While Helen Hayes was appearing in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" in Washington, DC she got very ill and had to be hospitalized. Doctors told her that she was allergic to the backstage dust and should no longer work on the stage. Lucille Ball's offer to play Mrs. Brady came along at the perfect time.
The dialogue mentions "Arsenic and Old Lace." Helen Hayes did a TV version of the play in 1968 with Lillian Gish, Bob Crane, Fred Gwynne and David Wayne.
The character Hayes plays here capitalizes on her Oscar-winning role of Ada Quonsett in "Airport", a sweet little old lady who cons the airlines and stows away to get free air travel. On "Here's Lucy" the plot relies on the premise that Mrs. Brady could be con artist.
Helen Hayes plays Kathleen Brady, which is also happens to be the name of the biographer who wrote "Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball" published in 1994 by Billboard Books.
During the late 1960s, after watching one of Helen Hayes' performances, Lucille Ball wrote the actress a letter to express her admiration. Hayes wrote back and suggested the two might work together someday. Lucy asked her secretary Wanda Clark to save the note in her scrapbook, but chalked up the offer to collaborate as mere politeness. She was mistaken.