Lucy Photos of the Week

The Ricardos' visit to Gay Parie turns into a Battle of the Sexes when fashion-conscious Lucy decides she just has to have an original creation by designer Jacques Marcel. Ricky refuses to pay for such an expensive gown, so Lucy goes on a hunger strike. The plan works perfectly -- until Ricky discovers that Ethel has been smuggling food to Lucy. To teach the girls a lesson, Ricky and Fred have a local tailor fashion outfits from old potato sacks, a horse's feedbag, and a cafe ice bucket -- and pass them off as Jacques Marcel originals. The girls excitedly parade around town in their new outfits -- until Ricky and Fred start to giggle and tell the girls the truth. In the end, the joke's on the men -- designer Marcel was so captivated by the Lucy and Ethel's burlap outfits that he creates exact duplicates for his own models.

"Lucy Gets a Paris Gown," episode #147 of I Love Lucy, was filmed 47 years ago this week, on Thursday, February 16, 1956. It aired a month later, on March 19. Long a favorite of fans, the show inspired the current best-selling Mattel Lucy doll (photo, above left).

Among the "extras" used in this episode -- as one of Jacques Marcel's beautiful models -- was real-life model Georgia Holt. Ms. Holt, who retired from modeling a few years later, is primarily known today as being the mother of entertainer Cher.