Judy and Lucille

New York, August 1953

Dear Lucille

I know it’s been a while since my last letter, but I just had to let you know how much I love “I Love Lucy”. I tune in every week to see you so that I can laugh at a wonderful witty woman, taking her place, centre screen. Please see this as a fan letter and treat it as you would any other letter from a deranged, well-meaning fan. Read it. Enjoy the compliments. Then burn after reading.

Do you know what I, and every other woman in America, love? Seeing a sassy broad hold her own. I love how you make me feel safe, because there is just so much joy coming out from that TV set in the corner of my apartment. And you do it all with such a down-to-earth charm, while still being ridiculously glamorous. I love your face-pulling, your slap stick, your immaculate timing. But oh my, those big blue eyes of yours. Geez, you’re a star!

I could never do what you do. Heck, I get that I’m good at the dumb blonde act. But you are so brave, playing a kook, falling over, high kicks and landing on your back. And making everyone fall in love with you. The way that Ricky can’t see your talent, but loves you anyway, is adorable. It’s mad how you took an unlikely couple and made them everybody’s sweethearts. It is so heartwarming.

Yes, I love you. But the love is tinged with a touch of sadness, because I know right now you are just thinking about survival. And it is exhausting. I know. I really know.

I have lived the same threat you are facing, so here’s my advice. Don’t go in front of a committee. Leverage all your popularity and that good-looking husband of yours to keep everything low-key. Those Washington suits don’t know how to handle women. They despise our fragility, but at the same time have to be seen to respect it. All this means, is that you’ve got to know how to handle yourself.

I had to be Billie Dawn before her education. You now the girl who says:

He’s right. I’m stupid and I like it.

It didn’t feel good. But it looked good. I looked good. Even though, people have a hard time making me dress up to look like a classy gal. I went in there dressed for battle against their dull clothes and dull minds.

Maybe you’re ashamed of me because I played Billie Dawn. Well, I’ll tell you something. You think you’re going to be brave and noble. Then you walk in there and there are the microphones and all of those senators looking at you—Lucille, it scares the shit out of you. But I’m not ashamed of myself because I didn’t name names. That much I preserved.

And I sure as hell, wish I could have given this advice to poor, old Dorothy. She should never have gone in front of that committee, especially without a husband to downplay her intellect.

It felt a little like drowning being a dumb blonde, but I played it so well. And it gave me the only control I could have.

I want a part where I can use my own hair, my own voice, and maybe even be literate. But sitting in front of those suits wasn’t the time.

They wanted to know everything. They wanted to prove I wasn’t a good woman. They wanted my name, my religion, my background, my education, my family, my friends to be stripped from me. So, I played dumb, because you can’t take things from a person who doesn’t know she’s got them.

Remember this exchange, that got reported in the press, even though I’d been promised it wouldn’t be.

Mr Arens (Prosecutor): You hired people to investigate you?

Me: I certainly did, because I had gotten into a lot of trouble.

Arens: Has anyone tried to prosecute you?

Me: Yes.

Arens: Who?

Me: Prosecute? No, I thought you meant persecute?

What does it prove? That I don’t get it? Or that they don’t get me? Doesn’t really matter now. Because I still get to make films. I still get to act on stage. I get to make a living. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I’ve kept my head above water. Do the same.

Be a woman who needs a man. Admit frailty. Admit naivety. And above all else, don’t name names.

You know the secret to being a successful comic actress is to be both clever and foolish. I wish you the best. And remember, if you can handle a nightclub audience successfully, you can handle anything.

All my heartfelt love,

Judy (Holliday)

P.S. Don’t forget to burn after reading. Those guys in congress will use anything they can and won’t believe we’re just friends. I hate how they’ve made me so distrustful.

Hollywood, October 1953

Dear Judy

Thank you for the advice. I love you too.

Just seen The Marrying Kind – my God, you can deliver a line. That bit where you say, “This day's been about three days long,” sums up the last few months.

I was worried about your advice not to go in front of a committee. I am a real ham. I love an audience. I work better with an audience. I am dead, in fact, without one. But you were right.

I had my defense. I had been a loyal granddaughter. I just did things to please Gramps. And no old man, even with their fancy lawyers, can resist that idea.

Also, Desi loves me and found a way to let me carry on being a red-headed cuckoo.

I get why you say it didn’t feel great. They don’t care about us – about the real damage they could do to us. And that’s hard to swallow. It was hard to watch my husband tell people that I’m naïve and clueless. I just had to smile while he said:

“I have been married to you 13 years and in that time you have signed I don’t know how many thousand papers. And you haven’t read one of them yet!”

Like I don’t know how to produce a TV show and run a business! I played the silly, bored housewife. There’s no joke I won’t go after. No fall I won’t take.

Looks like ‘patriotism’ isn’t about loving your fellow human beings. Instead it is trying to outsmart and bully them. But it won’t always be this way.

Now get the hell out of here and go change the world.

Lots of love

Lucille

P.S. You know the drill. Burn after reading.

Both Judy Holliday and Lucille Ball came under investigation by the House of Un-American Activities Committee. There is no evidence that they ever met or discussed tactics, but I liked the idea of a friendship between Hollywood actresses, because too often the gossip press likes to portray women in an ongoing cat fight. Plus, there was a similarity in their strategies, which was to rely on their screen personas. They were both trained in role-playing and public performance. They were both intelligent. They leveraged the little power they could to ensure that they still had careers when they had watched others lose their livelihoods to the bullying.

Judy Holliday was called to testify in front of the committee in March 1952. Lucille was interviewed in private by an investigator in September, 1953. However, this didn’t stop the press having a field day with Ball’s story and it took an impassioned speech by her husband, Desi Arnaz, to quell the rumors. In that speech he claimed that she was naïve and that “The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that is not legitimate.”

Everything in italics are real quotes from the period.

The Dorothy mentioned in Judy’s letter is Dorothy Comingore who never made a film again after her brush with HUAC. You can read more about her here. https://shopping-feedback.today/geeks/dorothy-comingore-1913-1971%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}