I Love Lucy : THE SOURCE OF FRED'S CHEAPNESS

That was a topic that was never addressed in the series.

We all know that he and Ethel played vaudeville in their younger years, but I don't think they were ever headliners.
And why couldn't they get other work in show biz after vaudeville died out?
They could have been in other stage shows, or even as character actors in movies.
And Ethel's beautiful singing voice could have made her in demand for radio or stage concerts.

But, nothey just gave up and depended on rents from a brownstone (in Ethel's name) to sustain themselves.

Nothing is ever mentioned of Fred's background, except that he was from Steubenville, Ohio (as was Dean Martin, BTW).
Was his father also a skinflint?
Did he grow up in poverty, and became afraid of spending even a penny for a newspaper?

Wouldn't have it be nice if Ricky could have made the Mertz's regular performers at the Tropicana in exchange for a reduced rent?
Of course, that would have made Lucy very angry.

That's true, the show never addressed it. It was just a given that Fred was cheap.

I recall a few years ago there was a discussion thread that suggested that Fred was frugal because he lived through the depression. I never cared for that reason too much. Fred would've been a grown man by then. It was mentioned how he served in World War One, so it wasn't like he was a kid then and growing up in poverty.

Even though they were in vaudeville I suppose it wasn't that odd for them to leave show biz after vaudeville died out. There were performers who made the big leap to other areas of show biz like Jack Benny and George Burns. But I am sure there were lots of performers who couldn't or didn't want to make the transition to radio or movies.

Remember Fred's old partner Barney was working as a cook in New York. Not all performers have continued success.

I'm guessing that Fred and Ethel managed to save money, Fred WAS frugal after all. LOL When their show business gigs started to dry up, Fred probably thought that buying real estate was a sure thing and a good investment. Staying in show business wasn't a guarantee. They were getting older and probably didn't even want the wear and tear of travelling and being on the road all the time. Just my guess.

Fred just seemed to have a natural cheapness about certain things. There were a number of times when the two couples went out to dinner and amovie. I doubt if Ricky was picking up the tab for those outings. So Fred was willing to spend money on entertainment. And I noticed the nice suits Fred wore sometimes. So he was willing to spend SOME money!

Yes, I'm sure Fred didn't want to be the richest corpse in the cemetery, LOL.

He knew a great deal about raising chickens; could he have grown up on a farm?
And are there farms in Steubenville, Ohio?

I wish this could have been explained in the series, but at that time, TV sitcoms never went into such depths.
It was Norman Lear in the 1970's who broke those barriers.

Yes, I think Fred made a comment about being raised on a farm when he applied for the job of raising chickens for the Ricardos. Of course I don't think his family farm "specialized" in poultry. Remember when he said that the chicks would start laying eggs in six weeks, and it was really six months!


I was curious about Steubenville, so I looked it up. It is on the Ohio River so I am sure there were farms all around, especially at the time Fred was growing up. The country was still mostly rural farming communities. It's not a large city. At the turn of the century (the census in 1900)the population was under 15,000 in Steubenville.

Fred's family may have not lived exactly right IN town but nearby. A lot of people will name the closest city or large town to describe where they are from.

Have you ever heard of the comedian Bill Burr? He's from Canton, MA. It's part of Greater Boston but it's about fifteen miles away. He just says he's from Boston because people think he's from Canton, Ohio if he says Canton.

Ethel grew up in Albequerque and that was a small town at the turn of the century too. The 1910 census was only 11,000. So both Fred and Ethel were basically small town folks. I find it interesting that they chose to settle in a big city. Well, I suppose they got used to city life while in show biz.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Bill Burr.
But it is very interesting just how small both Steubenville and Albuquerque were at the turn of the last century.

One would think that with the Florida land boom of the late 1920's Fred and Ethel could have settled there.
But, as you say, they probably felt more at home in NYC, due to their show-biz backgrounds.
What luck that they had a tenant who was also in show biz.
Ricky did get them a couple of gigs at the Tropicana.

I never got the impression that they were mainstream vaudeville headliners. So they probably eked out their living. When the 2 couples bought the diner, Ethel and Fred assured the Ricardo's they understood diner slang because they worked in one when they were stranded once in Indiana. So there probably were a lot of lean times and Fred - being Fred - pinched each penny for all it was worth.

"I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me"

Yes so true. This topic has made me wonder about vaudeville entertainers. A lot of performers had 'specialty' acts like juggling or dancing. Those types of performers couldn't exactly make the transition to radio like Jack Benny.

Fred and Ethel were probably one of those opening acts for a big headliner. Also Fred had Barney as his vaudeville partner. I wonder if he was partnered with him before or after he married Ethel? And we know that Barney ended up as a cook in a restaurant. Not everyone who has a showbiz career becomes a huge success.

Music tastes change for the public and I suppose Fred and Ethel's act was just not popular anymore. Also, maybe it was Ethel's prompting Fred to get off the road and settle down. Maybe she wanted them to start a family. Of course they didn't have children, but some couples can't have kid

Might be nice if vaudeville could be revived.
Betcha there could still be an audience for such acts.
Especially since they don't involve pyrotechnics or CGI!

Why would there need to be a "source?" Plenty of cheapskates are just
cheapskates. It was a character trait. Do we need to know why Ethel was a
foodie?? She just was.

Character traits are not born into people.
There must have been an underlying reason why Fred was such a penny-pincher.
And I'm just curious as to what it was!

Besides, since the message boards are going down soon, couldn't you even TRY to be decent??

Well I can see both sides of the argument.

We definitely are born with a predispositon to certain character traits. Some people are natuarally easy going, some are very high strung.

I remember reading about babies when I had one myself! All the books indicated that some babies are just naturally laid back and easygoing. Some, on the other end of the scale, are hyper-sensitive and cry all the time. Most babies fall somewhere in the middle of the behavior range.

Toddlers are naturally "me" centered, selfish and thinking that the world revolves around them. They grab all the toys and won't share. It takes some maturing and socialization to realize that the world doesn't revolve around them and they must share and take other people's feelings into consideration.

Some adults never seem to get that lesson! And I do think there are some in-bred personality traits involved. There are people who have very little yet they always share what they have. Other people have a lot and it is almost painful for them to share with others.

I know that a lot of people grew up in hard times like the Depression and it made them frugal. In a lot of cases it just made them very appreciative of what they had later in life after living in poverty.

Living through a depression is no excuse to be cheap and miserly. Some people just do not like to share. As I wrote before, Fred was already a grown man when the Depression hit. He served in World War One, so he would've been at least in his thirties by then.

He may have lost some money in the stock market. That could've made him very careful with money for the rest of his life. But I really don't believe his actual character was shaped by some events from his adulthood. He just had a somewhat selfish nature. But he wasn't miserly about everything. He DID have some nice suits and he and Ethel did go out to restaurants with the Ricardos.

In the Business Manager episode, Fred offered to take Lucy and Ricky out to dinner because he thought that they were broke. He could be generous. But I think Fred was more fearful of losing what he had rather than being really, really miserly. Just another take on the subject!

That's a fascinating observation, pj.
Maybe the predisposition to be a miser is genetic; maybe Fred's father and/or mother was a cheapskate.

It's true that toddlers are totally self-absorbed, but eventually they learn to share and empathize.
Of course there are exceptionsTrump, for example.

Fred Mertz wasn't a bad person at all, but his utter frugality can easily grate some nerves.
Especially Ethel's.

Baloney. And to think one would "need to know" the source of Fred's
being a cheapskate is just plain silly.

some people work hard for there money thats how I see it.



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