LIFE WITH LUCY

Recently widowed Lucy Barker moves in with her married daughter Margo, son-in-law Ted (who is the son of her late husband Sam's business partner Curtis MacGibbon), and her grandchildren Becky and Kevin. They all live together in a three-story, clapboard house in Pasadena, California.

Ted is a law student, and Curtis (and now Lucy) own M&B Hardware, a small retail store. Curtis returns from a vacation in Hawaii, and finds that Lucy has installed herself in his business and at his son's home. Not trusting her around the grandchildren, he decides to keep an eye on Lucy and move in to Ted and Margo's house as well.

Episode Video:

Special Notes: There is a tremendous audience reaction as Lucille makes her first appearance. Her hair (which is a wig) is the same style as the final episodes of Here's Lucy. Among other tidbits, Lucy never had a face-lift, but instead had makeup artists pull back her skin temporarily with adhesive tape, then conceal the tape under her wig.

Lucy never memorized any of her lines on the show, and instead used cue cards. This is normally verboten by any actors, even sitcom or soap opera actors who have to learn their lines quickly. Apparently, Lucy had been doing this for more than ten years. She may have continued to use cue cards because of stage fright or a bad memory or maybe a little of both.

There were very few screw-ups on the Life With Lucy set; Lucy ran a very tight ship, and everybody knew their lines (even if Lucy had to read hers). Gale Gordon was particularly good at his part, and never blew his lines once during filming.