William Frawley
William Clement Frawley was an American vaudevillian and actor best known for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the sitcom I Love Lucy. Frawley also played "Bub" O'Casey during the first five seasons of the sitcom My Three Sons and the political advisor to the Hon. Henry X. Harper in the film Miracle on 34th Street.
Frawley began his career in vaudeville in 1914 with his wife, Edna Louise Broedt. Their comedy act, "Frawley and Louise", continued until their divorce in 1927. He performed on Broadway multiple times. In 1916, he signed with Paramount Studios and appeared in more than 100 films over the next 35 years.
Early life
Frawley was born in Burlington, Iowa, the second son in a family of four children to Michael A. Frawley and Mary E. Frawley. He attended Catholic schools and sang in the choir at St. Paul's Catholic Church. As he got older, he played small roles in local theater productions at the Burlington Opera House, and performed in amateur shows, though his mother, a highly religious woman, discouraged such activities.Frawley's first job was as a stenographer in an office of the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Nebraska. Two years later, he moved to Chicago, where he found work as a court reporter, and against his mother's wishes, got a singing part in a musical comedy, The Flirting Princess. To appease his mother, he relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, to work for another railroad company.
Unfulfilled in his job, he dreamed of becoming a professional entertainer. He formed a vaudeville act with his brother Paul, but six months later, their mother told Paul to return to Iowa. Meanwhile, William wrote a script titled Fun in a Vaudeville Agency, and sold it for over $500.
After his initial success as a scriptwriter, Frawley decided to move to the West, settling in Denver, where he was hired as a singer at a café and teamed with pianist Franz Rath. The duo soon moved to San Francisco with their act, "A Man, a Piano, and a Nut". During his vaudeville career, Frawley introduced and helped popularize the songs "My Mammy", "My Melancholy Baby", and "Carolina in the Morning". Many years later, in 1958, he recorded a selection of his old stage songs on an LP, Bill Frawley Sings the Old Ones.
Early career
Frawley began performing in Broadway theater. His first such show was the musical comedy, Merry, Merry in 1925. Frawley had his first dramatic role in 1932, playing press agent Owen O'Malley in the original production of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's Twentieth Century. He continued to be a dramatic actor at various venues until 1933.In 1916, Frawley appeared in two short subject silent films. He subsequently performed in three more, but did not decide to develop a cinematic career until 1933, when he appeared in some short comedy films and the feature musical Moonlight and Pretzels. Frawley moved to Los Angeles, where he signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures.
Finding much work as a character actor, Frawley had roles in comedies, dramas, musicals, Westerns, and romances. He appeared in Miracle on 34th Street as Judge Harper's political adviser, who warns his client in great detail of the dire political consequences if he rules that there is no Santa Claus. Some of Frawley's other memorable film roles were as the baseball manager in Joe E. Brown's Alibi Ike, the wedding host in Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux, and a hard-nosed insurance investigator in My Home in San Antone with Roy Acuff and Lloyd Corrigan. He appeared in two movies starring James Cagney, Something to Sing About and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.
Television
''I Love Lucy''
By 1951, the 64-year-old Frawley had appeared in over 100 movies, but was starting to find film offers becoming fewer. When he heard that Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball were casting a new television situation comedy, he applied eagerly to play the role of the cantankerous, miserly landlord Fred Mertz. One evening, he telephoned Lucille Ball, asking her what his chances were. Ball was surprised to hear from him, a man she barely knew. Both Ball and Arnaz agreed it would be great to have Frawley, a motion-picture veteran, appear as Fred Mertz. Less enthusiastic were CBS executives, who were wary of Frawley's well-known frequent drinking and instability. Arnaz warned Frawley about the network's concerns, telling him that if he was late to work, arrived drunk, or was unable to perform because of something other than legitimate illness more than once, he would be written out of the show. In one version of this conversation, Arnaz told Frawley he would get three chances. The first screw-up would be tolerated, the second would result in a severe reprimand, and the third would result in his being fired. Contrary to the network's concerns, Frawley never arrived at work drunk, and mastered his lines after only one reading. Arnaz eventually became one of Frawley's few close friends.Before each episode, Frawley would read the script with the rest of the cast, then would take out the sheets with only his lines and discard the rest of the script to study only his part.
I Love Lucy debuted October 15, 1951, on CBS, and was a huge success. The series was broadcast for six years as half-hour episodes, later changing to hour-long specials from 1957 to 1960 titled The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show.
Vivian Vance played Ethel Mertz, Frawley's on-screen wife. Although the two actors worked well together, they greatly disliked each other offscreen. Most attribute their mutual hatred to Vance's vocal resentment of having to play wife to a man 22 years her senior. Frawley reportedly overheard Vance complaining; he took offense and never forgave her. "She's one of the finest girls to come out of Kansas", he once said, "But I often wish she'd go back there."
An avid New York Yankees baseball fan, Frawley had it written into his I Love Lucy contract that he did not have to work during the World Series if the Yankees were playing. The Yankees were in every World Series during that time except for 1954 and 1959. He did not appear in two episodes of the show as a result.
For his work on the show, Frawley was Emmy-nominated five consecutive times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. In 1957, at the end of I Love Lucy, Ball and Arnaz gave Frawley and Vance the opportunity to have their own Fred and Ethel spin-off series for Desilu Studios. Despite his animosity towards her, Frawley saw a lucrative opportunity and accepted. Vance declined, having no desire to work with Frawley again and also feeling that Ethel and Fred would be unsuccessful without the Ricardos.
''My Three Sons''
Frawley next joined the cast of the ABC situation comedy My Three Sons, playing live-in grandfather and housekeeper Michael Francis "Bub" O'Casey beginning in 1960. Featuring Fred MacMurray, the series was about a widower raising his three sons.Frawley reportedly never felt comfortable with the out-of-sequence filming method used for My Three Sons after doing I Love Lucy in sequence for years. Each season was arranged so that main actor Fred MacMurray could film all of his scenes during two separate intensive blocks of filming for a total of 65 working days on the set; Frawley and the other actors worked around the absent MacMurray for the remainder of the year's production schedule.
Personal life
In 1914, Frawley married fellow vaudevillian Edna Louise Broedt. They developed an act, "Frawley and Louise", which they performed all across the country. Their act was described as "light comedy, with singing, dancing, and patter." The couple separated in 1921. They had no children. His brother Paul Frawley also was an actor on Broadway with relatively few appearances in motion pictures.Frawley had a reputation for being cantankerous and difficult, likely exacerbated by a drinking problem. In 1928, he was fired from the Broadway show That's My Baby for punching actor Clifton Webb in the nose.
Final years and death
Frawley made two television appearances the year before his death. His appearance on the panel show I've Got a Secret on May 3, 1965, consisted of contestants guessing Frawley's "secret", which was that he was the first performer ever to sing "My Melancholy Baby", in 1912. He had performed that song previously on television, as Fred Mertz, in the 1958 episode "Lucy Goes to Sun Valley" on the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.Frawley's final on-camera performance was on October 25, 1965, with a brief cameo appearance in Lucille Ball's second television sitcom, The Lucy Show, in the episode "Lucy and the Countess Have a Horse Guest". Frawley plays a horse trainer and Lucy comments: "You know, he reminds me of someone I used to know."
Frawley suffered a fatal heart attack while walking on Hollywood Boulevard and died on March 3, 1966. Upon learning of his death, Desi Arnaz immediately took out a full-page ad in all the trade papers, with the words: "Buenas noches, amigo." Arnaz, Fred MacMurray, and My Three Sons executive producer Don Fedderson were pallbearers at his funeral. Lucille Ball said: "I've lost one of my dearest friends and show business has lost one of the greatest character actors of all time. Those of us who knew him and loved him will miss him."
Legacy
William Frawley is buried in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles. For his achievements in the field of motion pictures, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6322 Hollywood Blvd, on February 8, 1960. He is memorialized, as well, in the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, New York, which also contains his "Hippity-Hoppity" costume from an episode of I Love Lucy. Both Frawley and Vivian Vance were inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in March 2012.The story of how Desi Arnaz hired Frawley to play Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy is told in I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, a stage comedy that had its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018. The play, from Gregg Oppenheimer, was recorded in front of a live audience for nationwide public radio broadcast and online distribution, and starred Sarah Drew as Lucille Ball and Oscar Nunez as Desi Arnaz. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a serialized version of the play in the UK in August 2020, as Lucy Loves Desi: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, in which Stacy Keach portrayed Frawley, Anne Heche played Lucille Ball, and Wilmer Valderrama played Desi Arnaz.
Frawley was portrayed by John Wheeler in the television movie Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter. Thirty years later he was portrayed in the 2021 film Being the Ricardos by J. K. Simmons, who received an Academy Award nomination for his role.
Filmography
Lord Loveland Discovers America as Tony KiddPersistent Percival as BillyShould Husbands Be Watched? as Beat CopVentriloquist as 'Hoak' salesmanTurkey for Two as ConvictFancy That as PercyMoonlight and Pretzels as MacHell and High Water as Milton J. BunseyMiss Fane's Baby Is Stolen as Captain MurphyBolero as Mike DeBaereThe Crime Doctor as FraserThe Witching Hour as Jury foremanShoot the Works as Larry HaleThe Lemon Drop Kid as William DunhillHere Is My Heart as James SmithCar 99 as Sergeant BarrelHold 'Em Yale as Sunshine JoeAlibi Ike as CapCollege Scandal as Chief of Police MagounWelcome Home as PainlessHarmony Lane as Edwin P. 'Ed' ChristyIt's a Great Life as Lt. McNultyShip Cafe as Briney O'BrienStrike Me Pink as Mr. CoppleDesire as Mr. GibsonF-Man as Detective RoganThe Princess Comes Across as BentonThree Cheers for Love as Milton ShakespeareThe General Died at Dawn as BrightonThree Married Men as Bill MullinsRose Bowl as Soapy MorelandHigh, Wide and Handsome as MacDouble or Nothing as John PedersonSomething to Sing About as Hank MeyersBlossoms on Broadway as Frances X. RushMad About Music as Dusty TurnerProfessor Beware as Snoop DonlanSons of the Legion as Uncle Willie LeeTouchdown, Army as Jack HeffernanAmbush as Inspector J.L. WeberSt. Louis Blues as Maj. MartingalePersons in Hiding as Alec InglisThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as The 'Duke'Rose of Washington Square as Harry LongEx-Champ as Mushy HarringtonGrand Jury Secrets as Bright EyesNight Work as Bruiser BrownStop, Look and Love as Joe HallerThe Farmer's Daughter as Scoop TrimbleOpened by Mistake as Matt KingsleyThose Were the Days! as Prisoner Untamed as Les WoodburyGolden Gloves as Emory BalzarRhythm on the River as Mr. WestlakeThe Quarterback as CoachOne Night in the Tropics as RoscoeDancing on a Dime as MacSandy Gets Her Man as Police Chief J. A. O'HaraSix Lessons from Madame La Zonga as Chauncey BeheeganFootsteps in the Dark as HopkinsBlondie in Society as Waldo PincusThe Bride Came C.O.D. as Sheriff McGeeCracked Nuts as James MitchellPublic Enemies as BangTreat 'Em Rough as 'Hotfoot'Roxie Hart as O'MalleyIt Happened in Flatbush as Sam SloanGive Out, Sisters as HarrisonWildcat as Oliver WestbrookMoonlight in Havana as Barney CraneGentleman Jim as Billy DelaneyWe've Never Been Licked as Traveling SalesmanLarceny with Music as Mike SimmsWhistling in Brooklyn as Detective RamseyThe Fighting Seabees as Eddie PowersGoing My Way as Max Dolan – the Publisher Minstrel Man Lake Placid Serenade as JiggersFlame of Barbary Coast as 'Smooth' WylieHitchhike to Happiness as Sandy HillLady on a Train as Police Sergeant ChristieZiegfeld Follies as Martin The Virginian as Honey WiggenRendezvous with Annie as Gen. TrentThe Inner Circle as Det. Lt. WebbCrime Doctor's Man Hunt as Inspector Harry B. ManningHit Parade of 1947 as Harry HolmesMonsieur Verdoux as Jean La SalleMiracle on 34th Street as Charlie HalloranI Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now as Jim MasonMother Wore Tights as Mr. SchneiderDown to Earth as Police LieutenantBlondie's Anniversary as Sharkey, the Loan SharkMy Wild Irish Rose as William ScanlonTexas, Brooklyn & Heaven as AgentThe Babe Ruth Story as Jack DunnGood Sam as Tom MooreJoe Palooka in Winner Take All as Knobby WalshThe Girl from Manhattan as Mr. BernoutiChicken Every Sunday as George KirbyThe Lone Wolf and His Lady as Inspector J.D. CraneHome in San Antone as O'FleeryRed Light as Hotel ClerkThe Lady Takes a Sailor as Oliver HarkerEast Side, West Side as Bill the BartenderBlondie's Hero as Marty GreerKill the Umpire as Jimmy O'BrienKiss Tomorrow Goodbye as ByersPretty Baby as CorcoranAbbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man as Detective RobertsThe Lemon Drop Kid as Gloomy WillieRhubarb as Len SicklesRancho Notorious as Baldy GunderI Love Lucy as Fred Mertz / HimselfThe Dirty Look Better Football as HimselfSafe at Home! as Bill TurnerSelected television (actor)
I Love Lucy The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie FordMy Three Sons- ''The Lucy Show''
Broadway credits
Merry, Merry Bye, Bye, Bonnie She's My Baby Here's Howe Sons O' Guns She Lived Next to the Firehouse Tell Her the Truth Twentieth Century- ''The Ghost Writer''