The two had a contentious relationship on the set of the 1968 movie, Yours, Mine and Ours about a couple raising 18 children, and Shavelson said that after the final scene was shot the actress asked how he liked directing her.
He said he replied, "Lucy, this is the first time I ever made a film with 19 children.''
"To my surprise, she started to cry,'' Shavelson said. She would not talk to him for months.
The making of 1958's Houseboat was also complicated, Shavelson said, because Cary Grant, who was married to someone else, fell in love with his co-star,
Sophia Loren, who was in love with producer Carlo Ponti, who was splitting with his wife.
On the day she was filming a marriage scene with Grant she married Ponti by proxy in Mexico.
"And that's how you make a successful family comedy in Hollywood,'' Shavelson told columnist Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times.
RSS