'I Love Lucy' actress Doris Singleton dies

[rpannier]

"I Love Lucy" actress Doris Singleton has passed away at the age of 92. She died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to the trade publication Variety.

Perhaps best known for her role as neighbor Carolyn Appleby on Lucille Ball's hit sitcom, Singleton got her start in show business as a dancer with the American Ballet Theater, and later transitioned into radio, working with the legendary Bob Hope.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=739660

[No Elephants]

1. IIRC, "Carolyn" was not on that often, so she could not have made much.

I once saw "Ethel" saying the actors did not get much salary and got no residuals whatever from all the reruns of that show. (I think it is still re-running).

So, I hope "Carolyn" had other means of support.


RIP.

[rpannier]

2. I went and checked her bio

Other than her dance career she worked fairly regularly in TV from 1953-1985.
Her husband was TV Producer Charles Issacs who produced several TV series including the Colgate Comedy Hour (Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis), Dinah Shore and Alice.

So I don't think she was ever want for money
But your point about residuals is a good one. Ricardo and Lucy were one of the first, if not the first to own the syndication rights

[No Elephants]

3. It's like the scene in Back to the Future, where no one in the 1950s

can figure out how Michael Fox knows what is about to happen in the TV show that has been playing in the background. He explains, "It's a rerun." Looking at each other befuddled, they respond, "What's a rerun?"

I am not sure the Arnazes knew to get syndication rights, but they owned the films themselves.

He was a musician and toured. He was also a habitual adulterer. Lucy wanted to do a TV show with him to keep him at home and keep her eye on him 24/7. So, the idea to do a show at all came from her. So, maybe they owned and produced the show from the start.

Both Arnazes had been in the movies. Desi was familiar with movie cameras and movie films, but not the TV counterparts. So, he did what he felt comfortable with. I Love Lucy was shot with three stationary movie cameras, using movie film. That is the only reason why the films survived.

Early TV shows were shot using a different technology than movies had been using. I can't remember what they used instead of movie film. However, unlike movie film, it deteriorated quickly. That, and thrifty producers working on a shoestring taped right over TV shows that had already aired. Finally, many shows aired live, like doing a play. And they were never collected on film of any kind, other than maybe a home movie someone's mom or a vain actor may have filmed.

Inasmuch as reruns were unknown, the idea that the shows might ever be shown again was not anything they could even conceptualize. So, very little survived from the earliest days of TV.