Desilu Productions

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Desilu Productions was an American television production company based in Los Angeles ( California ), which by the actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz was headed.

The Desilu Studios are origin of the sitcom I Love Lucy , and many other successful TV shows , including Star Trek (Star Trek), My Favorite Martian , The Andy Griffith Show , Cobra, accept (Mission: Impossible), The Untouchables (The Untouchables) , Mannix , The Lucy Show , Tennis Rackets and Cannons (I Spy) and A Cage Full of Heroes (Hogan's Heroes) .

Desilu's successor companies were Paramount Television and Lucille Ball Productions .

history

Desilu was founded in 1950 by the actor couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The name is formed from the two first names Desi and Lu cille, and their ranch in Chatsworth , around 40 kilometers northwest of Hollywood , in the San Fernando Valley , also bore this name. Desilu originally produced Ball's radio comedy My Favorite Husband , which was produced for the CBS Radio Network , while a television version was developed for CBS , which went into production in 1951 under the title I Love Lucy . In the first few years, the production took place at General Service Studios in Hollywood.

Desilu's steadily increasing space requirements led to the purchase of his own studio in 1954, the Motion Picture Center on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, which was henceforth called Desilu Studios. At the end of 1957 Desilu also acquired the studio properties from the General Tire and Rubber Company that were still occupied by RKO Radio Pictures at the beginning of the year : the film studio in Culver City with the associated backlot " Forty Acres " and the film studio on Gower Street in Hollywood, which developed into Desilus' most important location. With the acquisitions, the "Ball-Arnaz television empire" grew to a total of 33 sound days - four more than Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) owned in 1957.

Desilu's early success can be largely attributed to Arnaz's unorthodox business style, which he displayed as the producer of the sitcom I Love Lucy . Since Arnaz had no business management knowledge, the concept of amortization was completely alien to him. As a rule, he added all production costs to the first episode of the new season, instead of spreading the investments made over the planned number of episodes. As a result, the production costs for all episodes were covered after a short time, which could be produced at absurdly low costs towards the end of the season. In addition, Arnaz bought back all episodes of I Love Lucy after they were broadcast from CBS at an astonishingly low price - in contrast to the network and the television industry of the time, Arnaz recognized the resale potential for later reruns.

An attempt to get into film production with Desilu was made during the television break in the summer of 1956 with the film Forever, Darling , which was published under the label Zanra Productions - Arnaz written backwards - via MGM. Arnaz and Ball hoped to build on the success of their 1954 MGM produced and published film The Long, Long Trailer ; Forever, Darling , however , failed at the box office and all film projects were buried. It wasn't until Yours, Mine and Ours that Desilu achieved success with audiences and critics. When the film - with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda in the leading roles - was released in April 1968 via United Artists , Ball had already sold the company.

A loss for Desilu was Carol Burnett's cancellation , for whom a separate sitcom was planned; Burnett instead accepted an offer for a weekly variety show on television, which it ran under the title The Carol Burnett Show for eleven seasons. The attempts to sell the filmed pilot episodes for a comedy with Carol Channing and an adventure series with Rory Calhoun to a network were also unsuccessful . The series of lawyers developed by Arnaz Without Consent with Spencer Tracy was stopped while development was still in progress because a suitable script could not be produced.

In 1960 Desi Arnaz sold the rights to the Desilu series produced before 1960 to CBS. Contrary to popular belief, Arnaz did not sell his stake in Desilu immediately because of his divorce from Lucille Ball in 1960. Preparations for Ball's successor series The Lucy Show were already underway at Desilu , whereupon it was jointly decided that Ball should take over the entire studio. Arnaz gave up his chairmanship of the studio in 1962 and sold his stake in Ball, which he succeeded as studio chairman. Lucille Ball became the first woman to head a major studio and one of the most influential women in Hollywood at the time.

In the years that followed, Ball served as chairman and general manager of Desilu, while also starring in her own weekly television series. Burned out by the stress of the obligations, she sold the company in 1967 to the conglomerate Gulf + Western , which merged Desilu with its other production company, the film studio Paramount Pictures , acquired in 1966 . Merging Desilu Studios with Paramount Studios turned out to be particularly easy in one case - the former RKO Hollywood Studio on Gower Street was directly adjacent to Paramount's property. In late 1967 Desilu Productions became Paramount's television production unit, Paramount Television .

Developments after Desilus's end

Takeover of the current television production

Prior to the takeover of Desilu, Paramount was only active in the production of feature films after attempts with Telemount Productions to enter the production of television programs were given up again. At the time of the takeover in 1967 Desilu had five television series in production, all of which had started the new season in September; when the name “Paramount Television” and the new studio logo replaced the previous Desilu logo in December, almost half of the episodes had already been broadcast.

The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) and The Lucy Show (1962–1968) saw the change in their eighth and sixth and last year, respectively. Star Trek (1966–1969) and Mission: Impossible (1966–1973) were both in their second year of broadcast when they became Paramount productions - years later, both series would make it to extremely lucrative series on Paramount. The only restart of the year was the Mannix series (1967–1975), which only lasted a few weeks of its eight-year period under the Desilu logo.

Lucille's subsequent television series

Ball founded after the sale of Desilu the production company Lucille Ball Productions for their next television series, Here's Lucy , whose first season 1968-1969 was still produced together with Paramount Television. Paramount then withdrew from production and sold the proportionate rights to the first season to Ball, which years later sold the syndication rights to Telepictures ; the latter company has been part of Warner Bros. Television since 1989 .

Film library and retention of rights

The titles produced by Desilu until 1994 were essentially divided into two groups, each with different rights holders. The division took place through the sale of the rights to the pre-1960 titles by Desi Arnaz in 1960. The decisive factor was the first year of production of a series according to the following division:

  • 1951–1959: Rights to CBS sold in 1960
    Since acquisition, the rights have been managed by the syndication department of CBS Films , which was replaced in 1971 by Viacom - its legal successor - and had to be made independent in 1973 due to FCC requirements .
  • 1960–1967: Rights to Paramount Television transferred , late 1967
    The legal successor to Desilu was Paramount Television, the rights to the productions were thus under the umbrella of the conglomerate Gulf + Western , which transformed into a pure media group and renamed Paramount Communications in 1989.

When Viacom bought Paramount Communications in 1994 and the following year the television production and distribution were reorganized under Paramount Television, practically all Desilu titles came back under a single owner.

CBS was bought up in 1995 by the conglomerate Westinghouse Electric Corporation , which quickly sold its old core businesses, renamed itself CBS Corporation in 1997 and was bought by Viacom in 1999. This process was largely reversed at the end of 2005, and the resurrected CBS Corporation has since united the CBS network with CBS Paramount Television - the business unit for television production, television distribution and administration of television-related film libraries - under one roof.

Studio lots

The studio property known as Desilu Gower has been part of Paramount Studios , the joint area of ​​Paramount Pictures and Paramount Television (now CBS Paramount Television ) , since 1967 and can be visited as part of the studio tour. You can see Lucy's cloakroom , which she used in Desilu's times, and the fish pond that she and Desi had created for their two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz junior .

Desilus Backlot in Culver was sold in 1968 and was available to rent for recordings until 1976, before the area was cleared for rebuilding; today the property is part of the southern extension of the Hayden Industrial Tract .

The Desilu Studio in Culver City was also sold in 1968 and, as a rental studio, experienced changing owners. In the mid-1980s, the now heavily aged studio was renewed; Sony Pictures Entertainment bought the studio in 1991 and invested again in the renovation of the nearby, former MGM studio site. Sony sold the studio to today's operating company PCCP Studio City Los Angeles in 2004; since then it has been operating as a pure rental studio again under the name The Culver Studios .

The first own location - called Desilu Cahuenga for differentiation in later years - initially remained the property of Paramount and was given independence in 1974 as Ren-Mar Studios .

General Service Studios, the first rental studio occupied by Desilu, changed hands several times; Francis Ford Coppola acquired the studio in 1980, which should enable his production company American Zoetrope to become an integrated Hollywood studio . Financial problems led to the sale of the studio again in 1984 - since then it has been operating as a rental studio again under the name Hollywood Center Studios .

Pop culture references

literature

  • Coyne Steven Sanders, Tom Gilbert: Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz . William Morrow, New York 1993, ISBN 0-688-11217-X .

Web links