At that time, television was regarded as the enemy by Hollywood. So terrified was Hollywood of this medium, movie people were afraid to make even guest appearances. If I undertook a weekly television show and it flopped, I might never work in movies again.
It would mean each of us would have to give up our respective radio programs, and Desi would have to cancel all his band engagements. It was a tremendous gamble; it had to be an all-or-nothing commitment.
But this was the first real chance Desi and I would have to work together, something we'd both been longing for for years.
We continued to wrestle with the decision, trying to look at things from every angle. Then one night Carole Lombard appeared to me in a dream. She was wearing one of those slinky bias-cut gowns of the thirties, waving a long black cigarette holder in her hand. "Go on, kid," she advised me airily. "Give it a whirl."
The next day I told Don Sharpe, "We'll do it. Desi and I want to work together more than anything else in the world."
Ball, Lucille, Love, Lucy, New York: G. P. Putnam's sons, 1996, pp. 204-205.
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