKO's owner since 1955, for a bargain $6,150,000. Desi usually spends ten hours a day at work, chauffeurs himself in his black Thunderbird from the Beverly Hills mansion where he and Lucy live with their two children, Lucie Desirée, 6, and Desi IV, 5, manages three-day golf weekends at another home in Palm Springs...
...Desi will plow $7,500,000 into his 1958-59 production schedule so confidently that "this time we're going to do the shows first and then go looking for a sponsor." The main project: Desilu Playhouse, which, with Desi as host, will offer weekly hour-long dramatic and musical productions, plus a dozen 90-minute spectaculars, including Don Quixote and six Desi-Lucy comedies. All the shows will be tailored to this Arnaz pattern: "No violence, no psychopaths, no dirtiness. There will never be any need to send the kids to bed when we come...
...Desilu's own shows (current, shooting, or enjoying profitable reruns): the hour-long Desi-Lucy shows (which have won this season's highest Nielsen ratings among spectaculars), Whirlybirds, Official Detective, Walter Winchell File, Sheriff of Cochisc, This Is Alice, Ann Southern Show, The Texan, Willy, The Whiting Girls, Ernestine. Shows that lease production facilities from Desilu: December Bride, Danny Thomas Show, Eve Arden Show, Red Skelton's filmed shows, Lineup, Wyatt Earp, The Real McCoys, Jim Bowie, Meet McGraw, Mr. Adams and Eve, Zone Grey Theater, Trackdown, Richard Diamond, Hey, Jeannie, Four Star Playhouse, Alcoa-Goodyear Theater...