Ann Sothern on Desi Arnaz and her return to TV

[gidgetgrape]

This is an excerpt from a 1974 interview with Ann Sothern by James Bowden. It can be found in the Fall 2016 issue of Films of the Golden Age (#86) in the article "Ann Sothern : The Smartest Girl in Town."

Ann Sothern: The last time I played Susie was on an episode of The Lucy Desi Comedy Hour--the 1957 opener to be precise--and Desi said through Desilu he wanted to bring me back to TV. CBS signed and this time I was an upscale Maisie named Katy O'Connor. We debuted in the fall of 1958 with that wonderful old character actor Ernest Truex as my boss in a hotel situation. But the fans deluged me with letters: "Where was Don Porter?" Finally CBS ordered me to fire Ernest and bring back Don Porter as the manager of the hotel.

In this one I got to boss the men around a bit. Jesse White was also back and Ann Tyrell as my secretary. Jesse claims the shtick he did here got him that job as TV's Maytag repairman. I was at "that age" by then so I designed my own clothes and I got a lot of old pals as guests: Lucy, Eva Gabor, Van Johnson, Joe E. Brown. We ran 98 episodes on that one. In the third year we were opposite another Desilu show, The Untouchables on ABC and it killed us. Desi said he could do nothing but I wondered--and this series never went into reruns as it should have. Then CBS offered yet another comedy called Atta Boy, Mama, casting me as a small town mayor. We filmed the pilot, but it reeked and I just walked away from it although CBS wanted to go ahead.

You can order this magazine from filmsofthegoldenage.com.