Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 17, 1990 TAG: 9007170154
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Some women dyed their hair red. A few men wore white suits. Most every faux Lucy wore a 1950s-style dress and heels. Several looked just like the zany comedian. Others bore more of a resemblance to Carol Burnett.
And one couple danced the rumba while waiting for their names to be called.
"I'd like to play her, but it's so hard to fill her shoes," said Dianalynn Pfennig, who drove from her makeover salon in San Jose to perform Lucy's famous drunken sales pitch for the alcohol-laced Vita Meta Vegamin nutritional supplement.
In addition to false eyelashes and the heavy makeup she'd been wearing since 2 a.m., Pfennig brought a stage prop: a bottle of multivitamin liquid extract from which she drank during her two-minute monologue. "This stuff tastes awful," she said after her performance, wiping her mouth.
The CBS movie will cover the late Lucille Ball's and Desi Arnaz's lives from when they met in 1940, while making the movie "Too Many Girls," to 1951, the year when television's "I Love Lucy" premiered. It will be broadcast in February.
A woman named Tahoe Castle ("I was born there") dyed her hair red and drove 300 miles for a stab at the lead role.
"It's just a rinse so I can wash it right out," she said, fingering her temporarily red hair. For her shot at stardom, Castle performed a song from the musical "A Chorus Line" as Lucy might have interpreted it.
"I feel like I'm really her," said Castle, who came from San Martin in Northern California to be one of the first in line. "I watch all of her old shows."
Her performance, while unusual, was scarcely the most offbeat. One desirous Desi delivered a stream-of-consciousness monologue, Ricky Ricardo as scripted by someone like Hunter S. Thompson. But among the early auditions, there wasn't one "Ba-ba-loo."
In the audition room, where a producer and a casting director smiled cheerfully through some painfully amateurish readings, one truth seemed evident: The more the performers looked like Lucy and Desi, the worse their acting.
A few Lucy simulations came from as far away as Dallas and El Paso. The first Lucy in line arrived at 3 a.m. after finishing her shift as a waitress at a late-night Los Angeles rib joint.
"What are my chances? Not great," said Randy Aguirre, an engineer who missed a staff meeting to audition for the part of the Cuban band leader. "There are like tons of people here."
Aguirre - who recently co-starred in the movie "Ghetto Blaster," playing a gang member who burns a cat, rapes a woman and steals a purse - studies acting.
Like many of the hopeful thespians pursuing a slim chance to be in "Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter," Aguirre was at the CBS Television City studio as much for the Hollywood happening as he was looking for a big break.
Those who didn't have 8-by-10 glossy photographs and resumes had their pictures taken by a instant camera. On her resume, Vicky Seavers listed a performance on "St. Louis Illustrated."
Tony Rael, who was born in Havana and came to the United States when he was 2, was one of the few performers the producers wanted to see again. He sang the show's theme song for his tryout. "I love Desi Arnaz," Rael said. "He's a hero to the Hispanic people."
Producer Larry Thompson, who will have auditions in Miami on Wednesday and in New York on Friday, said the movie will be a "loving but honest portrayal" of the relationship between Lucy and Desi.
He deflected criticism from daughter Lucie Arnaz, who said, "I believe that the climate is wrong to try and tell my parents' story accurately no matter who tells it."
CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky said: "We're not going to desecrate all the wonderful things Lucy and Desi did for CBS."
by CNB