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Biography
Infobox person| name = Desi Arnaz| image = Desi Arnaz 1950.JPG| imagesize =| caption = Arnaz as a musician, 1950.| birth_name = Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III| birth_date = Birth date|mf=yes|1917|3|2| birth_place = Santiago de Cuba , Cuba | death_date = Death date and age|mf=yes|1986|12|2|1917|3|2| death_place = Del Mar, California|Del Mar , California , United States | death_cause = Lung Cancer| occupation = Actor, musician, producer| years_active = 1936–82| spouse = Lucille Ball (1940–60) (divorced) 2 children Edith Mack Hirsch (1963–85) (her death)| website = Desi Arnaz (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuba n-born United States|American musician , actor and television producer . While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy , starring with Lucille Ball , to whom he was married at the time. He is generally credited as the inventor of the rerun .
Early life
Desi Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III in Santiago de Cuba to Desiderio Alberto Arnaz II (1894–1973) and his wife Dolores de Acha (1896–1988). His father was Santiago's youngest mayor and also served in the Cuban House of Representatives. His maternal grandfather was Alberto de Acha, one of the three founders of Bacardi Rum . According to Arnaz himself, in his autobiography A Book (1976), the family owned three ranches, a palatial home, and a vacation mansion on a private island in Santiago Bay, Cuba. Following the 1933 Cuban Revolution, led by Fulgencio Batista , which overthrew President Gerardo Machado , Alberto Arnaz was jailed and all of his property was confiscated. He was released after six months when U.S. officials, who believed him to be neutral, intervened on his behalf. The family then fled to Miami, Florida , where Desi attended St. Patrick Catholic High School. In the summer of 1934 he attended Saint Leo University|Saint Leo Prep Horgan, James J. (1990). Pioneer College: The Centennial History of Saint Leo College, Saint Leo Abbey, and Holy Name Priory . Saint Leo College Press. p 463 (near Tampa ) to help improve his English.
Film career
When he moved to the United States, Desi Arnaz turned to show business to support himself. In 1939, he starred on Broadway theatre|Broadway in the Musical theatre|musical Too Many Girls (musical)|Too Many Girls . He went to Hollywood, Los Angeles, California|Hollywood the next year to appear in the show's film|movie version at RKO Pictures|RKO , which starred Lucille Ball . Arnaz and Ball married on November 30, 1940. Arnaz also played guitar for Xavier Cugat .A Book; Arnaz, Desi
Arnaz appeared in several movies in the 1940s, notably Bataan (film)|Bataan (1943). He received his Conscription in the United States|draft notice, but before reporting he injured his knee. He completed his recruit training, but was classified for limited service during World War II . He was assigned to direct United Service Organization (U.S.O.) programs at a military hospital in the San Fernando Valley . Discovering the first thing the wounded soldiers requested was a glass of cold milk, he arranged for movie starlets to meet them and pour the milk for them. Following his discharge from the Army, he formed another orchestra, which was successful in live appearances and recordings. He sang for troops in Birmingham Hospital with John Macchia and hired his childhood friend Marco Rizo to play piano and arrange for the orchestra. When he became successful in television, he kept the orchestra on his payroll, and Rizo arranged and orchestrated the music for I Love Lucy .
I Love Lucy
On October 15, 1951, Arnaz starred in the premiere of I Love Lucy , in which he played a fictitious version of himself, Cuban orchestra leader Enrique "Ricky" Ricardo. His co-star was his real-life wife, Lucille Ball , who played Ricky's wife, Lucy. Television executives had been pursuing Ball to adapt her very popular radio series My Favorite Husband for television. Ball insisted on Arnaz playing her on-air spouse so the two would be able to spend more time together.
The original premise was for the couple to portray Lucy and Larry Lopez, a successful show business couple whose glamorous careers interfered with their efforts to maintain a normal marriage. Market research indicated, however, that this scenario would not be popular, so Jess Oppenheimer changed it to make Ricky Ricardo a struggling young orchestra leader and Lucy an ordinary housewife who had show business fantasies but no talent. (The character name "Larry Lopez" was dropped because of a real-life bandleader named Vincent Lopez, and was replaced with "Ricky Ricardo".) Ricky would often appear at, and later own, the Tropicana Club which, under his ownership, he renamed Club Babalu.
Initially, the idea of having Ball and the distinctly Latino Arnaz portray a married couple encountered resistance as they were told that Desi's Cuban accent and Latin style would not be agreeable to American viewers.cite news|url= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-silver/sotomayer-more-splainin-t_b_236347.html|title=Sotomayor: More 'Splainin' to Do|accessdate=2010-06-18|publisher=The Huffington Post|quote=CBS executives originally did not want Ball, a sassy redhead, married to a Latino on the program|first=Allison|last=Silver|date=July 16, 2009 The couple overcame these objections, however, by touring together, during the summer of 1950, in a live vaudeville act they developed with the help of Spanish clown Pepito Pérez, together with Ball's radio show writers. Much of the material from their vaudeville act, including Lucy's memorable seal routine, was used in the pilot episode of I Love Lucy . Segments of the pilot were recreated in the sixth episode of the show's first season.
Desilu Productions
With Ball, he founded Desilu Productions . At that time, most television program s were broadcast live, and as the largest markets were in New York, the rest of the country received only kinescope images. Karl Freund , Arnaz's cameraman, and even Arnaz himself have been credited with the development of the multiple-camera setup production style using adjacent sets that became the standard for all subsequent situation comedy|situation comedies to this day. However, this is refuted by the full account of the history of the multiple-camera setup . The use of film enabled every station around the country to broadcast high-quality images of the show. Arnaz was told that it would be impossible to allow an audience onto a sound stage , but he worked with Freund to design a set that would accommodate an audience, allow filming, and also adhere to fire and safety codes.
Television network|Network executives considered the use of film an unnecessary extravagance. Arnaz convinced them to allow Desilu to cover all additional costs associated with the filming process, under the stipulation that Desilu owned and controlled all rights to the film. Arnaz's unprecedented arrangement is widely considered to be one of the shrewdest deals in television history. As a result of his foresight, Desilu reaped the profits from all reruns of the series.
Arnaz also pushed the network to allow them to show Lucille Ball while she was Pregnancy|pregnant . According to Arnaz, the CBS network told him, "You cannot show a pregnant woman on television". Arnaz consulted a priest , a rabbi , and a Minister (Christianity)|minister , all of whom told him that there would be nothing wrong with showing a pregnant Lucy or with using the word pregnant . The network finally relented and let Arnaz and Ball weave the pregnancy into the story line, but remained adamant about eschewing use of pregnant , so Arnaz substituted expecting , pronouncing it '' 'spectin' '' in his Cuban accent. Oddly, the official titles of two of the series' episodes employed the word pregnant : "Lucy Is Enceinte ", employing the French word for pregnant, and "Pregnant Women Are Unpredictable", although the episode titles never appeared on the show itself.
In addition to I Love Lucy , he executive produced The Ann Sothern Show , Those Whiting Girls and was briefly involved in several other series such as The Untouchables (1959 TV series)|The Untouchables . He also produced the feature film Forever, Darling (1956), in which he and Ball starred.
The original Desilu company continued long after Arnaz's divorce from Ball, both producing its own shows and providing production facilities to other producers. Among the later shows produced at Desilu were: The Andy Griffith Show , The Dick Van Dyke Show , The Lucy Show , and Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek . When Ball sold her share of Desilu to what became Paramount Television , Arnaz went on to form his own production company from the ashes of his share of Desilu, and with the newly formed Desi Arnaz Productions , he made The Mothers-In-Law (at Desilu) for United Artists Television and NBC , this ran for two seasons from 1967-68. Arnaz's company would be succeeded-in-interest by the company now known as Desilu, Too . Both Desilu, Too and Lucille Ball Productions work hand-in-hand with MPI Home Video in the home video re-issues of the Ball/Arnaz material not currently owned by CBS (successor-in-interest to Paramount Television, which in turn succeeded the original Desilu company). This material includes '' Here's Lucy and the aforementioned The Mothers-In-Law , as well as many programs and specials Ball and Arnaz made independently of each other.
Beliefs
Arnaz and Ball decided that the show would maintain what Arnaz termed "basic good taste", and were therefore determined to avoid ethnic joke s as well as humor based on handicaps, mental disabilities, and so on. Arnaz recalled that the only exception consisted of making fun of Ricky Ricardo's accent, and noted that even these jokes worked only when Lucy, as his wife, did the mimicking.
Arnaz was patriotic. In his memoirs, speaking of the United States, he wrote: "I know of no other country in the world" in which "a sixteen-year-old kid, broke and unable to speak the language" could achieve the successes he had. Over the show's nine-year run, the fortunes of the Ricardos mirror that of the archetypal 1950s American Dream . At first, they lived in a tiny, if pleasant brownstone apartment. Later, Ricardo got his big chance and moved, temporarily, to a fashionable hotel suite in Hollywood . Shortly after returning to New York, they had the opportunity to travel to Europe. Finally, the couple moved into a house in wealthy Westport, Connecticut .
Marriages
Arnaz and Ball's marriage (1940) was turbulent, and convinced that Arnaz was being unfaithful to her, Ball filed for divorce in September of 1944, but returned to him before the interlocutory decree became final. He and Ball are the parents of actress Lucie Arnaz (born 1951) and actor Desi Arnaz, Jr. (born 1953).
Arnaz's marriage with Ball began to collapse under the strain of his growing problems with alcohol and womanizing. According to his memoir, the combined pressures of managing the production company as well as supervising its day-to-day operations had greatly worsened as it grew much larger, and he felt compelled to seek outlets to alleviate the stress. Arnaz was also suffering from diverticulitis . Ball divorced him in 1960. When Ball returned to weekly television, she and Arnaz worked out an agreement regarding Desilu, wherein she bought him out.
Arnaz married his second wife, Edith Mack Hirsch , on March 2, 1963, and greatly reduced his show business activities. He served as executive producer of The Mothers-in-Law , and during its two-year run, made four guest appearances as a Spanish Torero (bullfighter)|matador , Señor Delgado. He was widowed in 1985, when his wife Edith died.
Although both Arnaz and Ball remarried to other spouses after their divorce in 1960, they remained friends, and grew closer in his final decade. "'I Love Lucy' was never just a title", wrote Arnaz in the last years of his life.Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Family home movies later aired on television showed Ball and Arnaz playing together with their grandson Simon shortly before Arnaz's death.
Later life
In the 1970s, Arnaz co-hosted a week of shows with daytime host and producer Mike Douglas . Vivian Vance appeared as a guest. Arnaz also headlined a Kraft Music Hall special on NBC that featured his two children, with a brief appearance by Vance. To promote his autobiography, A Book , on February 21, 1976, Arnaz served as a guest host on Saturday Night Live , with his son, Desi, Jr., also appearing. The program contained spoofs of I Love Lucy and The Untouchables (1959 TV series)|The Untouchables . The spoofs of I Love Lucy were supposed earlier concepts of the show that never made it on the air, such as "I Love Louie", where Desi lived with Louis Armstrong . He also read Lewis Carroll 's poem " Jabberwocky " in a heavy Cuban accent (he pronounced it "Habberwocky"). Arnaz, Jr. played the drums and, supported by the SNL band, Desi sang both " Babalu (song)|Babalu " and another favorite from his dance band days, " Cuban Pete (song)|Cuban Pete "; the arrangements were similar to the ones used on I Love Lucy . He ended the broadcast by leading the entire cast in a raucous conga line through the SNL studio.
Arnaz and his wife eventually moved to Del Mar, California , where he lived the rest of his life in semi-retirement. He owned a 45-acre horse breeding farm in Corona, California , and raced thoroughbred s. He contributed to Charitable organization|charitable and non-profit organization s, including San Diego State University . Arnaz would make a guest appearance on the TV series Alice (TV series)|Alice , starring Linda Lavin and produced by I Love Lucy co-creators Madelyn Pugh (Madelyn Davis) and Bob Carroll, Jr.
Death
Arnaz was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1986. He died several months later on December 2, 1986, at the age of 69. Lucille telephoned him two days before his death, on what would have been their 46th wedding anniversary. They shared a few words, mostly "I love you." She said, "All right, honey. I'll talk to you later."
Arnaz was cremated and the whereabouts of his ashes are unknown. His death came just five days before Lucille Ball received the Kennedy Center Honors .
Desi was survived by his children and his mother, Dolores, who died in 1988 at the age of 92. http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi Social Security Death Index
Legacy
Desi Arnaz has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame : one at 6327 Hollywood Boulevard for contributions to motion pictures, and one at 6220 Hollywood Boulevard for television. There is a Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center museum in Jamestown, New York (birthplace of Lucille Ball ) and a Desi Arnaz Bandshell in Lucille Ball Memorial Park in Celoron, New York (childhood home of Lucille Ball).
Filmography
As actor
1982: The Escape Artist .... Mayor Leon Quiñones
1978: Alice (TV series)|Alice .... Paco (1 episode, 1978)
1976: Saturday Night Live (1 episode, as host, musical guest and skit player)
1974: Ironside (TV series)|Ironside .... Dr. Juan Domingo (1 episode, 1974)
1970: The Virginian (TV series)|The Virginian .... El Jefe (1 episode, 1970)
1970: Kraft Music Hall .... Host (1 episode, 1970)
1967: The Mothers-In-Law .... Raphael del Gado (4 episodes, 1967–1968)
1961: The Red Skelton Show .... Guest / ... (1 episode, 1961)
1959: The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (3 episodes, 1959–1960)
1959: Sunday Showcase (1 episode, 1959)
Soundtracks
2001: '' I Love Lucy's 50th Anniversary Special (TV) (performer: "California, Here I Come", "Babalu (Babalú)") ... aka "The I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special" – USA (DVD title)
1958: The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1 episode, 1958) ... aka "We Love Lucy" – USA (syndication title) – Lucy Wins a Race Horse (1958) TV episode (performer: "The Bayamo")
1952: I Love Lucy (3 episodes, 1952–1956) ... aka "Lucy in Connecticut" - USA (rerun title) ... aka "The Sunday Lucy Show" - USA (rerun title) ... aka "The Top Ten Lucy Show" – USA (rerun title) – Lucy and Bob Hope (1956) TV episode (performer: "Nobody Loves the Ump" (uncredited)) – Ricky's European Booking (1955) TV episode (performer: "Forever, Darling" (uncredited)) – Cuban Pals (1952) TV episode (performer: "The Lady in Red", "Similau")
1949: Holiday in Havana (writer: "Holiday In Havana", "The Arnaz Jam")
1946: Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra (performer: "Guadalajara", "Babalu (Babalú)", "Tabu (Tabú)", "Pin Marin") ... aka "Melody Masters: Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra" - USA (series title)
1942: Four Jacks and a Jill ("Boogie Woogie Conga" 1941))
1941: Father Takes a Wife ("Perfidia" (1939), "Mi amor" (1941))
1940: Too Many Girls (musical)|Too Many Girls (performer: "Spic 'n' Spanish", "You're Nearer", "Conga") ("'Cause We Got Cake")
Biography
1960: A Book (autobiography up to 1960)
1976: Another Book (1960 onward—never completed beyond outline)Citation needed|date=November 2007
1994: Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz By Coyne Stephen Sanders and Tom Gilbert (author) (Whole life, and focuses prominently on the Business affairs of Desilu Productions )(PNT)
See also
Portal|Biography|World War II|United States
List of Cuban Americans
References
Reflist
External links
http://www.classicmoviehub.com/bio.php? person_id=6496& type=actors Desi Arnaz at Classic Movie Hub
IMDb name|0000789
IBDB name|70756
Amg name|2319
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/arnazdesi/arnazdesi.htm The Museum of Broadcast Communications: "Arnaz, Desi - U.S. Actor/Media Executive", by B.R. Smith
http://vault.fbi.gov/Desi%20Arnaz FBI file on Desi Arnaz
http://www.lucy-desi.com/ Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center
Persondata|NAME=Arnaz, Desi |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= |SHORT DESCRIPTION=American musician |DATE OF BIRTH=March 2, 1917 |PLACE OF BIRTH= Santiago de Cuba |DATE OF DEATH=December 2, 1986 |PLACE OF DEATH=Del Mar, California, U.S. DEFAULTSORT:Arnaz, Desi Category:1917 births Category:1986 deaths Category:People from Santiago de Cuba Category:American bandleaders Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American racehorse owners and breeders Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Cuban exiles Category:Cuban emigrants to the United States Category:American people of Cuban descent Category:American entertainers of Cuban descent Category:Cuban people of Spanish descent Category:Cuban male singers Category:California Republicans Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Saint Leo University alumni Category:Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni Category:United States Army soldiers Category:20th-century actors Category:I Love Lucy
