This ‘I Love Lucy’ Couple HATED Each Other in Real Life

It often seemed that no love was lost between Fred and Ethel Mertz. However, the animosity between the two characters might not have been an act. Reportedly, William Frawley and Vivian Vance didn’t get along off-screen, either.

In fact, some evidence even suggests they despised each other.

It all started when Vance objected to Frawley’s casting. Frawley was 22 years her senior, and Vance bristled at the idea of such an “old poop” playing her spouse. “It really bothered her,” says Gregg Oppenheimer, son of the late Jess Oppenheimer, the show’s producer and head writer. “She told people, ‘How will anyone believe I’m married to that old man?’”

“She went to therapy every morning, five days a week before coming to the set…”

Frawley was so insulted that he took to calling Vance names right back. He often to her as “that sack of doorknobs” among even more harshly-worded insults. Unfortunately, the barbs wore on Vance. Beyond Frawley and his sharp tongue, Vance also struggled with playing the frumpy sidekick to the more glamorous Ball. Purportedly, she was contractually obligated to be 20 pounds heavier than Ball and had to wear dowdy dresses.

Closer Weekly explained Vance’s struggles in further detail: “Miss Vance, when she wasn’t playing Ethel, was, in fact, a very sexy woman, but she was willing to look the fool and was willing to give the show what it needed to succeed. And she went to therapy every morning, five days a week before coming to the set to work so that her head could be in the right place, and she could focus on the work in front of her. And take the crap she had to take from Bill Frawley. It took Ms. Ball a while, but she realized what she had in Vivian.”

‘The Mertez’: The spin-off that never was

Many popular shows started as spin-offs. For example, Frasier is a spin-off of Cheers. Meanwhile, Family Matters (or, as some other people might know it, The Steve Urkel Show) was a spin-off of the show Perfect Strangers. Even The Andy Griffith Show was a spin-off of the similarly-named Danny Thomas Show. We might be able to say The Mertzes was a spin-off of I Love Lucy if Frawley and Vance had agreed to it.

And while Frawley was open to the possibility, Vance slammed the door shut on it.

According to Portable Press: ” William Frawley (Fred) immediately signed on, because it was a starring role. Vivian Vance (Ethel) immediately turned it down, because she absolutely hated working with Frawley and was very glad to move on. She even turned down a $50,000 bonus.” To put that into contemporary terms, $50,000 in 1957 is the equivalent of $555,750.89 today.

While Francies Bavier and Andy Griffith reconciled their feud before her death, the real-life Fred and Ethel never made amends. In fact, according to a long-running Hollywood legend, when Vance learned Frawley had died, she shouted, “Champagne for everyone!”

Ouch!