Desilu

Desilu Productions

Founded	1951
Founder	Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz
Defunct	December 29, 1967
Fate	Purchased by Gulf+Western in 1967, who renamed the company Paramount Television
Successor	Paramount Television Lucille Ball Productions (in part) Desilu, Too, LLC (in part)
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California, USA
Products	Television Production
Parent	Gulf+Western (1967)

Desilu Productions, co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, was best known for its hit productions such as I Love Lucy, Star Trek and The Jack Benny Program. The couple owned Desilu Productions until they divorced. Desilu Productions was sold to Gulf+Western. After Desilu Productions was sold, company officials renamed it Paramount Television.

History

Desilu Productions was formed in 1950 using the combined names of "Desi Arnaz" and "Lucille Ball". Desilu Productions was initially created to produce Lucy and Desi's vaudeville act to sell the television series to Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executives. Both Arnaz and Ball wanted to adapt Ball's CBS radio series My Favorite Husband to television. The television project eventually became I Love Lucy. For the first few years of I Love Lucy, Desilu rented space at General Service Studios (now the Hollywood Center Studios), on Santa Monica Boulevard and North Las Palmas Avenue. Desilu Productions used Stage Two which was named Desilu Playhouse. Later a special entrance was created at 6633 Romaine Street on the south side of the lot allowing entrance into the Desilu Playhouse.

Ball's role in the company

Ball's contribution was more on the artistic side. Ball had developed a sense for which of the many programming proposals offered to Desilu would be popular to a broad audience and be successful in both their original broadcast and syndication re-runs. Before starring in I Love Lucy Ball had starred in many "B" movies before helping start Desilu Productions and based on that experience she had a good idea of what the television audience wanted.

High quality (i.e., high cost), original production concepts such asThe Untouchables or Star Trek) were approved by Ball for development into broadcast series. She assessed proposed projects based on how the public would enjoy the production and their potential for long-term acceptance and enjoyment. This ensured a profitable revenue stream from the programs through re-runs, which would recover the studio's initially high development and production costs. As a result, even decades after the absorption of Desilu Productions, and the production end of all of the original television series Desilu approved for development, the series have all achieved enduring success and redevelopment into feature length motion picture franchises in their own right, or both (e.g., Star Trek, Mission Impossible, and The Untouchables).

Arnaz's role in the company

In late 1957 the company also bought the RKO Pictures properties, including its main lot in Culver City, with the backlot known as Forty Acres, and another lot on Gower Street in Hollywood. These acquisitions gave the Ball-Arnaz TV empire a total of 33 sound stages — four more than Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and eleven more than Twentieth Century-Fox had in 1957. Desilu Productions took possession of RKO Pictures by 1958.

Much of Desilu Productions early success can be traced to Arnaz's unusual business style in his role as producer of I Love Lucy. For example, lacking formal business training, Arnaz knew nothing of amortization, and often included all the costs incurred by the production into the first episode of a season, rather than spreading them across the projected number of episodes in the year. As a result, by the end of the season, episodes would be nearly entirely paid for, and would come in at preposterously low figures. In addition, Arnaz took the unprecedented step of buying the episodes of I Love Lucy for an astoundingly low cost from CBS, realizing, as the network did not, the potential of the rerun.

Peak years

Desilu soon outgrew its first space and in 1954 bought its own studio: the Motion Picture Center on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, at the site of what is now the Ren-Mar rental studio; most of I Love Lucy was filmed there.

The studio's initial attempt to become involved in film production was the 1956 film Forever, Darling, Arnaz and Ball's follow-up to their highly successful The Long, Long Trailer (1954), but it failed at the box office. It was produced at Desilu, but under the banner of Zanra Productions ("Arnaz" spelled backward). Most subsequent attempts to bring projects to the big screen were aborted, until Yours, Mine and Ours (with Ball and Henry Fonda) in 1968. This film was a critical and financial success.

Another Desilu loss was Carol Burnett, who declined to star in a sitcom for the studio in favor of The Carol Burnett Show, a weekly variety show that ultimately lasted eleven seasons. (Burnett and Ball, however, remained close friends, often guest-starring on one another's series.)

Ball as sole owner

In 1960, Desi Arnaz sold the pre-1960s shows to CBS. Desilu Productions retained ownership of those shows which premiered before 1960, but were still in production. Contrary to popular belief, Desi Arnaz did not sell his share of Desilu due to his divorce with Lucille Ball. Since Desilu had already begun producing Ball's follow-up series The Lucy Show by that point, it was decided that Ball should be the one to assume full ownership.

In November 1962, Arnaz resigned as president when his holdings in the company were bought out by Ball, who succeeded him as president. This made her the first woman to head a major studio, and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood at the time. Ball later founded Desilu Sales, Inc. that later became part of CBS Television Distribution.

Arnaz left television production for a few years but returned in 1966 when formed his own company, Desi Arnaz Productions, based at Desilu. Desi Arnaz Productions along with United Artists Television, co-producedThe Mothers-in-Law, for National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Arnaz attempted to sell other television plots including a comedy with Carol Channing and an adventure series with Rory Calhoun. Neither series sold. Arnaz also tried to create a law drama called Without Consent, with Spencer Tracy as a defense attorney, but after several attempts at developing a suitable script failed, the project was abandoned.

Closure and resurrection as Desilu, Too

Ball served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Desilu, while at the same time starring in her own weekly series. In February 1967, Ball agreed to sell her company to Charles Bluhdorn of Gulf+Western. The company was first called Paramount Pictures but was later renamed Paramount Television. The company is now called CBS Television Studios.

Desilu's series on television at the time, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, The Lucy Show and Star Trek changed packagers to Paramount.

Desilu-Paramount TV's holdings are currently owned by CBS Corporation, the eventual owner of the pre-1960s shows. Desilu Productions Inc. (aka Desilu Too L.L.C.) was reincorporated in Delaware in 1967, and still exists as a legal entity, mostly as a licensee for I Love Lucy-related merchandise. Desilu, Too also partners with MPI Home Video and Lucille Ball Productions ( formed by Ball and second husband Gary Morton on the video releases of Here's Lucy and other material Ball and Arnaz made independently of each other. Recently, Desilu, Too officials worked with MPI Home Video for the home video re-issue of The Mothers-In-Law. Paramount CBS DVD continues to hold DVD distribution rights to the CBS library. Syndication rights for Here's Lucy was sold by Ball to Telepictures, which later merged into Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. Warner Bros. is the show's current distributor although MPI now holds video rights under license from Ball Productions and Desilu, Too.

Technological innovations

Desilu is often mistakenly credited with being either the first television studio to shoot on film instead of making a live broadcast, or as the first television studio to shoot on film with a multi-camera setup. However, neither is true. Earlier filmed series included Your Show Time, The Stu Erwin Show, and The Life of Riley; and Jerry Fairbanks had developed and was using multi-camera film production for television in 1950. Desilu's innovation was to use a multi-camera film setup before a live studio audience.

Desilu began the creation of its productions using conventional film studio materials, production and processing techniques. The use of these materials and techniques meant that the 35 mm negatives (the source material for copyright purposes) were immediately available for production and distribution of prints when the Lucy series went into syndication at local stations around the country. As such there are no "lost" episodes of programs, or programs recorded by kinescope from the television broadcast.

Through the use of orthodox Hollywood filming and production techniques, the content and quality of Desilu productions displayed a high standard from the very outset. Moreover, they were readily adaptable to either comedy or drama formats and were able to handle special effects or feature interior or exterior sets and locations with equal ease.

Television shows under the Desilu Studios helm

• I Love Lucy
• Star Trek
• The Andy Griffith Show
• Mission Impossible
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• My Three Sons
• Family Affair
• Make Room for Daddy
• The Untouchables
• I Spy
• Whirlybirds
• Harrigan and Son
• Mannix
• The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
• Our Miss Brooks
• The Real McCoys
• Gomer Pyle, USMC
• That Girl
• The Jack Benny Program
• Meet McGraw
• Hogan's Heroes

Some of these programs were created and owned outright by Desilu; others were other production companies' programs that Desilu filmed or to which Desilu rented production space.

External links

• Desilu at Memory Alpha