Vivian Vance said that ''there was no boss'' on the set of I Love Lucy

Vance also said that she and Lucille Ball balanced each other out.

January 23, 2025, 3:18PM By MeTV Staff

CBS Television Distribution

A show like I Love Lucy can feel pretty absurd at times, but regardless of how zany the episodes got, it's comforting to know that many of the actors who appeared in the series were actually friends in real life.

Vivian Vance, best known for playing Ethel Mertz, said during an interview that, despite what you might believe, realism was an important theme in the series.

"We always tried to keep our characters human - even though we were a bunch of clowns," said Vance during an interview with the Ridder News Service.

What was incredibly real was Vance's love for Ball. Not only did the actor commend Ball for her talent as an actor, but she also revealed that Ball helped her become a better actor herself.

"She's a talented, driving lady," said Vance of Ball. "I think one of the reasons Lucille and I remain such close friends is that one balances the other. Lucille had more ambition than I had and made me work harder than I ever wanted to work. She pulled me along and taught me a lot of things I was too lazy to do."

Despite the fact that Ball was one of the co-creators of I Love Lucy, she held no such domineering presence during the production of the show. The cast and crew kept an open dialogue in order to make the series as good as it could possibly be.

"There was no boss on that set," said Vance. "He would have been trampled by the crowd. Everybody was allowed to have his say at every conference. We rehearsed three days, then sat in a room sometimes until 4 a.m. and fought out every word, every scene."

Of course, Vance put in all that preparation to make something look effortless on screen.

"Lucille and I always wanted our routines to look like we were doing them for the first time," said Vance. "But we might have done that routine for 72 hours before we got it right."