This is a passage from Lee Tannen's book, I Loved Lucy, which I highly, highly recommend. This was the night of the Kennedy Center Honors. The festivities had just ended earlier that night and Lucy had returned to her hotel with Gary, Lee and Lee's partner, Tom. Bear in mind Desi had died just five days earlier, and Life with Lucy had been cancelled a couple weeks before.

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We got back after midnight and we were all beat except for Lucy who was raring to go. “Just a few games of backgammon for old times' sake," she kept saying. I had no idea what Lucy meant and I'm sure neither did she. Tom and I agreed and we changed into jeans, and went back to her suite. Lucy had changed out of her dress and into her Ritz robe but kept her wig and makeup on. She looked kind of spooky and was acting spookier. She was running around the suite like a whirling dervish, talking to herself and cleaning ashtrays and straightening magazines and rearranging everything she could get her hands on. Gary had gotten comfortable in a big club chair and Tom and I were sitting at the portable backgammon board ready to play.

When she finally stopped fussing and sat down she said, "God, it seems like only yesterday when I was with Roosevelt at the White House."

Without missing a beat I asked, "Which Roosevelt -- Franklin or Teddy?"

Gary looked up from his magazine and laughed out loud.

"Hey, Luce, that's funny," he said.

But I knew a split second after I had said it that I said the wrong thing. Lucy's whole face turned to flame. She started ranting, almost foaming at he mouth. "You think it's funny getting old. Just wait until you're old and nobody wants you around, and they throw awards at you because they know you're gonna die soon anyway. You think it's funny to lose your job and the people you love? You think it's funny when you can't do a goddamn thing for yourself anymore? Well, you can all go **** yourselves!" Then she stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

The silence that followed was deafening. After a minute or so Gary said, "I think you boys better go back to your room now. She'll be fine in the morning." But I didn't think so. As Yogi Berra said, "It was deja vu all over again." And I thought about the year and a half when Lucy didn't speak to me, and could not believe that it might be happening all over again.

I felt horrible. It was a harmless little joke that at any other time Lucy would have found as amusing as we did, but not that night. Not after what she went through in the last month. This time I was sure I blew it with Lucy. So at three in the morning and sleepless in the capital, I was ready to start packing.

At four in the morning the phone rang and scared the hell out of me. I picked it up and Lucy said, "Where the hell are you? I've been sitting here at the backgammon table for an hour and a half waiting to play."

"Lucy, listen to me, I am so sorry for what I said. You know I would never hurt --

"Shut up and go to sleep." Click.

I woke up five hours later and felt like everything that had happened the night before was all a bad dream from eating too much quail. (Interpreted for I Love Lucy fans as, "A bad dream you'd have from eating too much Chinese food.") I turned on the television and CBS Sunday Morning was devoting its entire hour to the Kennedy Center Honors. Reporters asked Lucy about the award and she said, "This is the tops. It's even more meaningful because it's been such a tough month, with Desi's illness and death. I know we wouldn't have had as much as we have in television today, if it hadn't been for him." When she was questioned about whether she was angry over the cancellation of Life with Lucy, she said, "Noooo. Of course, it's upsetting, but that's different."

Walter Matthau, who was standing only a few feet away, smartly deflected any more questions by asking just loud enough for Lucy to hear, "Why does Lucy look so damn good?" Lucy winked, flashed a flirtatious smile, and walked on.

Lucy called our room later that morning and, thank God, acted as if nothing had happened.

Yes, there's no denying Lee's book is excellent. Especially as it covers a period that other authors always skip through. Being related to gary, he brings a fresh perspective, of her later years, alone most of the time as gary was gone golfing, yearning to work again and not going out and seeing friends, getting up early as she could not sleep and puttering around with her dog Tinker in the garden, waiting for the rest of the world to get up. It's very sad, thinking of her alone, lonely, depressed, only showing her real self when friends appeared or she was given something to do or somewhere to go. She should have had someone to take care of her, force her to do things, to keep busy. But Lee had as many fun stories as sad ones, we just focus more on the bad ones i guess. No denying that Kennedy Center Honors was what saved her from lsoing her sanity after the debacle of losing Desi and her last series, she said herself she did not know what she would have done had she not received that tribute at just the right time.:(

The impression I'm getting here, and have gotten elsewhere, is Lucy did not age gracefully. What a pity. Some of it may have been because she was so driven, had such a high work ethic and felt she had an obligation to keep delivering.

While I generally think it's never a good idea to rest on your laurels there are exceptions to every rule. And this is one of them. After producing such a work of genius as I Love Lucy, a show of staggering brilliance from many different vantage points, IMO, the best show ever, you should bask in the sun and let people keep showering you with love and praise so fully deserved. And this was not all, there were the fine efforts The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, not to mention running a vast studio and growing it several times over. I wished, in her later years, she could have taken in how revered she was BY MANY and how grateful they were for the bounty she provided on the television landscape.

And sometimes you need to leave well enough alone. Her last series in the 80s failed miserably and I heard this depressed her deeply. This pains me, since it sort of indicates somehow losing sight of the many masterpieces and steller achievments she had accomplished. NOBODY ever bats a perfect 100. NOBODY. Even the utterly talented. In the last show she tried to immitate her past efforts. And you can never truly replicate works of high stature, especially when you "try too hard". (Somehow the magic sparks that started it all the first time seem missing)

Lucy, wherever you are now, I hope your spirit can take in the love so many had for you. You will always be a hard, if not impossible, act to follow.

And P.S. you never lost your beauty even in your 70s!

I think part of what is happening here is that Lucy had not been given an opportunity to mourn Desi's death, plus deal with the huge emotional blow of having her show cancelled. So much bad stuff was going on in her life at one time. During most of the final days of Desi's illness, she was busy doing her show, which kept her focused on something other than dealing with what was happening to Desi 24-seven. Not that his impending death would have necessarily hit home with her until it actually happened. When my grandmother was dying of cancer a few years ago, I obviously knew the end was near and would have my down moments here and there. But it really didn't hit me until the day she actually died. Then I needed time to go through the mourning process. I lost a longtime friend a year ago in a tragic accident. I needed a lot of time alone for a couple weeks to deal with my grief. Lucy didn't get that at all. Desi died on December 2. His funeral, which she attended and may have been busy helping her children plan (as Desi's wife, Edie, had predeceased him), was on December 4. The next day, she was flying to Washington for the Kennedy Center Honors and all the related festivities preceding it. For several days there, she was being made the center of attention, had to put on a good face for one event after another, meet and greet a lot of people and talk to the press and have cameras in her face. Although a huge honor on the one hand, on the other I can see how that could have been absolute torture for someone who desperately needed to mourn the loss of a loved one. What happened in that hotel suite that night -- Lucy's behavior from start to finish as described in Lee's book -- sounds to me like the behavior of someone with a great deal of pent up emotions that needed to be dealt with. She finally cracked and ran off to the bedroom to be alone. The fact that she was calling Lee hours later tells me that's really what was happening.

OMG that is sad to read. I can't even imagine what went through her head during that time in her life when she was now "left alone". Meaning, the fab four were now down to only herself. I hope she can look down and realize what an icon and a lady she was and how much we miss her and thank her for the laughs she brings into our homes.

I think part of what is happening here is that Lucy had not been given an opportunity to mourn Desi's death, plus deal with the huge emotional blow of having her show cancelled. So much bad stuff was going on in her life at one time. During most of the final days of Desi's illness, she was busy doing her show, which kept her focused on something other than dealing with what was happening to Desi 24-seven. Not that his impending death would have necessarily hit home with her until it actually happened. When my grandmother was dying of cancer a few years ago, I obviously knew the end was near and would have my down moments here and there. But it really didn't hit me until the day she actually died. Then I needed time to go through the mourning process. I lost a longtime friend a year ago in a tragic accident. I needed a lot of time alone for a couple weeks to deal with my grief. Lucy didn't get that at all. Desi died on December 2. His funeral, which she attended and may have been busy helping her children plan (as Desi's wife, Edie, had predeceased him), was on December 4. The next day, she was flying to Washington for the Kennedy Center Honors and all the related festivities preceding it. For several days there, she was being made the center of attention, had to put on a good face for one event after another, meet and greet a lot of people and talk to the press and have cameras in her face. Although a huge honor on the one hand, on the other I can see how that could have been absolute torture for someone who desperately needed to mourn the loss of a loved one. What happened in that hotel suite that night -- Lucy's behavior from start to finish as described in Lee's book -- sounds to me like the behavior of someone with a great deal of pent up emotions that needed to be dealt with. She finally cracked and ran off to the bedroom to be alone. The fact that she was calling Lee hours later tells me that's really what was happening.


Of course. Even after both remarried they were still very close. She had so much stress going on all over the place. It's at times like this that you have to step and realize how beloved you are, not just by the general public, which she was, but by those closer to you.

Of course. Even after both remarried they were still very close. She had so much stress going on all over the place. It's at times like this that you have to step and realize how beloved you are, not just by the general public, which she was, but by those closer to you.

Here are Lee's comments about the first couple days following Desi's death:

On December 2, 1986, four days before Lucy was to receive the Kennedy Center Honor, Desi Arnaz died in Del Mar, California. He was sixty-nine years old. Lucie Arnaz was at his bedside when he passed away. Privately, Lucy was grief stricken, almost inconsolable after she received word from her daughter . . . . Lucy attended Desi's funeral exactly twenty-four hours before she left for Washington to receive the accolade she believed was meant for them both. It was a simple and private service, and Danny Thomas delivered the eulogy. Considering the vast television empire that Desi and Lucy created, there were surprisingly few celebrities in attendance at his funeral.

OMG that is sad to read. I can't even imagine what went through her head during that time in her life when she was now "left alone". Meaning, the fab four were now down to only herself. I hope she can look down and realize what an icon and a lady she was and how much we miss her and thank her for the laughs she brings into our homes.

It had to have been hard. Vivian's death had been very devastating to her. In those years after Vivian passed away, Lucy would always tear up in interviews when talking about her. Losing Desi, the love of her life, father of her children, and friend for five decades, must have been too much. I can imagine her turning on the television in the afternoon, and there's an I Love Lucy rerun. There they all are with her, these people who had been so close to her for so long, so many memories, and now they're gone. That had to have been a very empty feeling.

Yes, all of that is very true. About her NOT AGEING well, well, in Hollywood, you have to be young to get work, the older you get, the fewer jobs you get, Lucy knew that all too well, so she did all the tricks she could to keep working. The other thing is that BEAUTIFUL people do not age well, it's rae but you see it sometimes, Cary Grant and Cladette Colbert being two very well known exceptions. But look at Robert Redford's pockmarked face or Clint Eastwood's or the ones that have gotten so many face lifts they no longer look like themselves, too many to list of that type, LOL! Lucy could never get a full face lift, her skin did not heal well, so she used this LIFT contraption that went underneath her hair, or wig and everything got pulled up, she was in terrrible pain while wearing it but she did not want to dissillusion her fans and she also wanted to keep working. She used to call Irma Kusely a NAZI while she put it on her. AS she got closer to the end, it was harder and harder to keep her youthful appearance and fans wanted to remember her as Lucy Ricardo, young and beautiful. She became reclusive, staying home as much as possible because it took so much preparation to make her look as she once did, very sad indeed.