The Ward M. Canaday Center

for Special Collections

The University of Toledo

Finding Aid

Isabel Scott Rorick, Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, Typescripts

MSS-041

Size: .25 linear ft.

Provenance: Gift of Business and Professional Women's Club of Toledo, 1944

Access: open
Collection Summary: This collection consists of the typescripts of ten short stories written by Isabel Scott Rorick, which were then published as the book Mr. and Mrs. Cugat: The Record of a Happy Marriage. This novel was the basis of the radio program My Favorite Husband, which was later reworked into the television series I Love Lucy.

Subjects: Literature, Music, Art, Drama, and Theatre

Related Collections:

Processing Note:

Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns.  Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code.  The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion.

 

Completed by:  Tamara Jones, October 2009; last updated: June, 2014.

 

 

Historical Sketch

Isabel Scott Rorick was born in Toledo in 1900, a daughter of one of the city's most prominent families. She was married to Ceilan Rorick, a banker in the Spitzer-Rorick Trust and Savings Bank of Toledo.

In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, Rorick wrote another collection of short stories called Outside Eden. Both books focused on married life, and the former was turned into a film titled Are Husbands Necessary? The book later became a successful radio serial called My Favorite Husband, starring Lucille Ball and Richard Denning. In order to take advantage of the new medium of television, CBS decided to create a show based on the serial and starring the same actors. However, Ball wanted her husband, Desi Arnaz, added to the cast. Because Arnaz would not have been believable as the Midwestern banker featured in the radio show, the story's premise was changed, and I Love Lucy was born. Thus, Rorick's work became a footnote in the history of one of television's most popular sitcoms.

Isabel Scott Rorick died in 1967.

Scope and Content Note

 

This collection consists of the typescripts of ten short stories written by Isabel Scott Rorick, which were then published as the book Mr. and Mrs. Cugat: The Record of a Happy Marriage. The typescripts were written between 1937 and 1940.

 

Box and Folder Inventory

Box

Folder

Arrangement

 

 

 

1

1

“Forsaking All Others”

1

2

“For Better, for Worse”

1

3

“In Sickness and in Health”

1

4

“For Richer, for Poorer”

1

5

“And to Obey?”

1

6

“Let no Man Put Asunder”

1

7

“Worldly Goods”

1

8

“By Joining Hands”

1

9

“Just Cause”

1

10

“To Have and to Hold”

 

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: 6/27/22