The True History Behind 'Being the Ricardos'

Few gossip columnists wielded as much influence in mid-20th century Hollywood as Walter Winchell, a syndicated newspaper writer and radio commentator known for his scintillating indictments of prominent public figures. As political winds shifted between the 1930s and ’50s, Winchell targeted celebrities for offenses both real and imagined. Aviator Charles Lindbergh, for instance, attracted the columnist’s ire for espousing anti-Semitic views and expressing his support for the Nazis. Winchell also accused French performer Josephine Baker, who spoke out against racial discrimination in New York City, of harboring communist sympathies. Perhaps most surprisingly to modern audiences, the media tastemaker even singled out television icon Lucille Ball.

Known for her career-making turn as Lucy Ricardo, the ditzy star of the CBS sitcom “I Love Lucy,” Ball skyrocketed to fame when the show premiered in the fall of 1951. She attracted Winchell’s unwelcome attention two years later, in September 1953, when she was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as part of its quest to root out communism in the entertainment industry. Tuning in to the radio personality’s Sunday evening broadcast from her ranch in California’s San Fernando Valley, the actress heard Winchell offer up a scandalous “blind item”: “The top television comedienne has been confronted with her membership in the Communist Party!” Initially reluctant to identify herself as the comedienne in question, Ball changed her tune after publicist Howard Strickling suggested that Winchell was referring to comic Imogene Coca. “I resent that, Howard,” she reportedly declared. “Everyone knows that I’m the top comedienne!”

Ball’s brush with the so-called Red Scare is one of three central conflicts dramatized in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos, a new biopic that unfolds over five days in September 1952. The Trial of the Chicago 7 writer and director condenses the historical timeline for dramatic effect, placing the 1953 communism scandal, Ball’s 1952–53 pregnancy with son Desi Arnaz, Jr. and the 1955 publication of a tabloid article detailing Desi’s “wild night out” within the same week. Featuring Nicole Kidman as Ball and Javier Bardem as her husband Desi Arnaz, the Amazon Studios film strives to reveal a previously unseen side of the famous couple’s personal and professional relationship. As Sorkin tells Entertainment Weekly, “The only thing better than a story people don’t know is a story that people think they know but they’re wrong.”

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Sorkin, who wrote and directed Being the Ricardos, centers the action around the filming of a single “I Love Lucy” episode, “Fred and Ethel Fight.” J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda play William Frawley and Vivian Vance, whose characters, Fred and Ethel Mertz, respectively, lend the episode its title.

Long article at:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-true-history-behind-being-the-ricardos-180979194/

Being the Ricardos features Nicole Kidman (left) as Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem (right) as Desi Arnaz.
Amazon Studios
Meilan Solly