La Crescenta’s Connection to the ‘I Love Lucy’ Show

This story comes to us from the late Charles Bausback. Charles was an institution here in the valley. He was a fabulous storyteller and he had a photographic memory of the past. Some of his stories seemed far-fetched and some I frankly doubted. But over the years, many of the stories I thought “tall tales” were borne out as true. He wrote up several of his stories, of which this is one. His stories were as long as they were entertaining, so I’ll paraphrase.

The story of the “I Love Lucy” show and her on-screen pregnancy was an interesting one. As many of us know, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez played a married couple (Lucy and Ricky Ricardo) on the wildly popular sitcom in the mid-’50s. But they were married in real life as well. At that time, any implication on TV of sex was strictly forbidden, including pregnancy. When Lucille Ball became pregnant during the filming of the show, it was assumed that she would step away from filming. But Lucy and Desi were at the height of their popularity, filming “I Love Lucy” in their own studio, Desilu Studios, and they wielded some power. They made the decision to buck the system and make Lucy’s pregnancy and birth (Desi Arnez Jr., 1953) part of the show. The boy, called “Little Ricky,” was a central part of “I Love Lucy” through the years and was played by various child actors, not the real Desi Jr.

But getting back to La Crescenta … There used to be a small neighborhood grocery store on Florencita Avenue just below Montrose Avenue. (It’s a house today, 2460 Florencita, but last time I checked, you could still make out that it used to be a market.) It was run in the 1950s by a local guy named Max Mayer.

Max was a character. For instance, he ran two telegraph services from the store: Western Union and Postal Telegraph and he kept his “official hats” for each service in the back room. If you wanted to send a Western Union telegraph, he would excuse himself, disappear into the back room and reappear wearing the Western Union hat to take your order.

Now, according to Charles Bausback, in 1953 Max Mayer and his wife gave birth to twin boys on the exact same day, and in the exact same hospital, as Lucille Ball was giving birth to Desi Jr. When the “I Love Lucy” producers came to visit Lucy and Desi Jr., they looked through the window of the nursery, saw Lucy’s baby, and right next to him the two Mayer twin boys looking very much like Lucy’s baby.

In those days, a child actor was not allowed to be under hot studio lights for very long. Twins were often recruited to play a single child with twins being switched out for one another under the lights. Again, according to Charles, Max Mayer was contacted by the producers to see if his boys could be hired to play Little Ricky and he said yes. The twins, Joe and Mike Mayer, were employed to play Little Ricky for about three years. With the money the Mayers received, Max was able to go to college and finish his degree.

That’s Charles’ story and he’s sticking to it! A quick check of the internet states the Simmons twins were the first Little Ricky, soon replaced by the Mayer twins. They had been spotted at a “twins picnic” and recruited to play the part. They did very well in the role, but after three seasons their parents declined to continue. After that child actor Richard Thibodeaux (stage name Richard Keith) took on the role. The Mayer twins grew up in CV, graduated from Crescenta Valley High and went on to college. Today they both live in Idaho.

As a historian, it’s very hard to separate fact from fiction and, in some cases, not worth the effort. The Mayer twins did play Little Ricky and they were from La Crescenta. On the details, it’s Charles versus the Internet. I think I’ll go with Charles.