Timing is everything, isn't it? They have to go for it now while Hamm is still Hot! (I wonder if he is cooling off a bit.)

Timing is indeed everything, Suzette....well, good luck to them, hope they succeed.

Seems that actors forming their "own production company" is the new "...what I really want to do is 'direct'".....

.....Not an expert, but I think production is power in Hollywood, and a great way for an actor to create more opportunities and exercise more control over his/her own, and his/her contemporaries', careers.

I still want to know what points west.

Dry, you're absolutely correct - production is power in Hollywood. Even many of the younger stars are investing their money in production companies these days so they can make their "projects" as they call them, i.e., Drew Barrymore for one.

It's not really that new - back in the early 50s, the "Four Star Productions" was established by David Niven, Ida Lupino, Charles Boyer and Dick Powell. I remember they did a lot of TV programs, westerns and comedies, as well as their own weekly program. I was a very small child then, but I remember seeing them on TV and then going to their movies as well.

Of course, Desi Arnaz and Lucy produced their own show and Desi introduced the use of a 2nd camera in taping the show, a huge innovation. Those 2 were geniuses in so many ways.

Interesting, chopin, and didn't Desi make the decision to go with film instead of the kinescopes (or whatever the going method was by the early '50's) which resulted in the show being the durable classic it is?

I think it's the neatest story the way TPTB resisted in a big way to Desi being cast as Lucy's TV husband, not sure, but I think they wanted Richard Denning, who played her husband on the radio forerunner (My Favorite Husband)

So they persisted in being mucho against Desi, saying the public would not accept a Cuban band leader as her husband. She said "Why not? He IS my husband." They finally relented and I for one can't imagine anyone being better in the role of Ricky than Desi...he and Vivian Vance added just as much as Lucy to the show IMO.