Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson (born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.; November 17, 1925 – October 2, 1985) was an American actor. Hudson is generally known for his turns as a leading man in the 1950s and 1960s and is viewed as a prominent actor and 'heartthrob' of the Hollywood Golden Age. He achieved stardom with roles in films such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Giant (1956), and found continued success with a string of romantic comedies co-starring Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). After appearing in films like Seconds (1966), Tobruk (1967) and Ice Station Zebra (1968) in the late 1960s, Hudson began a second career in television through the 1970s and '80s, starring in the popular mystery series McMillan & Wife and the soap opera Dynasty.

Hudson was voted Star of the Year, Favorite Leading Man, and similar titles by numerous film magazines. He completed nearly 70 films and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson died in 1985, becoming the first major celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness.

I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on CBS. After the series ended in 1957, however, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials, running from 1957 to 1960, known first as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.

The show, which was the first scripted television program to be shot on 35 mm film in front of a studio audience, won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations. Another award that the show won was the coveted Peabody Award for "recognition of distinguished achievement in television."

I Love Lucy was the most watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and was the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings (an accomplishment later matched only by The Andy Griffith Show in 1968 and Seinfeld in 1998). The show is still syndicated in dozens of languages across the world, and remains popular, with an American audience of 40 million each year. A colorized version of its Christmas episode attracted more than 8 million viewers when CBS aired it in prime time in 2013 – 62 years after the show premiered. A second colorized special, featuring the "L.A. At Last!" and "Lucy and Superman" episodes, aired on May 17, 2015, attracting 6.4 million viewers.

List of I Love Lucy episodes

I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). All 180 episodes aired on Mondays.

The pilot, which was not made for broadcast and did not air as part of the show's original run, is generally not counted as one of the episodes and therefore is not listed below. It is, however, included on DVD and Blu-ray releases of the first season.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (1951–52)

Season 2 (1952–53)

Season 3 (1953–54)

Season 4 (1954–55)

Season 5 (1955–56)

Season 6 (1956–57)

The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour episodes

After season six, the series was renamed The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show for its original broadcast run and rather than airing as weekly half hour series, hour-long episodes were produced to run occasionally during the year. There were thirteen hour-long shows. The first five were broadcast as specials during the 1957-58 television season. The other eight episodes were broadcast as part of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse from October 6, 1958, to April 1, 1960. The series was subsequently broadcast in syndication as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour and We Love Lucy. This show had the same cast as I Love Lucy, employed many of the other same actors, and featured many famous guest stars. Of the original I Love Lucy cast, besides the principals, only Lucy's mother appeared in any Comedy Hour episode. She appears in season 3, episode 2 'The Ricardos Go To Japan' as Little Ricky's babysitter.

I Love Lucy (film)

I Love Lucy, aka I Love Lucy: The Movie is a 1953 American feature film spin-off of the sitcom I Love Lucy. Except for one test screening in Bakersfield, California, the film was never theatrically released and was shelved.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz co-star. Some scenes were directed by Edward Sedgwick, the final film work of his long Hollywood career. Sedgwick died in March 1953.

Plot

The film plays out with three first-season episodes edited together into a single story: "The Benefit", "Breaking the Lease", and "The Ballet", with new footage included between episodes to help transition the episodes into one coherent storyline. As the series routinely took the format of filming scenes in chronological order, this adds to the "show within a show within a show" format of the film, as viewers watch the cast perform the episodes live. The film itself ends with a "curtain call", as the cast comes out and Arnaz thanks the audience for their support.

Cast