My Favorite Husband

My Favorite Husband was an American radio program and network television series that aired in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The original radio show, starring Lucille Ball, evolved into the groundbreaking television sitcom I Love Lucy.

The series was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) written by Isabel Scott Rorick, the earlier of which had previously been adapted into the Paramount Pictures feature film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942), co-starring Ray Milland and Betty Field.

My Favorite Husband was first broadcast as a one-time special on CBS Radio on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch My Favorite Husband as a series. Bowman was not available to do the series, so when it debuted later that month it starred Lucille Ball and Richard Denning as the leads.

The couple lived at 321 Bundy Drive in the fictitious city of Sheridan Falls, and were billed as “two people who live together and like it.” Each episode would end with Liz saying, “Thanks, George. You’re my favorite husband.”

The Stars

Liz Cooper, played by Lucille Ball, was the happily married and slightly zany housewife.

George Cooper, played by Richard Denning, was Liz’s husband and worked for Mr. Atterbury.

Mr. Rudolph Atterbury, played first by Hans Conried and then Joseph Kearns, and in subsequent episodes by Gale Gordon, was George’s boss, friend of the Cooper family, and often referred to George as “George-Boy.”

Mrs. Iris Atterbury, played by Bea Benaderet, was Rudolph’s wife and friend of the Cooper family, who often referred to Liz as “Liz-Girl.”

Key Dates

• My Favorite Husband was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948.
• The series debuted later that month on July 23, 1948 and ran for a total of 124 episodes.
• It aired until March 31, 1951.
• In January 1949, the couple’s name was changed from Cugat to Cooper to avoid confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat, and the series acquired Jell-O as its sponsor.

Other Information

The original radio show was initially written by Frank Fox and Bill Davenport, who were the writers for radio’s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. After about ten episodes, Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. They subsequently changed the couple’s name to Cooper and remade them into a middle-class couple, which they thought average listeners would find more accessible.

In 1950, Lucille Ball was asked to do a television version of the show, but CBS and Jell-O both insisted that Richard Denning continue as her co-star. Lucille Ball refused to do it without real-life husband Desi Arnaz playing her on-screen husband, and the concept was reworked into I Love Lucy after Ball and Arnaz took a show on the road to convince the network that audiences would respond.

Many of the actors who appeared on My Favorite Husband on radio later appeared on I Love Lucy, often in episodes where they reprised their original roles from a reworked My Favorite Husband script.