“Forgotten Hollywood”- I Love Lucy Statue Drawing Ire / Fear!
A number of fans of Lucille Ball wants her statue removed from a park in her hometown, saying the ugly likeness does not do justice to the I Love Lucy star. The life-size bronze statue in Celoron, New York, has been likened to actor Steve Buscemi, singer Conway Twitty, the Beetlejuice snake, and other unflattering comparisons. Even Mayor Scott Schrecengost has gone on record saying he doesn’t care for the statue, which shows the comic star holding a bottle of the fictional Vitameatavegamin.
And yet, it has been a tourist draw since 2009 for Celoron, the comedian’s birthplace, attracting visitors who pose with the statue for pictures. A resident of Jamestown, where Ball grew up, started the Facebook page in 2012: We Love Lucy! Get Rid of this Statue. The founder of the Facebook group would like to see the statue replaced with a new one outside a planned Comedy Hall of Fame in Jamestown, home to the Lucy-Desi Museum & Center for Comedy and the annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival.
The story appeared on Yahoo! News this past week, which spread over the internet, reviving debate about what to do. The residents were seriously considering a crowd-funding campaign to raise the needed funds. In the meantime, the statue of Lucy is scaring children and generating a public debate.
The result of all this public attention… Instead of the sculptor receiving $8000 to $10,000 to replace the fixture, he is now offering to refurbish the statue on his own dime. Let’s just hope people will love the new Lucy.
As Ricky Ricardo might have surmised… We have some splaining to do!
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2015 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
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