Fans of “I Love Lucy” might remember him -- he played the popular character of Bobby the Bellboy. His name was Bobby Jellison, and his bittersweet life has been recalled by his nephew, Bill Ratner, in Bobbywood, now at the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Ratner, a successful spoken-word and voiceover performer (“G.I. Joe,” “Family Guy”) did not meet his uncle until the 1970s, when Jellison was old, sick and living in a dingy little Westwood apartment. By all rights, he should have been enjoying the fruits of his many years on “I Love Lucy.” But Desi Arnaz, who was not only the co-star but the owner of the TV show, had coerced Bobby into signing away his residual rights. Poverty was the result of that immoral, despicable act.
Bobbywood, then, is all about the dark side of Hollywood: the behind-the-scenes exploitation of actors like Jellison, the complicity of agents and managers, the ever-present cynicism and lying. All of that comes out in Ratner's monologue, which is based on the time he spent with his uncle at the end of his life. Ratner skilfully captures not only the old man's black humor but his defiant-to-the-end behavior (his favorite pastime was to visit the Forever Hollywood cemetery and piss on the grave of his ex-agent).
Ratner tells this mordant tale well, creating a vivid word-picture of his failed, but still feisty, uncle.
