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Chapter 8 is live and sees Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz get divorced (kinda).  While Desi’s still in the Army, Lucille makes ‘Easy to Wed,’ a hit, and ‘Two Smart People’ which, unknown at the time, will be her last at MGM.  Then Desi’s out of the Army to find slipping back into life at MGM isn’t as easy as he’d hoped.  Lucille finds success freelancing -- including beginning her run with Bob Hope and one back in live theatre -- while Desi finds success back on the road.  And then, in 1948, with Hollywood in a panic over the Supreme Court vertical integration decree and the onslaught of television, Lucille focuses on a medium for which she’d previously only guested but will now make her a bonafide star:  Radio.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 7 sees Lucille Ball arrive at MGM, 31 years old, acutely aware this is her last shot at stardom.  She’ll become the redhead we all think of including shining in Technicolor.  There’s ‘Du Barry Was a Lady’ which reintroduces her to Red Skelton and introduces her to Gene Kelly.  Then there’s ‘Best Foot Forward,’ a more-than-anything-else fun picture which begins her run of cameos (with the likes of Arthur Freed and Abbott & Costello).  There’s also ‘Meet the People’ with Dick Powell (right before his turn to Noir) and ‘Without Love’ with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  All of this peppered with war bond tours and, a true tragedy outside the scope of World War II, Lucille losing a family member.  And Desi?  He’s in the Army now, stationed at Birmingham Hospital which is close enough to Desilu the ranch he should be coming home nights.  But, well, Desi’s Desi.  To wit, we can’t help but notice his and Lucille’s seemingly unending cycle of passionate fights and makeups.  Until that cycle looks like the end.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 6 begins the second half of our third season and we’re back with our glamorous clown as Lucille meets Desi, twice, as they make the RKO movie version of the hit Broadway show ‘Too Many Girls.’  And they sure do fall for each other but passion is passion so it’s often a bit of love and war.  Party hard and work hard?  Sure again.  And as for work?  This week includes Harold Lloyd, a who’s who of radio stars, Lucille’s first western, then the one she oft called her favorite of all her features, Desi’s B-Movie run, gigs at the Roxy theatre and Versailles nightclub in New York, Lucille and Desi deciding they could never be married … and then Lucille and Desi getting married.  Please chime in here with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 5 has us going back in time to share Desi Arnaz’ road to Hollywood;  which, if you don’t know, is more than a little surprising.  And scary.  And sad.  And then more than a little hopeful as “picking oneself up by the bootstraps” is an understatement.  From growing up in Cuba, surviving the 1933 Revolution, playing in rumba bands including with Xavier Cugat, drinking Bacardi rum with Bing Crosby, introducing the conga to Miami and New York, rubbing elbows with debutantes and Al Capone, to playing THE Latin footballer in Rodgers’ and Hart’s ‘Too Many Girls,’ that Broadway hit becoming an RKO movie, Desi Arnaz proves his precursors to ‘I Love Lucy’ are also well worth chatting about.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 4 spotlights Lucille’s thriving in the wake of her split with RKO Chief Pandro Berman … including dipping her toes in a medium that would prove more than a little seminal:  radio.  In her words?  “It turned out to be one of the smartest things I did.”  Outside of work?  There was her next serious relationship:  director Alexander Hall.  Their relationship is more a mutual understanding including time spent with their group of friends:  George Burns & Gracie Allen, the Fred Allens, and the Charles Ruggles.  Even with her family living with her in Los Angeles, Lucille always embraced found-family and this was an incredibly strong group for her.  Now, one of the movies she’ll make during this period?  ‘Dance, Girl, Dance.’  During which she met her future husband:  Desi Arnaz.  Wearing a wallop of a black eye.  SHE had the black eye.  Kind of.  We’ll get there.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 3 spotlights Ms. Ball’s arrival at RKO, and her family’s arrival in California.  Lucille will befriend Ginger Rogers and, as significantly, Ginger’s mother, Lela, who will prove a great mentor.  And Lucille will need it as she navigates both the studio and studio relationship with chief Pandro Berman.  Sure, he’ll help her with her career, so long as it’s the best decision for Lucille AND RKO.  Because, remember, “Sex whispers but money talks.”  Between 1935 and 1937, Lucille appeared in eleven features plus a handful of shorts, including getting her first fan letter and first press specifically for her comedy.  She also took an RKO leave of absence to appear in a Broadway play.  That’s at work.  At home?  Grandpa Hunt’s health falters and he gets heavily involved with Socialism.  Back in Hollywood from Broadway, Lucille co-starred in her biggest production to date … that looked like it might be her biggest production at all.  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 2 spotlights Lucille Ball’s arrival in Hollywood where she’ll make ‘Roman Scandals’ as well as about 20 more projects for Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, and Harry Cohn ... before arriving at RKO. And, in that time, she focused on three things:  sponging info, meeting people, and establishing a good reputation.  Lucille Ball may have not finished High School but she was getting the education of a lifetime.  All the while she’s putting some of her paycheck away each week so she can get her family out west with her:  mother DeDe, grandpa Hunt (who she called Daddy), brother Fred, and cousin-cum-sister Cleo.  An embellished story or not, it’s been told often:  at the same time Lucille called her mother to say she was finally ready for them to come out? She lost her job.  Well, the family should come anyway but “take the bus instead of the train!”  Please chime in here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast with your questions & comments, or just sharing your love of Lucille Ball and her road to ‘I Love Lucy!’  Thanks for listening ...

Chapter 1 of ‘Lucille,’ our season celebrating Lucille Ball, begins the road to ‘I Love Lucy.’  (Spoiler!  We end the season with that hit show beginning!)  After all, the 40 years before that?  That’s a road far too less traveled and far too interesting to miss.  We begin with a little girl in west New York state living the poverty-tragedy of Dickens.  Well, that isn’t going to stop our hero who dreams of becoming an actress.  There are struggles in Jamestown and eventually Manhattan where the little girl becomes a young lady but, no matter the struggles, the dreams hold steady.  And running side-by-side with Broadway footlights?  Keeping her family together.  Please share your questions and comments here and/or on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening ...

‘I Love Lucy’ had to begin somewhere, and this is that story.  From a little girl growing up in west New York State, dreaming of being an actress, then making it happen … to the struggled days in Manhattan when “eating good” meant you were eating … to the struggled days in Hollywood that didn’t improve much more than the weather.  Well, the struggles only made the tenacious brunette-turned-blonde-turned-redhead work harder toward that same dream:  being an actress.  Season 3, premiering March 3rd, looks at those forty years — 1911 to 1951 — that birthed what many still believe to be the greatest sitcom — possible the greatest show — of all time. Before there was 'Lucy,' there was Lucille.

Episode 10 -- The Finale -- of The Year Before Disneyland wraps in July, 1955.  We begin at The Disneyland Hotel and why it NOT opening with The Park was a Blessing.  Then it’s back to TV with the 1st new ‘Disneyland’ The Show Ep since March:  The Park’s “Pre-Opening Report!”  Then it’s Walt & Lillian’s 30th Wedding Anniversary and (we hope) The Mark Twain’s Maiden Voyage.  THEN, in the Week before Park Opening?  Walt goes to The Hollywood Bowl, Disneyland gets a Freeway Offramp & an Address, while ABC preps the Biggest Live Event in TV History.  Not a big enough finish for you?  We’ll also chat what was in Fantasyland Opening Day! Including Steve Martin.  For more info, or sharing YOUR questions & comments, please find us on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening ...

Episode 9 of our Season on The Year Before Disneyland continues with June, 1955 where we begin in Theatres with two Feature Releases and one Short including the Hit Now-Classic ‘Lady And The Tramp’ (including spotlights on a couple favorite Imagineers).  Then 29 Big Things get piled on Disney:  The Unions.  And we round out this week’s chat with (hopefully) filling The Rivers Of America and getting The Disneyland Railroad to run LESS than properly … including a ride around The Park with Walt … and One Special Fan.  For more info, or sharing YOUR questions & comments, please find us on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening …

Episode 8 of our Season on The Year Before Disneyland continues with May, 1955 where we begin at the beginning … of the PARK, that is:  Main Street U.S.A.  Then we’ll tram over to The Disneyland Hotel for its Gas Station and some ‘Gourmet’ Food.  Then it’s back to Theatres for the ‘Davy Crockett’ Feature AND we’ll chat that Genuine Phenomenon.  And we’ll round out this week with Van Arsdale France & Dick Nunis presenting their Castmember Orientation Program … and relishing in their little part of Old Anaheim that would soon be a thing of memory.  For more info, or sharing YOUR questions & comments, please find us @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening …

Episode 7 of our Season on The Year Before Disneyland continues with March & April, 1955 where we return to The Disneyland Hotel for its Groundbreaking and how Guests got-around outside the Park.  Then we’re back in Theatres with the Animated Short ‘Contrasts In Rhythm’ AND back on TV with the 2 Eps before we go to Repeats until right before Park Opening, including the seminal ‘Man In Space.’  Then we’ll introduce 2 Key People in the success of the Park EXPERIENCE:  Ruth Shellhorn & Van Arsdale France.  And we’ll close-out with Roy & Admiral Joe Fowler touring Investors;  and hear from Walt what HE thinks of all the Chaos around them.  For more info, or sharing YOUR questions & comments, please find us on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening …

Episode 6 spotlights January & February, 1955 where we begin with Disney’s Float in The Rose Parade.  Then it’s EIGHT ‘Disneyland’ TV Show Eps including where Pirate Speak comes from, relooking at ’20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,’ more ‘Davy Crockett,’ a Park Progress Report, and ‘Lady And The Tramp’ with Ms. Peggy Lee.  Then it’s a Donald Duck Short, Bob Gurr getting Autopia driving (do you remember all its Tracks?), AND we’ll look at that little place that didn’t have to make Opening Day then suddenly HAD to make Opening Day:  Tomorrowland.  For more info, or sharing YOUR questions & comments, please find us on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening …

Episode 5 of our Season on The Year Before Disneyland continues with December, 1954.  We begin with the FIVE ‘Disneyland’ TV Show episodes that month (including 3 biggies), chat Disney’s Sylvania Win, Walt being on the cover of ‘Time,’ and the birth of ‘The Mickey Mouse Club.’ Then we look at Bob Gurr’s officially starting at WED, and Walt living up to his own "perfect creationism."  And we round out 1954 in the theatre with a Donald Duck bio, his ‘Grand Canyonscope’ short, and the premiere of the feature that short premiered WITH – both in CinemaScope! – ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.’  For more info, or sharing YOUR questions & comments, please find us on Instagram @fromoutofthepastpodcast!  Thanks for listening …