When Lucille Ball was an acclaimed, but not very widely known B picture actress, Joan Davis was winning a lot more acclaim for her own brand of goofy physical humor on radio and on film. She was a mainstay of support to a lot of the glamor girls and guys at 20th Century Fox.
A long term extra marital affair with Eddie Cantor helped push her career along as Cantor featured her on radio and had her co-star in two of his films.
Like so many players when the motion picture studios started cutting down production and leaving people out of work, Davis turned to television. Unfortunately one year too late to get credit for originality.
Lucille Ball and her real life husband beat her to the tube by a year. They put on a very successful situation comedy about a wacky wife with an exasperated husband that we all know about.
So when Joan Davis debuted I Married Joan in 1952 she was accused of copying Lucy. Not so as any viewing of her films will so demonstrate.
But Lucy was there first and got the deserved credit.
I Married Joan was a very funny show that trailed in the wake of I Love Lucy. It ended in 1955 because her TV husband Jim Backus quit the show. As Judge Bradley J. Stevens, he was her exasperated straight man of a husband. He'd get to show his comic flair later on in Gilligan's Island.
Sad that Joan Davis was never able to develop another television show to show her talent before she died.
A very funny lady, with a very funny show.
