1. William Clement Frawley was an American vaudevillian and actor best known for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the sitcom I Love Lucy.
22 Facts About William Frawley
1. 2.
William Frawley began his career in Vaudeville in 1914 with his wife, Edna Louise Broedt.
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William Frawley attended Catholic schools and sang in the choir at St Paul's Catholic Church.
4.
William Frawley formed a vaudeville act with his brother Paul, but six months later, their mother told Paul to return to Iowa.
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Meanwhile, William Frawley wrote a script titled Fun in a Vaudeville Agency, and sold it for over $500.
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William Frawley had his first dramatic role in 1932, playing press agent Owen O'Malley in the original production of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's Twentieth Century.
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William Frawley continued to be a dramatic actor at various venues until 1933.
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In 1916, William Frawley appeared in two short subject silent films.
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William Frawley subsequently performed in three more, but did not decide to develop a cinematic career until 1933, when he appeared in some short comedy films and the feature musical Moonlight and Pretzels.
10.
William Frawley moved to Los Angeles, where he signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures.
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William Frawley appeared in Miracle on 34th Street as Judge Harper's political adviser, who warns his client in great detail of the dire political consequences if he rules that there is no Santa Claus.
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William Frawley appeared in two movies starring James Cagney, Something to Sing About and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.
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Contrary to the network's concerns, William Frawley never arrived at work drunk, and mastered his lines after only one reading.
14.
An avid New York Yankees baseball fan, William Frawley had it written into his I Love Lucy contract that he did not have to work during the World Series if the Yankees were playing.
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William Frawley did not appear in two episodes of the show as a result.
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William Frawley next joined the cast of the ABC situation comedy My Three Sons, playing live-in grandfather and housekeeper Michael Francis "Bub" O'Casey beginning in 1960.
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William Frawley's brother Paul Frawley was an actor on Broadway with relatively few appearances in motion pictures.
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William Frawley had a reputation for being cantankerous and difficult, likely exacerbated by a drinking problem.
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William Frawley made two television appearances the year before his death.
20.
William Frawley had performed that song previously on television, as Fred Mertz, in the 1958 episode "Lucy Goes to Sun Valley" on the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.
21.
William Frawley is buried in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles.
22.
William Frawley is memorialized, as well, in the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, New York, which contains his "Hippity-Hoppity" costume from an episode of I Love Lucy.