While Vivian Vance always served as Lucille Ball's right-hand woman, that doesn't mean that she was a second banana, so to speak.

According to an interview with The Record, Vance explained that before she began filming The Lucy Show, she was able to provide some input as to how her character was written. "I like being a woman with a son," Vance said of her character.

"I think it's more of an expression of me...Before we started the new show I kept talking with the writers, begging them to keep the part feminine - I didn't mean that I didn't want to be funny, but I wanted to get away from those tough, hard-bitten, masculine-sounding jokes. This character gives me a chance to wear some nice clothes too."

While playing Lucy's second-in-command, the duties sometimes grew tiring for Vance, who leaped at the opportunity to portray a totally different character on the stage.

"I did anything that would let me be myself - anything that would break the Ethel image," she said. "It was nice being back on the stage. It was also nice being called Vivian Vance for a change."

See More

I Love LucyVivian Vance

Vivian Vance believed that acting in a comedy was more difficult than acting in a drama

Vance called Ball "a great clown," with an unmistakable talent for ensuring that everything in a series had its time and place.

"Another thing is that there is great economy in this show," she said. "We have about twenty-eight minutes to tell the story and we don't waste a second of it. You can be sure if there's one unnecessary line, it goes out."