SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

LUCIE TALKS ABOUT LUCY & AND OTHERS: THE TWO AND ONLY

LUCIE Arnaz, who opens tonight in "My One and Only," had agreed to the interview with one stipulation: We don't talk about her mother, the most famous Lucy of them all -- Lucille Ball.

 Agreed. Doggone it, then, if Lucie the younger didn't start talking about Lucy the elder right off. Asked why, in light of a television upbringing, she had chosen to concentrate on live theater, Lucie talked about her childhood. "When we were kids, long before the 'I Love Lucy' show, when I was only 3, we always used to play in the garage, putting on shows. I would make up stories and tell them to the other kids sitting in front of me. Then one day my mother closed the garage and wouldn't let us in. It was closed for two weeks. "I was real angry, but when it was opened, there it was. A stage! With one spotlight and a curtain. It was beautiful. And it had a box office in front where we could sell tickets. I was 11 and I think I spent the rest of my childhood there. It was the best gift I ever got!"

Her latest theatrical venture, "My One and Only," is a new musical with old songs by George and Ira Gershwin (though Ira wrote a new lyric for the show before his death). Co-star Tommy Tune helped stage and choreograph the show. Arnaz plays an aquacade star, a role created on Broadway by Twiggy and played on the road by Sandy Duncan. Arnaz took over the role in Los Angeles, played it in Denver and will be here at the Golden Gate Theater through Dec.1.

Arnaz says all those early years as part of the Proscenium Players-- that's what she called her garage group -- "kept me out of drugs" and fostered a love of theater that is still pre-eminent in her life. Her mother neither urged her on, nor offered advice "except on shoes and clothes. All she said was, 'You do it better than I could tell.' When I get depressed I call her up and ask her to tell." 

"The theater is always the special place for me. It's just that once you're up there (on stage) and you can do it and you know there are not many people who can do it, well, I felt special.

"My mother was never interested in live theater. TV is where she could shine. And my father (Desi Arnaz) found that he was good at directing and producing. He created the whole Desilu outfit and that created that whole part of television.

"My mother didn't like theater. She said it made her ill. She was afraid she'd get stuck in a hit -- I should have such luck!" Lucie, at 34, resembles neither of her famous parents. She says she's wackier than her mother, but that's not apparent in her conversation, which is measured, thoughtful, easy.

Lucie Arnaz started her career on her mother's show, "Here's Lucy," working there for six-plus years. She says she has never worked at anything but performing. "I did have a job for a little while working as a secretary for my stepfather (Gary Morton). It was my only job job. I did get paid."

And Lucie married early, too, to a childhood friend, Phil Vandervort -- "It should be Van Der Vort, but I think he spells it all together. I was 20. I decided to get a divorce a year later (though it wasn't final for 41/2 years). "It wasn't his fault. It was mine. I just found we were different. We had different desires, different sexual needs. We were changing. But I didn't know that at 20. At 20 I wanted a wedding and a shower and a house and a checkbook of my own. He was a nice person. He still is. He's remarried and has two wonderful kids now and we're all friends."

Arnaz had thought of going to Northwestern University for theater training, "but I couldn't turn down my mother's show. After all, how can you go to college to learn acting when you are being offered exactly what you were training for? Anyway, I never did go to college."

Instead Arnaz embarked on a career that includes lots of regional and summer stock productions. She landed the Gittle Mosca role in the National Touring Company production of "Seesaw," which is where she met and became close friends with Tommy Tune.

Arnaz met Laurence Luckinbill, her second husband, while co-starring with him in a TV movie called "The Mating Season," and she has emulated her mother in co-starring with her mate in a number of roles. The two call New York home, but they've toured in "Whose Life Is It Anyway?," "Educating Rita," "They're Playing Our Song," "I Do, I Do" and recently in Molnar's "The Guardsman."

A lot of that togetherness has to do with making the marriage work and keeping the kids -- she and Luckinbill have boys 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 and a girl, 8 months -- with them as much as possible. That presents problems when jobs come in separate shows.

"When I got this role, I told Larry, look, I'm not going to do this if you don't want me to. We have to survive it. But it's an opportunity to do a musical that gives me so much.

"I said, 'Larry, I'm having the best time of my life with people I love. I've pushed myself farther than I've ever pushed.' "

And what did Luckinbill say? "He gave me a hug and a kiss," Arnaz grinned.

Arnaz is, of course, sensitive to what show business does to marriages and families. Her parents were divorced. Luckinbill was divorced from actress Robin Strasser. And Lucie's brother, Desi Jr., had a difficult time with the business following his quick success at 17 as a rock artist.

"You have to have the kind of personality that can take this business," Arnaz says, turning serious. "I know it's possible to succeed, because I'm here. But if you have a personality that can't take bad days, rejection. If you are depressive or addictive, beware. This business if filled with rejection. "You go to auditions and you know you're the best, and then the girl with the big tits gets the job, or the one with the father who has put money into the show. There is lots of ego abuse. You have to be able to laugh at it. For some performers, the Betty Ford Center is closer than the Academy Awards."

Arnaz appears to have cleared the hurdle. She bubbles over, trying to make her point: "I love doing this! It. . . it pleases me. I never got into it to be a superstar, or try to have it all at once. I just love doing it. "But I do know lots of actors who are starving. I don't know what I would advise others. For other people, or my own kids, well, my advice would be to do this (performing) if you can't do anything else. Do it if you have to do it."