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Plenty of comedy stars have popped in for a cameo when their old sitcom costars get a new gig — think Cheers’ Ted Danson visiting the original Frasier or most of the Community cast stopping by Ken Jeong’s Dr. Ken. But some sitcom stars have such amazing chemistry that they need to keep a good thing going.

Here are five pairs of funny people who costarred together in multiple sitcoms…

1 Danny McBride and Walton Goggins

McBride and Goggins headlined Vice Principals as competing a-holes vying to rule the school via promotion to the top job. When McBride went on to create The Righteous Gemstones for HBO, he again enlisted Goggins as a failed child star who once headlined a gospel song-and-dance team. Goggins told Conan O’Brien that McBride “is the funniest person I have ever met in my life.” The two even teamed to desecrate the reputations of Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar.

If you've ever wanted to be able to yell "Luuuucy, I'm home!" to your own "I Love Lucy" box set, then you're in luck. The classic 1950s sitcom that followed real-life spouses Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as their fictional counterparts, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, is coming to home media in a whole new way, courtesy of Paramount. The series was wildly popular during its era and has left its stamp on pop culture ever since — it's honestly hard to find a comedy series that hasn't referenced "I Love Lucy" or been influenced by it in some way. The series is deeply beloved and made a massive impact on television history, and this new box set is sure to delight fans both new and old.

"I Love Lucy" ran for six seasons, starring Ball and Arnaz alongside the Ricardos' neighbors, Ethel and Fred Mertz (played by Vivian Vance and William Frawley...

Female friendships have been at the center of some of television’s most memorable and iconic shows — from comedy highs to dramatic lows. Here are TV’s Top 10 BFFs.MEGALaverne and Shirley on 'Laverne & Shirley'mega

Schlemiel! Schlimazel! They might be polar opposites, but as roommates and co-workers at Milwaukee’s fictional Shotz Brewery, Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) constantly lifted each other’s spirits as they got in and out of trouble!

Ethel and Lucy on 'I Love Lucy'Prime Video/YouTube

In one of the most legendary sitcoms in TV history, Lucille Ball as Lucy and Vivian Vance as Bff Ethel made audiences howl with laughter over their hilarious antics.

Mary and Rhoda on 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'mega

The classic opposites attract couple of polite local news producer Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) and her brash best friend and upstairs neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) became a...

From The Red Skelton Show and I Love Lucy to Get Smart and All in the Family through Taxi, Cheers and Murphy Brown to Frasier, Seinfeld and 30 Rock to Modern Family, Veep and Ted Lasso, the Emmy Awards have been laughing at TV best comedies for more than 70 years. Here is a gallery of all the shows to win the golden statuette since 1952; click on the image above to launch it.

The category itself has gone by various names, starting with Best Comedy Show and rolling through Best Comedy Series, Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor, Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Comedy to the current Outstanding Comedy Series. But the yuks have remained constant, whether it’s Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance trying to keep up with the conveyor belt at the chocolate factory or Jason Sudeikis Yank-coaching an English football club.

Our gallery lists all of the winners,...

With the announcement for the 76th Primetime Emmys set for July 17th, let’s travel back 70 years and revisit the winners of the 6th Emmy Awards held Feb. 11, 1954 at the venerable Hollywood Palladium and telecast on Khj. New categories introduced that year included best new program and supporting actor and actress in a TV series. Prior to 1954, performers were nominated as individuals, but this year the program for which they were nominated was also included. NBC was nominated for 36 Emmys, while CBS placed second with 30 and ABC trailing far behind with just three.

CBS’s cherished “I Love Lucy’ won its second Emmy for best comedy series, while Vivian Vance took home her only Emmy for the show for her supporting role as Ethel Mertz. The other nominees for comedy series were CBS’ “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,” NBC’s “Mr. Peepers,” CBS’ “Our Miss Brooks,” and CBS “Topper.

Who is the best female TV star of all time? Our new photo gallery above takes on the tough task of ranking the 30 greatest actresses and performers. Agree or disagree with our choices?

With over 70 years of television to consider, we had to provide ourselves with a few rules to help simplify things. One of those was that every woman in our gallery must have been an ongoing leading lady at some point, preferably more often than not. That’s why you will not see such classic supporting actresses as Vivian Vance, Doris Roberts or Rhea Perlman.

In order to place them in the rankings, we were looking at a combination of quality (top rated shows with the public or critics), quantity (number of shows and TV appearances), Emmy wins and nominations, plus overall legacy and iconic nature. They also needed to be on television regularly for at least the last 15 years or more.

Natasha Lyonne and Tracee Ellis Ross channeled I Love Lucy while presenting at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards!

The pair of actresses announced the award for Outstanding Comedy Series on Monday (January 15) at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. They were joined by host Anthony Anderson as they recreated a scene from the ever-popular 190s TV show.

“We’ve seen the episode, let us have our moment,” Tracee began. “Thank you, Anthony! Let it roll!”

Keep reading to find out more…

Natasha and Tracee‘s bit recreated the iconic I Love Lucy scene in which Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance‘s characters work at a chocolate factory. The conveyor belt speeds up to an absurd pace, prompting them to start eating the candies and stuff some down their dresses.

In the reenactment, Anthony played the part of the chocolate factory’s manager.

Fyi: Natasha is wearing Schiaparelli and David Webb.

Grey’s Anatomy fans, if you’ve been dying to see Izzie Stevens and Alex Karev together again… well, prepare to settle for the next best thing: Katherine Heigl and Justin Chambers are among a special group of Grey’s vets reuniting on stage Monday at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards (Fox, 8/7c), hosted by Anthony Anderson.

The duo will be joined by Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey), James Pickens Jr. (Richard Webber) and Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey) to jointly announce one of the night’s big winners.

More from TVLine2023 Emmys: How to Watch the Ceremony Online Without CableOusted Jeopardy! Host...

In the world of classic television, I Love Lucy stands alone as groundbreaking for many reasons. It was the first series to use multiple, simultaneously filming cameras and a live studio audience. It was also one of the first TV shows to be shot on 35mm film rather than broadcast live. However, its Christmas episode was revolutionary and introduced a television first.

Before the ‘I Love Lucy’ Christmas show, this now-standard TV practice didn’t exist

The I Love Lucy Christmas show aired on December 24th, 1956, midway through the sitcom’s sixth and final season. The installment was not included alongside the 179 regular episodes in the syndication package for the CBS series.

Deadline reported that “The Christmas Episode” finds Lucy and Ricky Ricardo (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz) and Ethel and Fred Mertz (Vivian Vance and William Frawley) decorating Lucy and Ricky’s Christmas tree. Together, the couples reminisce about...

The one, the only Lucille Ball. Groundbreaking, fearless, timeless, supremely talented… and magical. We salute her today in honor of her birthday, Aug. 6 1911, with a bevy of facts you probably didn’t know about the beloved “I Love Lucy” star. From real-life antics on the set of her iconic sitcom (that grape stomping scene turned into a wrestling match) to superstitions (keep away all pictures of birds!) to a long-kept secret (Lucy had no eyebrows — really!), we go through it all. So sit back and celebrate the icon known as Lucille Ball with this deep-dive into her life.

Photo credit: YouTube

• The grape stomping scene turned into a real wrestling match

“I got into the vat with one, and she had been told that we would have a fight,” Lucy said on “The Dick Cavett Show.” She continued, “I slipped and, in slipping, I hit her accidentally and she took offense,...

From The Red Skelton Show and I Love Lucy to Get Smart and All in the Family through Taxi, Cheers and Murphy Brown to Frasier, Seinfeld and 30 Rock to Modern Family, Veep and Ted Lasso, the Emmy Awards have been laughing at TV best comedies for more than 70 years. Here is a gallery of all the shows to win the golden statuette since 1952; click on the image above to launch it.

The category itself has gone by various names, starting with Best Comedy Show and rolling through Best Comedy Series, Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor, Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Comedy to the current Outstanding Comedy Series. But the yuks have remained constant, whether it’s Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance trying to keep up with the conveyor belt at the chocolate factory or Jason Sudeikis Yank-coaching an English football club.

Our gallery lists all of the winners,...

I Love Lucy ran on CBS for six seasons from 1951-1957. The series, which centered around Lucy and Ricky Ricardo and their friends Fred and Ethel Mertz, was a sensation in its time and still lives in syndication seven decades later.

I Love Lucy is considered one of the funniest shows of all time. Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were played by real-life husband and wife, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Much of the comedy stemmed from their real-life issues and Lucy’s ability to always get herself into trouble.

The Ricardos did not go it alone. Their landlords, neighbors, and friends were couple Fred and Ethel Mertz. Ethel was alongside Lucy for most of her shenanigans, but there was a lot more to the Mertzs than just being sidekicks to the Ricardos.

Who played Ethel Mertz on ‘I Love Lucy’?

Lucy’s bestie, Ethel Mertz, was played by Vivian Vance.

Peter Kelley, an actor and singer on Broadway who spent nearly two decades as an agent at William Morris, where he repped the likes of Denzel Washington, Gregory Peck, Farrah Fawcett, Joan Crawford and Héctor Elizondo, has died. He was 97.

Kelley died Feb. 28 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Suffolk, Virginia, his daughter Sara Blessington told The Hollywood Reporter.

Kelley began in show business as a singer at the Boston Latin Quarter, then acted in regional theaters throughout New England. His first New York performance was as a singing Seabee and Lt. Cable in the original Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, which starred Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza and opened in 1949.

He returned to Broadway in 1952 to play Chick Miller in Joshua Logan’s Wish You Were Here and to appear alongside Bette Davis in Two’s Company, then managed theater companies in and around...

Following appearances on “Cagney & Lacey,” “Thirtysomething,” and “Webster,” 22-year-old Faith Ford landed her first regular TV series role on the CBS sitcom “Murphy Brown.” As one of seven original cast members, she played Corky Sherwood, a young news reporter whose cheerful personality often clashed with that of the titular Brown (Candice Bergen), her older, much more cynical colleague. Over the course of 10 seasons, the role brought Ford five Best Comedy Supporting Actress Emmy nominations.

Ford’s first bid was one of 11 that the show earned in 1989 for its inaugural season. At 24, she was the ninth youngest actress to ever compete in her category, and she now ranks just one spot lower. Including Ford, all 10 of the women on the list were added to it prior to 1994, with three having been under 20 and one having received her bid before turning 10.

The television academy has recognized the work of supporting actresses...

Following appearances on “Cagney & Lacey,” “Thirtysomething,” and “Webster,” 22-year-old Faith Ford landed her first regular TV series role on the CBS sitcom “Murphy Brown.” As one of seven original cast members, she played Corky Sherwood, a young news reporter whose cheerful personality often clashed with that of the titular Brown (Candice Bergen), her older, much more cynical colleague. Over the course of 10 seasons, the role brought Ford five Best Comedy Supporting Actress Emmy nominations.

Ford’s first bid was one of 11 that the show earned in 1989 for its inaugural season. At 24, she was the ninth youngest actress to ever compete in her category, and she now ranks just one spot lower. Including Ford, all 10 of the women on the list were added to it prior to 1994, with three having been under 20 and one having received her bid before turning 10.

The television academy has recognized the work of supporting actresses...

Nearly 40 years after making her TV debut on an episode of “Kojak,” Judith Light landed what would become her first Emmy-nominated regular series role: Shelly Pfefferman on Amazon Prime Video’s “Transparent.” The show primarily focused on the male-to-female transition of Pfefferman’s ex-spouse, Maura (Jeffrey Tambor), while also exploring the change’s effects on the lives of her family members. Light’s role became increasingly prominent over time, culminating in her being the primary lead in the 102-minute musical series finale.

Light earned a total of two Best Comedy Supporting Actress bids as Pfefferman, the second of which came for her performance in the third season finale. She was 68 years old at the time of her nomination in 2017, making her the 10th oldest competitor in the history of her category. Of the nine older women who place ahead of her, four were recognized after turning 75, and one was six...

Nearly 40 years after making her TV debut on an episode of “Kojak,” Judith Light landed what would become her first Emmy-nominated regular series role: Shelly Pfefferman on Amazon Prime Video’s “Transparent.” The show primarily focused on the male-to-female transition of Pfefferman’s ex-spouse, Maura (Jeffrey Tambor), while also exploring the change’s effects on the lives of her family members. Light’s role became increasingly prominent over time, culminating in her being the primary lead in the 102-minute musical series finale.

Light earned a total of two Best Comedy Supporting Actress bids as Pfefferman, the second of which came for her performance in the third season finale. She was 68 years old at the time of her nomination in 2017, making her the 10th oldest competitor in the history of her category. Of the nine older women who place ahead of her, four were recognized after turning 75, and one was six...

For the third year in a row—and fourth in the last five—White Horse Pictures finds itself in the middle of the Emmy horse race.

In 2020, the White Horse production The Apollo, about the legendary performing arts venue in Harlem, earned Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Last year, White Horse’s The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart was nominated for six Emmys, winning one. This year it’s back in contention with Lucy and Desi, Amy Poehler’s documentary about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, which is nominated for half a dozen Emmys—more than any other documentary.

“I’m ecstatic,” says White Horse Pictures partner Jeanne Elfant Festa of the Emmy recognition. She’s a producer of the film, along with Poehler, Mark Monroe and White Horse co-founder and principal Nigel Sinclair. “It’s an honor, it’s a thrill. We have the best...

When the process of gathering materials for “Lucy and Desi” started, producer Jeanne Elfant Festa remembers was not prepared for the discovery that Lucy Arnaz Luckinbill would find. “I was in her pantry. I was literally stretching and I looked up and I saw a lockbox. I said ‘Lucy, what is that?’” she tells Gold Derby during our Meet the Experts: TV Documentary panel (watch the exclusive video interview above). Arnaz discovered that the surprise of the lockbox contained several of Lucy’s tapes that included recordings from after Lucy and Desi were divorced as well as Desi, Vivian Vance and the kids reenacting their favorite scenes from “I Love Lucy” with Lucy directing them. “It was just so beautiful because it also instilled the relationship that we all wanted to cling to, which is the throughline of the film. They maintained that respect and love for each other until...

The Television Critics Association (TCA) has announced the winners of the organization’s 38th Annual TCA Awards, recognizing the best television offerings from the 2021-2022 season.

ABC’s first-year public school sitcom Abbott Elementary made the grade as the night’s top winner with four victories. The series took home some of the TCA’s highest honors, including Individual Achievement In Comedy for series creator, producer, writer, and star, Quinta Brunson; as well as Outstanding Achievement In Comedy, Outstanding New Program, and the Program Of The Year Award.

Other winners include This Is Us star Mandy Moore, who earned the award for Individual Achievement In Drama after being snubbed by the Emmys; acclaimed Disney+ rock doc The Beatles: Get Back, which won the Outstanding Achievement In News And Information Award; CBS’ globe-hopping The Amazing Race, which shared Outstanding Achievement In Reality Programming with HBO Max’s glam Legendary; the surreal...

In the fall of 1985, two months after CBS’ “The Jeffersons” ended its 11-season run, principal cast member Marla Gibbs migrated to NBC to star in a new sitcom entitled “227.” The series was popular in its own right and lasted five seasons with Gibbs as its lead, but it became clear early on that its main draw was Jackée Harry’s vivacious supporting performance as Sandra Clark. Harry earned the show its only two Emmy nominations and was named the Best Comedy Supporting Actress of 1987, making her the category’s first Black victor.

Harry was honored for her work in the second season episode “Washington Affair,” in which Clark attends a dinner party on the arm of a Congressman and finds herself in a battle for his affections when another guest takes a liking to him. Though she was just 31 at the time of her win, seven younger supporting actresses had already prevailed,...

Three years ago, the Primetime Emmy awards were handily dominated on the comedy side by Amazon Prime Video’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The freshman program was named Best Comedy Series and won seven other awards, including two for the acting work of leading lady Rachel Brosnahan and supporting player Alex Borstein. One year later, the series earned eight more prizes, one of which again went to Borstein.

Borstein’s second victory came for the episode “Vote for Kennedy, Vote for Kennedy,” in which her character, the titular Maisel’s manager, staunchly defends her client during an ongoing conflict with a rival comedienne (played by Best Comedy Guest Actress winner Jane Lynch). The 48-year-old became the 10th oldest victor in her category after her previous win put her at 12th place, directly behind Megan Mullally and Cloris Leachman.

Since 1954, a total of 43 actresses have won Emmys for their supporting roles on continuing comedy programs,...

Who is the best female TV star of all time? Our photo gallery above takes on the tough task of ranking the 30 greatest actresses and performers. Agree or disagree with our choices?

With over 70 years of television to consider, we had to provide ourselves with a few rules to help simplify things. One of those was that every woman in our gallery must have been an ongoing leading lady at some point, preferably more often than not. That’s why you will not see such classic supporting actresses as Vivian Vance, Doris Roberts or Rhea Perlman. We also didn’t rank any news anchors or reporters such as Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer or Lesley Stahl since they are not performers.

SEECarol Burnett Interview: ‘The Carol Burnett Show 50th Anniversary’

In order to place them in the rankings, we were looking at a combination of quality (top rated shows with the...

Lucille Ball is very much back in the public eye due to the success of the acclaimed film "Being the Ricardos". Here's a blast from the past, provided by Shout! Factory- the complete Dean Martin Roasts program "honoring" Lucille Ball. The lineup of greats is almost surrealistic: Jack Benny, Dan Rowan, Don Rickles, Bob Hope, Ginger Rogers, Dick Martin, Totie Fields, Milton Berle, Henry Fonda, Nipsey Russell, Vivian Vance, Rich Little, Foster Brooks, Phyllis Diller, Gale Gordon, and, of course, Dino. This time capsule from 1975 is the epitome of what would now be called politically incorrect humor, but it thankfully preserves a period of time in which people could not only take a joke about themselves, but were honored to be the recipient of those pointed barbs.  - Lee Pfeiffer...

Everybody in the industry seems to like and admire J.K. Simmons, and why wouldn’t they? He’s talented, versatile, dependable and affable. The fan club includes Aaron Sorkin, writer-director of Amazon’s “Being the Ricardos,” for which Simmons is Oscar-nominated as supporting actor.

Sorkin’s last seven screenplays have centered on real people, but he tells Variety he doesn’t picture the person, or any actor, when writing. “But in the case of William Frawley, there was only one actor I wanted. Frawley and J.K. is the closest I’ve come to writing a part for an actor.”

Sorkin’s appreciation began 30 years ago, when his “A Few Good Men” was a big Broadway hit. In a dual phone interview, Sorkin relates, “J.K. understudied the Colonel, which Jack Nicholson played in the movie. I heard J.K. was going on so I went to see, and he...

Everything old is new again, or at least worthy of deeper exploration. Consider two of this year’s biggest awards contenders, one at the Oscars and the other at the Emmys, thanks to a pair of backward-looking examinations of some of pop culture’s biggest modern obsessions: The Beatles and “I Love Lucy.” On the surface, “The Beatles: Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s six-hour saga of bedraggled young Beatles on deadline in 1969, and “Being the Ricardos,” Aaron Sorkin’s take on the comic mastermind Lucille Ball as she works in the mid-1950s alongside her great enabler Desi Arnaz might not sound simpatico, but both offer compelling explorations of creation.

The first is a 2022 documentary Emmy contender, while the second has given three Oscar winners a second shot at a gold statue. Almost as a reward for taking on the role of a wildly gifted comedienne, Nicole Kidman also scored a Golden Globe Drama win,...

J.K. Simmons just earned his second Oscar nomination, for his performance as sitcom actor William Frawley in “Being the Ricardos.” Simmons won for his first Oscar bid, for the 2014 film “Whiplash.”

The actor spoke with Gold Derby editor Christopher Rosen in December about what he knew about Frawley before taking the part, working alongside such actors as Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem and Nina Arianda and what he would tell skeptical fans of “I Love Lucy” about the film. Watch the exclusive chat above read the complete transcript below.

SEEJavier Bardem interview: ‘Being the Ricardos’

Gold Derby: J.K., congratulations on the performance in the film. What was your awareness level of William Frawley before taking this part?

J.K. Simmons: Well, as the only cast member who was actually born during the original run of “I Love Lucy,” I was, I think, more familiar than a lot of them. And...

"Being the Ricardos" is the Oscar-nominated Amazon Original Movie set in the 1950's written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, starring Nicole Kidman as 'Lucille Ball':

"...over the  course of a week during production of the 1950's sitcom "I Love Lucy", 'Lucy' and 'Desi' encounter a crisis that could jeopardize their careers and marriage..."

Cast also includes J. K. Simmons as 'William Frawley', Nina Arianda as 'Vivian Vance', Tony Hale as 'Jess Oppenheimer'...

... and Alia Shawkat as 'Madelyn Pugh'. 

Click the images to enlarge...

Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”) was born during the fourth season of “I Love Lucy.” And now 66 years later, he’s portraying actor William Frawley who was Fred Mertz on the classic in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos.” It stars Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball, Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz and Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance. “Weirdly as a young kid, watching it on mom and dad’s old black-and-white TV or maybe when grandma and grandpa had it on TV, I sort of identified with Fred Mertz,” observed Simmons during a recent Deadline Zoom interview with Bardem. “I just thought he was a delightful and amusing guy. And here we are 60 years later, I got to inhabit that guy for a while.”

When the series started in 1951, Frawley had appeared in vaudeville and dozens of movies. “It really wasn’t a giant stretch for Bill to play Fred Mertz,...

Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons, who plays William Frawley in “Being the Ricardos,” faced challenges researching Frawley since he died back in 1966. Frawley rose to prominence in the 1950s as Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy.”

“I didn’t have any conversations with anybody who actually knew Bill,” Simmons told Joe McGovern as part of TheWrap’s Screening Series. “At first it was frustrating for me, doing my research, trying to find anything about Bill off camera, trying to find any footage of him outside of ‘I Love Lucy’ or obviously his film roles.”

Unable to find individuals who directly knew Frawley, Simmons decided to base his performance on published information, which he found liberating.

“At the end of the day, I found that to be a little bit freeing in a way because all the information I was able to get about Bill was from other people’s perspective,...

On June 29, 1966, CBS had an internal debate over its morning programming: Whether to cut to a news conference about a turning point in the Vietnam war — the U.S. bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong — or to air a decade-old “I Love Lucy” rerun. They decided to stick with “Lucy.”

The sitcom, which ran 1951-57, is more than beloved: It’s become part of our collective unconscious. The word “iconic” is overused, but it certainly applies to “I Love Lucy.”

So it was an act of daring for writer-director Aaron Sorkin, stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem and the team to center their Oscar-worthy film, Amazon’s “Being the Ricardos,” around the show and its creators.

What drew him to the project?

“A few things,” Sorkin says, “but mostly the contrast between the real people and the people you see on TV. And the fact that people even today have such...

J.K. Simmons was reluctant to appear in “Being the Ricardos.” But reading Aaron Sorkin’s script, “I was able to see the gift that Aaron was giving to each of the actors.”

It’s a gift exchange: Simmons is so versatile and talented that he brings gifts to any filmmaker he works with.

Oscar voting runs Jan. 27-Feb. 1. Simmons has been getting some awards buzz, but deserves more: As an actor, he has the blessing/curse of always making it look easy so he’s sometimes taken for granted. But with “Ricardos,” as with everything else, he seems so perfect that you can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. He’s definitely a supporting-actor contender.

Simmons and Sorkin go back to 1990, when the actor was an understudy in the Broadway production of Sorkin’s breakthrough “A Few Good Men.” When Simmons stepped into the role, a producer urged Sorkin to come watch.

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.

I Love Lucy was just about the most famous show in the history of television, but the dramatic behind-the-scenes story stayed off screen, until now. Amazon Studios’ Being the Ricardos incorporates several of the true stories of Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman), Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) and their staff. Only writer-director Aaron Sorkin sets them all in one week.

In Season 2 of I Love Lucy, Ball gets two pieces of troubling news on a Monday: A magazine reports that Arnaz has been seen around town with another woman, and Walter Winchell discovers that Ball had once applied to be a member of the Communist party, sharing that news with his audience.

Ball and Arnaz show up to work to start the episode; Lucy fans will...

J.K. Simmons seemed destined to star in an Aaron Sorkin film and he finally does in Amazon Studios’ “Being the Ricardos.” But the two actually crossed paths years earlier.

“My first Broadway play, I was an understudy replacement in ‘A Few Good Men,’” Simmons tells Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast. Simmons played the role of the Doctor (which is not in the film version) but also had the opportunity to play the role of Col. Nathan Jessup – the role Jack Nicholson made infamous in Rob Reiner’s film version.

“It remains to this day maybe the best role I’ve ever had,” Simmons says. “Television, film, stage. It was an absolute genius piece of writing. And at this point, Aaron was just some kid from Scarsdale who miraculously got a play on Broadway.”

Simmons also appeared on “The West Wing” but it was after Sorkin had left the show. But...

“I Love Lucy” writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. thought the seminal CBS comedy series starring Lucille Ball, her husband Desi Arnaz, William Frawley and Vivian Vance would last three months. When I chatted with the duo, who wrote 181 episodes of the classic, in 2001 for the L.A. Times, Davis recalled watching the premiere Oct. 15, 1951 at the home of series director Marc Daniels. “Emily, his wife, was the camera coordinator. She was a good cook. She had dinner and watched the show.” Ball, Davis noted, “was terribly funny and wonderful. We had hopes for the show. We hoped it would be on for 13 weeks.

How about 71 years and counting?

The series ended in 1957 never below No. 3 in the ratings. It was followed by “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” specials from 1957-60, “I Love Lucy” continued in reruns on CBS on primetime for two more years and ran on the...

Updated: Ever since Todd Black got into the film business as a producer, he wanted to work with Aaron Sorkin.

“I remember early on seeing things he wrote, even plays, and going ‘Wow, this guy has a voice like nobody’s business,'” says the Oscar-nominated producer of Fences.

However, Black says “I never had anything good enough to bring to him.” This goes back to some sage advice Black received from Denzel Washington years ago.

The two were having lunch at the Columbia Pictures commissary shortly after Washington took home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Glory. The budding producer was eager to make a movie with Washington, but the actor told him, “‘When you read a script that keeps you up at night and makes your heart pound and you can’t get it out of your mind because of the characters and the story, call me. Otherwise,...

Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons has very vivid memories of watching the classic TV sitcom I Love Lucy when he was a child.

“I can’t say I remember the first time I saw it,” he recalls. “But as I’ve said before, I’m the only cast member who was born when I Love Lucy was still on the air, the original series. I think I was born during Season 4 and absolutely grew up on it. It was on my parents’ crappy little black and white TV when I was a preschooler and in elementary school. And of course the show’s never been off the air. So I think everybody, even people who are my kids’ age, have been able to say that they grew up watching I Love Lucy because it’s always been there.”

Decades later, Simmons–who’s also in theaters this month in Spider-Man: No...

For Variety‘s Writers on Writers, Marlo Thomas pens a tribute to “Being the Ricardos” (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin).

There is a wonderful scene in “Being the Ricardos” — Aaron Sorkin’s wrenching chronicle of the pioneering TV comedy series “I Love Lucy” — in which Lucy drags two of her co-stars to the studio at 2 a.m., during a thunderstorm, to re-block a comic moment in a dinner scene that hadn’t gone well in rehearsal. It wasn’t even her bit — it was between her two fellow actors — but she knew it wasn’t good enough, funny enough. And so we watch Lucy push them to rehearse it — position them, instruct them — and they comply, even though their expressions reveal that they think she’s gone mad.

But Lucille Ball knew where the funny was. She could envision it. She could hear it. And she knew what to add to it to make it better.

Following a limited theatrical release and a well-received bow to awards voters,”Being the Ricardos” finally dances its way to Amazon Prime Video subscribers on Tuesday.

While Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem topline the Aaron Sorkin drama, one of the major takeaways in both critical reviews and early audience reaction has been the unexpected potency and drama of Vivian Vance — portrayed by “Goliath” and “Billions” star Nina Arianda.

Vance was best friend to Lucy Ricardo on the formative TV show, portraying the long-suffering neighbor Ethel Mertz. In Sorkin’s telling, though, Vance’s daily struggles were not simply relegated to mounting housework and a curmudgeonly husband.

Arianda’s Vance is a formidable stage and screen star struggling to find her place in the orbit of both Lucys: the searing physical comedian and the steel-toed creative executive running the show.

Warning: Minor spoilers for “Being the Ricardos” ahead.

While Arianda contends...

Long before he was a prolific performer who has worked with top directors like Damien Chazelle, Jason Reitman, Zack Snyder, Sam Raimi, plus Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, J.K. Simmons served as an understudy for the role of Lt. Col. Nathan Jessup in the original Broadway production of Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men.”

‘To this day I get goosebumps every time I talk about it,” Simmons tells Gold Derby about the experience. “Aaron, very generously, even though this was a year into the run, came to see me on my opening night. He came backstage after the show and we had this meeting of the minds and hearts and souls. Over the years we had near miss after near miss for one reason or another, not working together again.”

But now, 31 years after that fateful performance, Simmons and Sorkin have finally reconnected thanks to “Being the Ricardos.” Sorkin...

When it comes to Aaron Sorkin screenplays, Tony Award-winning actress Nina Arianda thinks its best to approach his words like notes on sheet music.

“It’s almost similar to if you’re doing an Oscar Wilde play or a Shakespeare play, you have to honor the rhythm of it or it just doesn’t work,” she tells Gold Derby. “You have to honor the ellipses, the commas, because it won’t work otherwise, because it’s musical. Same thing with this. It’s similar to music in the sense where, when you’re singing something, you have to make sure you know where to take a breath or you won’t be able to continue. It’s the same thing energetically with an Aaron Sorkin script is you have to earn your pauses because they’re just as loud as what you’re saying. It’s music. And know your lines.

Though it would take three decades for “Being the Ricardos” writer-director Aaron Sorkin to cast J.K. Simmons in something Sorkin wrote, the filmmaker well remembers when the urge first came to him.

“He was an understudy in my first play ‘A Few Good Men,’ back in 1990,” Sorkin told IndieWire of the now widely esteemed actor, “And I got a call from the stage manager just to alert me that he was going on at a Wednesday matinee, so I ran to the theater. I wanted to catch his performance, understudying the role that Jack Nicholson played in the movie. He just blew the roof off the theater, a full house on Broadway went crazy. And I knew after his first scene, ‘This guy is a star. Keep your eye on him, keep yourself handcuffed to him.'”

Sorkin’s debut stage hit with its indelible “You can’t handle the truth” line,...

If you enter into Being the Ricardos expecting a tell-all scandal-ridden exposé of the beloved couple, you may be summarily disappointed. However, if you approach the film looking for an effectively told story of a couple wherein one party goes to the ends of the earth for the other in an attempt to make the relationship successful and the pain that is caused when that is not reciprocated, then you will be rewarded with one of the more honest and heartbreaking stories delivered by recent cinema.

The narrative of the film centers on one particular week during the production of the seminal sitcom I Love Lucy during which national newspapers are preparing a story that links star Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and the Communist Party. During the five days of production before the actual taping of the show, the film bounces between closed-door meetings and writers’ room discussions and several...

Turning Nicole Kidman into Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem into Desi Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos” wasn’t only about creating a facsimile of the iconic 1950s TV duo.

Rather, director Aaron Sorkin instructed hair department head Teressa Hill and makeup department head Ana Lozano, “We are not taking a photograph; we are painting a picture.” The approach is generating awards buzz for the below-the-line duo.

The film, opening Dec. 10, centers on a week of filming “I Love Lucy,” from table read to shooting an episode. Sorkin also re-creates memorable moments from the series, which ran on CBS from 1951-57, and provides snapshots of the couple’s marriage.

That plotline meant creating numerous looks for the TV stars and their real-life personas: Lucille Ball/ Lucy Ricardo and Desi Arnaz/Desi Ricardo, as well as dual looks for the other cast members (including J.K. Simmons as William Frawley/Fred Mertz and...

Javier Bardem, J.K. Simmons, Nina Arianda, and Nicole Kidman star in Being The Ricardos Photo: Glen Wilson © Amazon Content Services LLC

As awards season is now in full swing, just what subject is the source of the newest work by an Oscar-winning screenwriter and three Oscar-winning directors? An acclaimed literary classic, perhaps? Maybe a pivotal moment in history, eh? No, they’ve decided to shine their talents, and considerable “star power”, on … a TV show. Really? Well, it’s not just any bit of “video escapism”. Oh no, this is a “biggie”, a true icon, one that still influences all matter of media to this day. And it’s still on the air, either being broadcast or streamed or replayed in all recorded formats, from Beta to Bluray. In any list of the “greatest TV shows of all time” it’s placed near the very top. And during its “hay...

Picture, if you will, a Vanity Fair photoshoot with Hollywood favourites Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. A stylist has decided that it would be a blast to have them pose as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; Nicole with her red hair and Javier with his being Spanish and not Cuban at all but whatever. Suddenly things take a surreal turn, Aaron Sorkin has arrived to direct the shoot and he’s making them speak his trademark staccato dialogue. And before we know it, they’re Being the Ricardos.

On paper Being the Ricardos has a promising premise. The majority of its action takes place amid the claustrophobia of a single, make or break, production week. It bustles from the writer’s room to production offices, bitches about script changes with Alia Shawkat, intrudes into dressing rooms, chain-smokes theatrically in backlot alleyways and loves a good gossip. It couldn’t be...

In retrospect, writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s baffling admission that he doesn’t necessarily think “I Love Lucy” would be considered “funny” today should have caused an even larger fervor than it did. Sorkin certainly isn’t a stranger to comedy, but his interests — snappy dialogue, twists of fate, jokes about celebs — don’t exactly intersect with the enduring charm of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s seminal ’50s-era sitcom. Sorkin and Lucy and Desi? It’s a strange pairing even in theory, and still worse in practice, as “Being the Ricardos” offers up some of the least interesting appraisals of not just Lucy and Desi, but of Sorkin himself, plus his stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem.

Typically a razor-sharp writer, Sorkin (who is the sole credited screenwriter of the period drama) seems to trip his way into his ultimate interest here: bolstering the true genius of Ball,...

Aaron Sorkin’s ingeniously structured but weirdly mannered film offers an exhausting peek behind the scenes on I Love Lucy

Aaron Sorkin’s strenuously unrelaxed comedy-drama is inspired by the legendary US TV show I Love Lucy starring real-life married couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz whose surname on the show was “Ricardo”; their programme boldly cast Latino and white together, pioneered the three-camera sitcom, ruled the airwaves in the 1950s and dominated schedules with reruns for decades afterwards. (There’s a gag in Crocodile Dundee about Mick seeing a TV for the first time in years and nodding calmly to see I Love Lucy is still on.)

This movie imagines a stressed Ball dealing with tabloid rumours about her husband’s infidelity and career-endangering rumblings from the reactionary press that she is a Commie, all the while striving with unashamed perfectionism to get a misfiring scene exactly right. Nicole Kidman...

Taking place over the course of one chaotic week during the production of sitcom staple I Love Lucy, Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos spins more plates than it could possibly hope to handle. Its two core ideas are thus: at the same time that Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) is publicly accused of being a communist, a gossip rag has published a cover story proclaiming her husband Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) is sleeping around. Both accusations are denied. Both threaten to derail the professional and personal lives of the couple if they prove to be true, or if they breach further into the public consciousness. With tensions high, the show must go on.

Sorkin, as he’s loved to do from his days on Sports Night through The Newsroom, takes us behind the scenes for this inside-baseball look at the mechanics of making one episode of the iconic program. We watch the actors,...

Being the Ricardos writer-director Aaron Sorkin and stars Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda joined Deadline’s Contenders Film: New York showcase to discuss the Amazon Studios biopic of sorts about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, played by Kidman and Bardem, respectively.

For the film, Sorkin chose to compress a series of true events in the lives of the iconic married TV stars into one production week of making I Love Lucy — the Monday table read through Friday audience filming. Those plot points include Ball being accused at the time of being a Communist, a crisis that could have ended the trailblazing couple’s rocketing careers that besides the sitcom including running their own Hollywood studio.

“There were these wonderful points of friction…” Sorkin said about the story’s structure, developed with help from producers Jenna Block and Todd Black. “There are three big events …they didn...