Residents of Lucille Ball’s hometown in upstate New York town are organizing fundraisers to remove a “frightening” looking bronze statue of the “I Love Lucy” actress.
The 400-pound-life-size bronze statue was erected in 2009 after being privately commissioned.
But many residents have taken offense to sculptor, Dave Poulin’s interpretation of the actress’ face and have formed a Facebook group called “We Love Lucy! Get Rid of this Statue” to organize online fundraising efforts to replace the statue.
“I don’t think this can be repaired,” the Facebook group founder told Yahoo! News. “Take a look at the beautiful statues Nick at Nite created for ’Bewitched’ and ’The Honeymooners’ and Bob Newhart … it needs to be something more like those.”
“I think it looks like a monster. That is just my opinion,” the Facebook group founder said. “When you see it at night, it is frightening.”
But Celoron mayor Scott Schrecengost told the local Post-Journal that replacing the statue would be very costly.
“Over the past couple of years, I’ve reached out to Dave Pouli and have had at least four conversations with him about redoing the statue. He finally came back and said he wanted $8,000 to $10,000 to do it,” Mr. Schrecengost told the newspaper. “I’ve also reached out to several other sculptors in the region, and some said they would do it, but we’re still looking at about $5,000. we’d like to with the original sculptor and wish he would stand behind his work enough to step up and fix it for free.”
“I Love Lucy” fans say the statue doesn’t do the actress justice.
“Lucille Ball was not only an amazing comedienne, but she was a stunning beauty. Her sense of humor only made her more beautiful,” one self described “big fan of Lucy’s” from nearby Jamestown, NY told Yahoo. “This statue looks nothing like the beautiful Lucy we all know. If for no other reason than that … that statue should go.”
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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