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 LUCYlibrary Profile:
Jess Oppenheimer
I Love Lucy's
Creator-Producer-Head Writer
 
  
Jess with co-writers Bob & Madelyn
I Love Lucy producer-headwriterJess Oppenheimer is flanked by co-writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr. in this 1954 photo, taken on the I Love Lucy sound stage.

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by I Love Lucy'screator,Jess  Oppenheimer
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  Jess Oppenheimer directing Lucille Ball
 Jess Oppenheimer directs Lucille Ball in My Favorite Husband, the radio predecessor to I Love Lucy.
   
Jess Oppenheimer, the man Lucille Ball called "the brains" behind I Love Lucy, wrote comedy during radio’s golden age for such show business legends as Fred Astaire, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Al Jolson, Rudy Vallee, John Barrymore, and Fanny Brice, on programs such as The Packard Hour, The Gulf Screen Guild Show, The Jack Benny Program, The Chase & Sanborn Hour, Texaco Star Theater, The Rudy Vallee Program, The Lifebuoy Program, and Baby Snooks. His association with Lucille Ball began in 1948, when he signed on as head writer, producer and director of her radio series, My Favorite Husband.
     When CBS made a TV deal with the legendary redhead, Lucy made it a condition that Oppenheimer be in charge of the venture. He remained as producer and head writer of the series for five of its six seasons, writing the pilot and 153 episodes with Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. (joined in the 1955 by writers Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf). After I Love Lucy Oppenheimer created and produced such TV series as Angel, Glynis (starring Glynis Johns), and The Debbie Reynolds Show. His other TV credits include The General Motors 50th Anniversary Show, Ford Startime, The U.S. Steel Hour, Get Smart, and Bob Hope’s Chrysler Theater, as well as specials for Danny Kaye, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Rosalind Russell, and others. He received two Emmy Awards and five Emmy nominations, a Sylvania Award, and the Writers’ Guild of America Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Achievement.
     Upon Oppenheimer's passing in 1988, Lucille Ball called him "a true genius," adding "I owe so much to his creativity and his friendship." His humorous memoir, Laughs, Luck...and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time, completed after his death by his son, Gregg, is in its seventh printing since its publication in 1996, and was released in paperback earlier this year. The audio cassette edition was recently named Pop Culture Audiobook of the Year by Publishers Weekly.


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