Best-selling author Michael Karol (Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia) is at it again, with a book of lists honoring Lucy's 100th birthday and the 60th anniversary of I Love Lucy - both of which occur in 2011! Chapter titles include "Headline News," "Lucy by the Numbers," "The Lucy Show Mystery," "Mam'selle Mame," and many more...with an exclusive list by Lucille Ball's and Desi Arnaz's good friend, comedian Kaye Ballard (The Mothers-In-Law). You'll laugh, learn and love this unique peek into the Lucyverse.
As you may or may not be aware, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball's birth (August 6) and the 60th anniversary of a little landmark sitcom created by Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, I love Lucy (October 15). Even with four books about the life and career of Lucille Ball under my belt, I just couldn't let these important milestones go unheralded. And five seems like a nice number.
So in January 2011, I published The Lucy Book of Lists: Celebrating Lucille Ball's Centennial and the 60th Anniversary of I Love Lucy. The book is much more than simply numbered, one-line lists. These lists are unique to the Lucyverse, as I like to call it, and are informed by my own expertise and sense of humor. The lists are augmented by lots of trivia tidbits, and I even got Kaye Ballard — a friend to both Lucy and Desi, currently living in Desi's former house in Rancho Mirage, Calif. — to create a special list for this book.
The Lucy Book of Lists also features exclusive pictures, many of them courtesy of the well-known and respected auction house, Heritage Auctions. It's also my first Kindle book, and that';s kinda exciting. So dive into the Lucy Book of Lists today: I'm betting you'll list it as one of your favorites!
Excerpt
I watched a very interesting segment on CBS Sunday Morning today (Feb. 7, 2010). It focused on reality shows, and how they’ve taken up as much as one-quarter (that’s 25 percent, folks) of the prime-time television landscape. One of the genre’s stars, Omarosa, now a one-name wonder like Cher or Madonna, got famous as a ruthless contestant on the first season of The Apprentice. She said something very telling: that if you wanted to make a name for yourself on this type of show, you either had to start a fight, break up a fight, or end a fight.
The reason reality TV has taken off is that it’s cheap to produce (a couple of hundred thousand dollars per episode vs. millions for the typical scripted drama), and plays right to the reptile part of our brain (I’m not making this up; another reality “expert” mentioned it) that wants to see fighting, arguing, blood, guts and gore.
This made me think of the good old days (or, as my partner Ronald likes to say, I went to “Old Timey-Time Land”), where even a silly piece of fluff like Gilligan’s Island had weight to it, thanks to the beloved characters, a gentler time (yes, of course), less choices to make on the TV dial, and just plain niceness.
Jack Kelly was a child performer, son of New York model, Nan Kelly, brother of actress, Nancy Kelly, brother-in-law of actor Edmond O'Brien and cinematographer Fred Jackman, Jr. On TV, from 1957 until 1962, he was James Garner's brother on the show,
