Maurice A. (Maury) Thompson, Emmy-nominated television director who worked with Lucille Ball for 16 years, died August 7, 2000 of cancer at his home in Irvine. He was 83.
     Thompson, who was born in Lockeford, Calif., Aug. 30, 1916, graduated from Stockton College of Commerce with honors and served in the Navy during World War II as chief yeoman under Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. He settled in Los Angeles after the war, working for a while at CBS studios. He then joined Desilu Productions in 1951 as a script clerk at the inception of I Love Lucy.
     At the beginning of the show's second season, he was made camera coordinator, a specialized role unique to Desilu series, which at the time were the only TV productions to be shot with three film cameras in front of a live audience.
     He performed that function on other Desilu sitcoms as well, including Our Miss Brooks (starring Eve Arden), and The Ann Sothern Show and trained a succession of other camera coordinators for the studio.
     Thompson appeared in two I Love Lucy episodes, once as the stage manager in "Lucy Writes a Play" (Episode 17) and again in "Lucy Does a TV Commercial (Episode 30). In the latter, he appeared as the script clerk stationed on the set in the famous scene in which Lucy rehearses the Vitameatavegamin TV commercial. (Ball put him there on purpose in case she forgot her lines, which were very complicated).
     When Ball returned to TV with The Lucy Show in 1962, Thompson once again served as camera coordinator. Upon Vivian Vance's departure from that series after its third season, Thompson pitched the idea of moving the Lucy Carmichael character to Los Angeles, an idea Ball liked so much that she made him the series director for the upcoming season. The new locale logically opened the show up to regular appearances by Hollywood celebrity guest stars, which Ball relied upon from then on. Guest stars directed by Thompson included John Wayne, George Burns, Dean Martin, Jack Benny, Carol Burnett, Joan Blondell, and Mel Torme.
     He also appeared as an annoyed airline passenger across the aisle from Lucy in a 1966 The Lucy Show episode in which she flies to London after winning a contest.
     Thompson was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding directorial achievement in comedy for a 1966-67 episode of The Lucy Show. At the end of that season he parted company with Ball, and after a brief stint working with former Desilu boss Desi Arnaz on The Mothers-in Law, which reunited him with Eve Arden, he retired from show business and opened an antiques store.
     In later years he resided in Irvine, Calif., where he devoted much of his time to hospital volunteer work, and was a popular and colorful figure at the annual Loving Lucy conventions held in Burbank, Calif.
     He is survived by a sister, Charis Crist, of Phoenix, a brother, Roger Hicks, of Oakland, Calif., 10 nieces and nephews and 21grand-nieces and -nephews.

© 2000 by Tom Gilbert. All Rights Reserved

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