The two actresses had similar careers until television made Ball a superstar
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NEED TO KNOW
- Joan Davis and Lucille Ball were both funnywomen coming up in the 1940s, as the world began to transition from radio to television
- Davis launched her sitcom, I Married Joan, just a year after I Love Lucy debuted
- The similarities between the two women are explored by author Gary Berman in his book, 100 Years of Laughter: American Comedy in the Twentieth Century
Lucille Ball was the first comedic actress to star in her own TV sitcom, but not for long.
Another female-led show joined her just a year later, when Joan Davis debuted I Married Joan on NBC in 1952. In his book 100 Years of Laughter: American Comedy in the Twentieth Century, author Gary Berman discussed how Davis, who also came up through radio into television, had a career that paralleled Ball’s.
“Like Ball, Davis was a movie veteran with a special talent for slapstick. She was tall, gangly and adept at exaggerated facial expressions and delivering wisecracks. She appeared in dozens of films and, like Ball, further strengthened her comedic reputation with a highly rated radio series,” Berman wrote.
Joan played Joan Stevens, the wife of Judge Bradley Stevens, played by Jim Backus. In each episode, the judge would flash back to a time when his wife’s quirkiness got them into a bind.
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Davis was also like Ball in that she wanted to be involved in all aspects of I Married Joan‘s production, according to Berman, who wrote that she once told reporters, “It’s the first time I’ve ever done a domestic comedy, but since I made a reputation as a physical comedienne, I had to continue. We feel that the script is adult, but we don’t want to disappoint the children in the audience.”
Davis refused to use a teleprompter, instead memorizing 50-page scripts every few days. She also opted for 12-hour days shooting on set instead of breaking the filming up more.
“I’d rather shoot it in one day and get it over with. I work like a dog. We use three cameras shooting simultaneously on every scene. When I take a pratfall, we’ve got it from three different angles and I don’t have to do it over again. We never reshoot anything. There isn’t time,” she explained at the time.
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Despite their shows competing for viewers, Berman noted that Ball and Davis regarded each other professionally and never feuded over the constant comparisons between I Love Lucy and I Married Joan.
After the sitcom’s three-year run, Davis moved on to ABC’s The Joan Davis Show, which featured Davis as a musical-comedy entertainer who was raising a daughter, played by her daughter and I Married Joan costar Beverly Wills, on her own. The pilot ultimately did not succeed.
However, I Love Lucy was on the air for six seasons and was the most-watched television show in the United States for several years. After it ended, Ball went on to become a powerhouse producer and star on several more shows, such as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy.
Davis died in May 1961 of a heart attack at home in Palm Springs. She was 48. Ball, for her part, died from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1989. She was 77.
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