Jess Oppenheimer

Jessurun James Oppenheimer (November 11, 1913 – December 27, 1988) was an American radio and television writer, producer, and director. He was the producer and head writer of the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.

Lucille Ball called Oppenheimer “the brains” behind I Love Lucy. As series creator, producer, and head writer, “Jess was the creative force behind the ‘Lucy’ show,” according to I Love Lucy director William Asher. “He was the field general. Jess presided over all the meetings, and ran the whole show. He was very sharp.”

Early life and education He was born into a secular Jewish family in San Francisco, where in the third grade he was chosen as a subject of Stanford University professor Lewis Terman's study of gifted children. Prof. Terman's assistant noted in Oppenheimer's file, "I could detect no signs of a sense of humor."

During his junior year at Stanford during the 1930s, Oppenheimer visited the studios of radio station KFRC in San Francisco, and soon started spending all his spare time there. He made his broadcast debut performing a comedy sketch he'd written on the station's popular coast-to-coast comedy-variety radio program, Blue Monday Jamboree. Soon the series gained both a sponsor and a much larger audience. My Favorite Husband also marked the beginning of Oppenheimer's successful collaboration with future I Love Lucy writers Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. a Sylvania Award, and the Writers' Guild of America's Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.

Personal life Oppenheimer met his future wife, Estelle Weiss, in 1942 while she was working as the manager of the Popular Records Department at Wallichs Music City, on the corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. After a long courtship, the two married on August 5, 1947. Thirteen months later their daughter, Joanne, was born. Their son, Gregg, was born March 8, 1951.

Oppenheimer was also an inventor, holding 18 patents covering a variety of devices, including the in-the-lens teleprompter, first used on television by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz for a filmed Philip Morris cigarette commercial which aired on I Love Lucy on December 14, 1953. Upon his death, Lucille Ball called Jess Oppenheimer "a true genius," adding, "I owe so much to his creativity and his friendship." was completed after his death by his son, Gregg Oppenheimer. That memoir inspired the younger Oppenheimer to write the play I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, which had its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018, starring Seamus Dever as Oppenheimer, Sarah Drew as Lucille Ball, and Oscar Nuñez as Desi Arnaz. The play was recorded in front of a live audience for nationwide public radio broadcast and online distribution. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a serialized version of the play in the UK in August 2020, as LUCY LOVES DESI: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom, starring Jared Harris as Oppenheimer, Anne Heche as Lucille Ball, Wilmer Valderrama as Desi Arnaz, Stacy Keach as William Frawley, and Alfred Molina as CBS Executive Harry Ackerman. In January 2023, L.A. Theatre Works mounted a 22-city U.S. national tour of the play as LUCY LOVES DESI: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom. In November 2023, Next Stage Press published the play's script, making performance licenses available to schools, community theatre groups, and local theatre companies.

In the 1991 television movie Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter, Oppenheimer is portrayed by Howard Schechter. In the 2021 Aaron Sorkin film Being the Ricardos, Oppenheimer is portrayed by Tony Hale, and as an older man by John Rubinstein.

Oppenheimer is memorialized in the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum & Center for Comedy in Jamestown, New York.