page_title: William Frawley
section_title: I Love Lucy
hierarchical_section_title: William Frawley / Television / I Love Lucy
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of the I Love Lucy cast: William Frawley (Fred Mertz), Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo), Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz), Lucille Ball (Lucy Ricardo).
context_page_description: William Clement Frawley was an American stage entertainer and screen and television actor best known for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the American television sitcom I Love Lucy and "Bub" O'Casey in the television comedy series My Three Sons.
  Frawley began his career in vaudeville in 1914 with his wife, Edna Louise Broedt. Their comedy act, known as "Frawley and Louise", continued until their divorce in 1927. Frawley performed on Broadway multiple times and signed with Paramount Studios in 1916 to play in silent films. He appeared in more than 100 films over 35 years.
context_section_description: By 1951, the 64-year-old Frawley had appeared in over 100 movies but was starting to find film role 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 warned of Frawley's 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. A slightly different version of this conversation holds that Arnaz contacted the other actor and 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.
  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 1957-60 titled The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show (later retitled The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour).
  Vivian Vance played Ethel Mertz, Frawley's on-screen wife. Although the two actors worked well together, they greatly disliked each other. 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 observed, "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 (1953-1957) 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.
caption: The I Love Lucy cast (clockwise): William Frawley, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance
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