Word: rko
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Battered old movie posters still flapped in the Hollywood breezes on the high walls of the old RKO lot last week. But towering above the lot, in huge black letters on the freshly painted silver water tower, loomed a new hallmark: Desilu Studios. Below it, cameramen were already shooting TV films on five of the lot's 14 stages, while an army of wreckers, carpenters, painters and plasterers exorcised the past for the arrival of the new owners: onetime Bongo Drummer Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y De Acha III, 41, and his round-eyed, henna-crested wife, Comedienne Lucille Ball...
...Desi and Lucy, the trip to the RKO lot was at once a sentimental journey and an ironic triumph. It is where they met, fell in love-and left in the early '40s under the shadow of Desi's dropped option. Since then, babyfaced. Cuban-born Desi has become not only half of TV's most popular comedy team, but the self-made boss of a company that produces, or takes a hand in producing, 27 TV shows.* This year on three different lots Desilu will grind out 270 hours of filmed television entertainment-more than twice...
...Armand Hammer, 59, board chairman of Mutual Broadcasting System, stepped in as president, replacing Paul Roberts, 44. Hammer, an independent oilman, formed the syndicate that bought Mutual from RKO Teleradio Pictures, Inc. last August, installed Roberts, a Los Angeles radio executive, to pull /the money-losing network into the black. While Roberts' big stress on music and news brought MBS to the break-even point, he and Hammer reportedly disagreed on the future plans. Hammer said he would remain president only until he could get someone else...
...Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who in their old movie days met and fell in love at the RKO Studios, were well on their way last week to owning a big memento of their pre-TV past: the RKO lot itself. As bosses of TV's thriving Desilu Productions (I Love Lucy, Our Miss Brooks, December Bride), the couple offered about $6,000,000 for RKO's 15-stage lot in Hollywood plus its eleven-stage studios in Culver City and its valuable stock footage library. The deal-perhaps the most dramatic example...
...from 13 to 19. Then they voted in nine management nominees to fill ten empty seats (including four recent resignations). The tenth seat fell to the management's critics, who put all their cumulative votes behind Veteran Movie Executive Sam Briskin, 60, onetime production chief for Columbia and RKO. Final count: 13 directors for Vogel, six for his critics...