Profile of William Frawley on Famous Like Me

William Frawley (born February 26, 1887 in Burlington, Iowa - died March 3, 1966 in Hollywood, California) began in vaudeville and as a screen actor, with well over a hundred films to his credit, but gained greater fame on the television shows I Love Lucy and My Three Sons.

Possessed of a fine singing voice in his younger days, it was supposedly Frawley, not Al Jolson, who introduced the song "My Mammy" to vaudeville audiences. He was also an early and persistant exponent of the hit song Carolina in the Morning. His film credits include Miracle on 34th Street, in which he portrayed "Charlie", the judge's campaign manager.

On I Love Lucy (1951), Frawley played Lucy and Ricky Ricardo's landlord Fred Mertz. Throughout the show's run, both he and Vivian Vance had nothing but contempt for each other. Part of it was the real life age difference between the two (Frawley was twenty-five years Vance's senior), but essentially, it was a clash of two driving, strong personalities. The tension between them probably filtered into their TV characters and made them work so beautifully. On one occasion, he derided Vance for trying to tell him how to do a simple soft-shoe number, declaring that "I've been in vaudeville since I was five years old," and would "probably end up teaching Vance how to do the f****** thing." The two co-stars were given the opportunity to move into their own "Fred and Ethel" spin-off once Lucy had run its course in 1959. Despite his animosity towards her, Frawley saw a lucrative opportunity and was quite game, but Ms. Vance nixed the idea, having no interest in ever working with Frawley again. Vance got her own series Guestward Ho!, which failed.

Frawley next hit it big on My Three Sons in his role as "Bub". He reportedly never felt comfortable with the out-of-sequence filming method used on My Three Sons after doing I Love Lucy in sequence for years.

By almost all accounts, Frawley's off-screen personality was not all that much different from his on-screen one. A notorious misanthrope, with one brief failed marriage behind him and a fondness for the bottle, he lived in the same spare bachelor apartment for most of his years in Hollywood. According to Desi Arnaz's memoir A Book, Frawley eventually lost his driver's license due to drunk driving, and befriended a cabbie who drove him around regularly. When deciding whether to hire Frawley for the role of Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, Desi Arnaz made it clear to him that, if he showed up drunk for work, Arnaz would "work around it" twice, but after that, Frawley would not only be fired from the program but blacklisted throughout the entertainment industry. Frawley, whom no one would hire at that point, readily agreed. He never showed up drunk on the set at all, and, in fact, Arnaz became one of his very few close friends.

Poor health forced Frawley's retirement. (One of his final performances was an October 1965 guest appearance in Ball's subsequent series The Lucy Show.) He collapsed of a heart attack on March 3, 1966, aged seventy-nine, walking along Hollywood Boulevard after seeing a movie. After he died, Arnaz took out a full-page ad in the trade papers, consisting of Frawley's picture, edged in black, and three words: "Buenas noches, amigo!" Vance's reaction was exactly the opposite. She and her second husband were dining out when they heard Frawley had died. Upon receiving the news, Vance reportedly shouted, "Champagne for everybody!"

Frawley is buried in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California.

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