• Lucille Ball was 40 and Desi Arnaz was 34 when I Love Lucy premiered in 1951. Makeup artists made her look like she was 28.

        • Vivian Vance was 42 when the show premiered. Makeup artists made her look closer in age to co-star William Frawley, 64.

        • I Love Lucy was first offered to ABC, the fourth-place network behind CBS, NBC and DuMont, according to The Lucy Book by Geoffrey Mark Fidelman (Renaissance Books; $19.95).

        • CBS refused to hire Mr. Arnaz as Ricky, saying that nobody would believe that Ms. Ball was married to a Cuban bandleader — when in fact she was married to a Cuban bandleader. They wed in 1940, after meeting in the film Too Many Girls.

        • CBS relented after the couple performed a vaudeville act written by Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. “They were a big hit. They did it to show they could work together,” Ms. Pugh Davis says.

        • “The Girls Want to Go to a Night Club,” the Oct. 15, 1951, debut episode, was the fourth show produced. It aired as the premiere because everyone liked the slapstick comedy in the second act.

        • In the early stages of preproduction, the main I Love Lucy characters were named Lucy and Larry Lopez.

        • The I Love Lucy pilot was shot on March 2, 1951, when Ms. Ball was five months pregnant with Lucie. It was used to solicit a sponsor and network. The episode did not air on CBS until 1990, a year after Ms. Ball's death.

        • Jerry Hausner played Ricky's agent, the fifth regular character in the pilot. Producers reduced him to a recurring role because of the strong four core characters.

        • Ms. Ball gave birth to Desi Arnaz Jr. on Jan. 19, 1953, the same day Lucy Ricardo gave birth to Little Ricky on TV. The show was watched by a record 44 million people.

        • When Walter Winchell reported in 1953 that Ms. Ball was a registered Communist in the 1930s, Desi reportedly told the studio audience before filming that night: “The only thing red about Lucy is her hair — and we're not sure about that.”

        • I Love Lucy morphed into a series of one-hour specials, The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, in 1957. The stars divorced in March 1960, a month before the final episode aired with guest stars Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams.

        • William Frawley died in 1966. Vivian Vance died in 1979.

        • Desi Arnaz died in 1986 at age 69, a month after ABC canceled the short-lived Life with Lucy.

        • Lucille Ball died in 1989 at age 78, eight days after heart surgery.

        — John Kiesewetter

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