A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Melissa Sue Anderson and Melissa Gilbert, who played sisters Mary and Laura Ingalls on the TV version of Little House on the Prairie, weren't close in real life — they actually didn't even like each other. They were competitive, had clashing personalities, and developed some real-world sibling rivalry that lasted for decades.
The two women, who are now in their early sixties, have since reconciled and even shared an Instagram post about it last month. But while I was researching that, I discovered that there were many classic TV stars who didn't get along behind the scenes over the years, despite playing best friends or family members on the screen, and I thought I'd share some. Last week was such a heavy news week, so let's take a fun gossip break.
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I grew up watching it with my mom, and I had a little girlhood crush on Desi Arnaz, who played Ricky Ricardo. My mom always loved to tell me how much the cast didn't get along off the screen, and now I know some of the details — or at least, the rumors.
First, we know Lucille Ball and Arnaz were married in real life, and they had a tumultuous relationship. But when it came to their show and careers, the two were able to keep it extremely professional. The real problems were William Frawley and Vivian Vance, who played Fred and Ethel Mertz, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo's landlords and best friends.
Arnaz wrote in his memoirs that he was the one who hired both of them. He fell in love with Vance during her audition and wanted to sign her immediately. Frawley, who was an unreliable alcoholic, had a bad reputation in Hollywood, but he'd reached out to Arnaz and asked for a chance to play the role. Arnaz agreed to give it to him. Vance was in her forties at the time and Frawley was in his sixties; he reportedly heard her complain about the age difference, which left a sour taste in his mouth.
"Where the hell did you find this b****?" Frawley asked, according to Arnaz's book. "She can’t sing worth a damn...she bugs me."
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When the cast was getting ready to film a dance number one time, Frawley reportedly said, "This silly broad tells the choreographer she doesn’t think we’ll be able to do [it] because I’ll never be able to learn it. Like it was going to be a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers number or something.. I was in Vaudeville since I was five years old, and I guarantee you I’ll wind up teaching old fat-a** how to do the f****** thing."
For what it's worth, Arnaz said that Vance just took it all in stride and finally realized Frawley was just a grump who was too old and set in his ways to change. Sounds familiar...
As for the show's two leading ladies, Lucy was apparently not thrilled with her husband casting Vance as Ethel either. She'd imagined a much older actress playing the role and insisted they dress her in frumpy clothing and makeup to make her seem older. My mom always told me that the two women didn't get along because of this, but everything I've read says that after an initial cooling period, they eventually became lifelong friends.
The Golden Girls
The cast of The Golden Girls was made up of four independent actresses and comedians who were quite accomplished before they joined the 1980s sitcom, so it's probably not a shock that some of the cast members didn't always get along. The most famous feud among them is, of course, the one between Bea Arthur and Betty White, who played Dorothy Zbornak and Rose Nylund.
"When that red light was on, there were no more professional people than those women, but when the red light was off, those two couldn’t warm up to each other if they were cremated together," Marsha Posner Williams, one of the show's producers, said during a festival appearance last year. "[Arthur] used to call me at home and say, ‘I just ran into that c' — meaning White, using the c-word — 'at the grocery store. I’m gonna write her a letter,’ and I said, ‘Bea, just get over it for crying out loud. Just get past it.'"
Apparently, Arthur used the "c-word" to describe White often. During the same festival, several people who worked behind the scenes on the show tried to describe why the two women didn't get along but came up mostly empty-handed. Some guessed that it was because White was more likeable and often got more applause, but another said that Arthur didn't like publicity. However, they did say that White used to interact with the audience in the middle of filming scenes, and Arthur thought it was unprofessional.
Other sources say that it was merely a clash of personalities. Arthur was serious and disciplined when it came to acting, but White was bubbly, outgoing, and often incorporated improvisation. White was also the first of the actresses to win an Emmy, and she has suggested in the past that Arthur was jealous, even though all four actresses went on to win one during the show's run.
The Andy Griffith Show
I don't know a person alive who doesn't dream of living in a Mayberry-like town with their very own Aunt Bee fussing over them and making them fried chicken, but as it turns out, Frances Bavier, the actress who played her, wasn't exactly everyone's best friend on the set.
By most accounts, Bavier kept to herself and didn't warm up to the other cast members who generally got along and even had fun filming the show. As a matter of fact, many say that she was such a serious actress that she didn't approve of the jokes that went on behind the scenes or the warmth and friendship on the set, viewing it as unprofessional. I've also read that her relationship with Andy Griffith himself was tainted by his affinity for mixing work and pleasure. For example, despite being married, he allegedly had an open affair with Aneta Corsaut, who played his girlfriend, Helen Crump, on the show. Bavier reportedly didn't approve.
Even so, Griffith often stood up for his TV aunt when others on the set were not quite as kind. Here's a story he told during a "Complete Pioneers of Television" interview:
'After we read, [Executive producers] Danny Thomas, Sheldon Leonard and a man named Artie Sander, who wrote the pilot, yelled at one another all day. I said that first, I said that an hour ago. You know, and a lot of profanity.
At the end of that first day, I asked Sheldon if I could speak to him. I said, ‘Sheldon, if that’s what television is, I don’t think I’ll be able to take it.'
Sheldon was very wise. He said, ‘Andy, you have to understand something. Danny likes to yell. So we all yell. If you don’t want to yell, nobody will yell.’ And it worked out to be true. Nobody ever yelled on our show.
“[Thomas] came down to our stage one day and Frances was doing a scene. And Frances was a delicate woman. Danny came down with a loud voice, ‘That woman’s got to do that with a lot of heart!'
I went to Sheldon and said, ‘Keep that man off our stage.’ I don’t know how he did it, but he did it.
Bavier, who was a bit reclusive later in life, was married once but never have children. Ron Howard has been quoted as saying that he never got the feeling that she liked being around children.
She also apparently hated the "Aunt Bee" role. "I get a hankering to play a really bad woman," she once told the Charlotte News. "Once, a few years ago, I was really vicious in a Lone Ranger episode, but so many people wrote in outrage at what I was doing, I guess it was a mistake. Sometimes it gets me down to think I’ve lost my own identity and my identity as an actress. But other times I get a lift when I realize that I’m really doing quite well."
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Griffith has also said that he and the actress clashed often during filming, but a few months before her death, he received a call from her. She apologized for being "difficult" to work with during their years together.
Ironically, Bavier, retired to Siler City, N.C., a town often mentioned on the show, which was set in North Carolina. The real Siler City is about an hour and a half from Mount Airy, N.C., Griffith's hometown and the town on which Mayberry was based. She was fairly active in the community, particularly with charitable projects, but as her health declined, people would reportedly knock on her door and harass her.
Those are just three of many famous classic TV feuds I came across — some I knew about and some I didn't or didn't know the details behind them. If y'all like this idea, I'll do a few follow-ups, maybe even dig up some lesser known ones in the near future.
