Despite his role in My Three Sons, William Frawley was ''undomesticated''
William Frawley was best known for his role in I Love Lucy, but the actor was also a successful singer, dramatic actor, vaudeville performer and comedian. He was a man of many emotions with many roles both on-screen and off.
His role as Bub O'Casey in My Three Sons (1960) added a new set of special skills to his long resume. This time, Frawley was the authority on cooking, cleaning and caretaking.
"It's pretty funny," Frawley said in a 1961 interview with The Roanoke Times. "I don't even know how to cook a prune. But all these letters come in asking me for my recipes."
In Frawley's role as Bub O'Casey, he played a grandfather who took on the domestic role of the family's housekeeper and caregiver, managing household chores and looking after Steve Douglas' four kids.
Although he was the one who kept the household in order on the series, in real life, Frawley admitted he knew nothing about cooking or cleaning. Because of his acting ability and ease in the role, many of his female fans and My Three Sons viewers would often write to him, asking for advice on household chores, tips, recipes and other domestic duties.
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"It started, I think, in an early episode when I yelled to the kids to come and get their mulligan stew," Frawley said. "There's about a million things in a stew and I don't know one of them. But I got hold of a recipe from a restaurant and sent it along."
Maybe Frawley should've used that recipe for himself; he could've used those cooking tips.
However, he wasn't the only one sending "famous" recipes to people who wrote in. According to the interview, the love was mutual; Frawley would also receive recipes from people all over the country. Which, according to him, made watching his waistline hard to do.
One of his personal favorites submitted for his approval by an adoring My Three Sons fan was pecan pie topped with caramel whipped cream.
"That one was pretty good," Frawley said. "It was a dessert. They always are sending in dessert recipes made of custard with cocoa and stuff like that."
Most of the housekeeping tasks Bub O'Casey handled on-screen, Frawley disliked doing in real life, including ironing. He believed that if the writers didn't know what to do with his character in certain episodes, they'd make him iron for hours just to look busy, which was his personal nightmare.
"And I'm always doing it wrong," Frawley said. "I just can't get the hang of it."
Frawley was an incredible actor who left a long legacy in his profession. Although he lacked real life skills in cooking and cleaning, his acting made us believe that he was the greatest housekeeper around.