Frawley spent years on the road in vaudeville (some of it with his wife) and years on the set in Hollywood playing a variety of supporting characters before getting hired to spend more years on the stage at the General Service Studios in one of television’s greatest shows—I Love Lucy.
By all accounts, Frawley loved the role of Fred Mertz—provided he didn’t get stuck doing physical stunts, like taking a fish in the face. He loved Lucille Ball. He didn’t love his TV wife Vivian Vance. The stories below vaguely refer to that.
He was a working actor all his life, so he wasn’t just going to sit around and collect residuals when I Love Lucy went into endless re-runs. He played Fred McMurray’s father-in-law who ran the house on My Three Sons and left only when his poor health prevented him from getting the necessary insurance to work.
The first article from the Hearst papers of March 4, 1953—Lucy was into its second season, and the second from June 30, 1961 from one of the syndication services. My Three Sons had finished its first season.
William Frawley, Now 60, Finds Years Bring Him Greatest Success
By JACK O'BRIAN
NEW YORK (INS)—"I don't mind admitting my movie career was having a bit of a lull when Lucy came along," said William Frawley, the balding, merry, wry neighbor living just downstairs from Lucy and Ricky Ricardo each Monday on CBS-TV.
"Now the movie moguls are after me again and somehow I can't help but gloat inwardly that I can't make movies while I'm playing Fred Mertz."
Lull, or not, Bill Frawley, one of Broadway's and Hollywood's best character-comics, now is enjoying the greatest fame of his life. This does not tar the ever-normal Bill, though quietly delighting him in one way—at last he's a big man to his neighbors and relatives in Burlington, Ia.
"The show even has revived an interest in me in my old Iowa home town," he smiled.
The changes "I Love Lucy" membership has performed in Bill Frawley's habits aren't visible except in the way folks now greet him everywhere as “Fred.” The Irish surname has been forgotten, too.
Such recognition couldn't be expected to work much change basically on a fellow who's been starred and featured for some 35 years in Hollywood and on Broadway, and who, last Thursday, celebrated his 60th birthday.
Now that he's such a big beam in the structure of “I Love Lucy,” Bill can't make his usual October pilgrimage East for the World Series, but here the law of equalization lurks helpfully: the same medium which keeps him so busy, well-paid and celebrated—television—now also brings the World Series right to him in Hollywood.
Granted, it comes through at an hour, California time, at which the old Frawley never would have arisen even during the lull before the pleasant storm called "I Love Lucy."
But he had to sacrifice something for what surely seems the nearest to perfect job insurance TV yet has forged.
William Frawley Star Of "My Three Sons"
By CHARLES J. LEAVY
Commenting on his role as "Bub", alias Michael Francis O'Casey, chief cook, bottle washer and den mother to three youngsters and their widower father, (Fred MacMurray) in ABC-TV's "My Three Sons", William Frawley says, "Bub's a lovable old coot and just my type of guy. He's rough, has a voice like an old buzz saw, and he's always recalling his old vaudeville days. He howls like a lovesick wolf hound at the slightest incident, but he has no bite at all. I think I'd like Bub if ever I met him face to face."
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AS FRAWLEY made these comment, we could not help but feel he was describing himself.
Having began his career in show business as a vaudevillian back in the early 1900's, Frawley toured up and down the Pacific Coast circuits for four years. In 1927, he graduated to his first Broadway musical and soon after, he appeared in his first dramatic role in "Twentieth Century".
Now sixty-eight years young, Frawley is at the pinnacle of success.
Although he was well known for many of his motion picture roles, it was his role as "Fred Mertz" in the "I Love Lucy" series which catapulted him into national fame in the entertainment world.
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IN THAT ROLE you will remember, his characterization of the grumpy, penny-pinching landlord and sharp-tongued wife pulverizer endeared him to countless television viewers.
Call it what you may — a grumpy old coot or an actor with principles, Frawley has exhibited one or the other many times in his career.
"Pete has me pulling things out of the oven, picking up toys, stirring a pot of goulash. I just can't be telling a gag while kneading dough or waxing the floor,” — not Fred, not Bub but Bill Frawley says.
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ALTHOUGH HE was told Vivian Vance, his former "mate" on the “Lucy” show, had appeared on the "Jack Paar" show for scale wages, he refused a similar offer, briskly commenting, "That's her business."
"In the nine years of making the "I Love Lucy" series, Bill and Desi Arnaz got along very well except for one thing. They were continually fighting about one thing—money. Frawley wanted more, of course.
As it turned out, Frawley freely admits he did very well especially considering the royalty checks which keep rolling in for the re-runs of “Lucy”.
That bachelor Frawley is a lovable old coot is attested to by many friends he made as a result of his role in "I Love Lucy".
Some time ago, he was approached by a male admirer who insisted that he had to buy Bill a drink because of the way he told off his wife, Ethel.
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BILL FRAWLEY has made many friends among show business personalities. He and Fred MacMurray are old friends stemming back to the old movie days when they made quite a few Paramount films together.
Although Fred MacMurray was hard to convince, Frawley was anxious to do “My Three Sons” because he thought it had all the ingredients of a hit. He was so right for the show has been renewed for another season. In fact, it is one of the few hits of this season that will be brought back in the Fall.
Fred Mertz, Bub O'Casey or Bill Frawley, the "grumpy lovable old coot," keeps picking the winners.
Thanks to " Nick At Nite " in the mid 1980s, the Frawley years on " My Three Sons " had basically been pulled out of moth balls. I prefer the " Bub " years, the first four seasons to the rest of the show. Some of shows had more of a cynical edge to them, Frawley helped in that area, it was somewhat wilder with the boys being younger, and of course, over ninety percent of the first four years used the Capitol Hi-Q, Omar, and other stock libraries. Fred Mertz has and is my favorite character in " I Love Lucy ". He was also pretty solid in his movie years, a lot of times cast as a fight manager, or Police Chief doing a slow burn. Frawley was well rounded. I remember on " The Lucy Show ", his final walk on as an apartment super. He was ill. and you could see it. I had heard there was longer applause that had to be trimmed for time. A fitting final bow.
ReplyDeleteThe character of Al Bundy from "Married...with Children" once stated on a Christmas episode that he hated "Lucy" and that they should have gotten rid of Lucy, Ricky & Ethel and made Fred a single guy and called it "Mertz's World"!!
ReplyDeleteCould you imagine it??
Desi Arnaz wanted to do a "Fred and Ethel Mertz" spin-off show, but Vivian Vance refused to appear with Frawley without the Arnazes, so it didn't happen. Maybe she knew the show would be his.
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