Desi

His name will always be joined together with Lucy’s.

“The same old booze and broads” finally broke up Desi Arnaz’s marriage with Lucille Ball. Lucy pushed for I Love Lucy to get on the air because she thought it would save her marriage. It did for a while. And even though Lucy re-married, fans insist the two loved each other until the day she died.

Desi wasn’t an actor when he put I Love Lucy together. Nor was he a producer. He was a musician. His acting skills were passable for the show; he came across as a decent guy. His producing skills were brilliant. He insisted the show be shot on film, meaning the episodes could be re-run. That meant money, money, money, though I imagine CBS got a good chunk of it.

Here’s a syndicated newspaper story April 24, 1958 when he and Lucy were arguably TV’s number one couple.

TV Star-Tycoon Desi Arnaz Gets Lots of Riches But No Emmy for Recognition
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD—(NEA)— Hollywood's biggest house cleaning job had been completed and it was moving day for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Desi wanted to bring along his bongo drum for a fanfare of wild ecstatic beats because of the occasion's significance but Lucy had talked him out of it. With nothing to do, rare for him, Desi just stood and looked at the new Desilu Studio—the big, 14-stage one-time RKO motion picture studio which he and Lucy purchased last fall for $6,150,000.
Then he looked at me and grinned:
"It ain't an Emmy!"
After seven years of TV stardom and executive status as owner-boss with Lucy of a company which produces twice as much film for TV as any of the major movie studios produce for the world's theaters, Desi Arnaz has never won an Emmy or even been nominated for one.
Turned Prophet
He's been called Hollywood's TV tycoon.
He's been called a TV business genius.
He's been called a TV prophet for deciding film was best for "I Love Lucy" back in 1951.
He's been called to watch Lucy accept an Emmy.
But he's never been called to the stage for personal TV recognition.
"There never was an Emmy for my type of performance," he likes to laugh about it. "I even suggested a classification for Cuban fellows with an accent who played the drums, who were married to redheads but nothing happened."
Nothing happened, that is, except that the 41-year-old fellow Lucy calls "The Mad Cuban" became the first TV star to buy a motion picture studio. Or as Hollywood likes to tell it, "Lucy said, 'All I want for Christmas is RKO,' so Desi bought it for her."
Three Studios
What they really own is three studios — two in Hollywood, one in nearby Culver City. Total sound stages: 35. Total TV shows filmed under the Desilu hallmark—27. Along the way, as you may have heard, Lucy and Desi picked up a big home next door to Jack Benny in Beverly Hills and another in Palm Springs, where they also own a hotel and an 18-hole golf course. Not bad for a one-time bongo drummer and a long-time movie comedienne.
Now they hope to make movies, too. Or as Desi tells it: "If we get a good story that just won't fit on that small screen, then we'll do it as a movie feature." It was moving day for Desi¬lu. More room, more stages, bigger offices, Ginger Rogers' old dressing room for Lucy, their favorite foods in the studio cafe, an oak paneled kingdom for Desi, a built-in nursery for the new baby of one of their writers, Madelyn Pugh.
Met at RKO
It was sentimental day and homecoming day, too.
A Hollywood success story with a wallop.
Lucy and Desi met and fell in love on an RKO movie stage in 1940. But RKO studio, now Desilu Studio, fired Desi a few months later. Then RKO didn't agree with Lucy on her career, Desi returned to his old job as a bongo-beating orchestra leader and Lucille moved on to bigger and better roles at MGM.
They found memories of those days during their spring-housecleaning job at the studio. Photos of Lucy in the studio files captioned "screendom's most colorful young actress."
I can even tell you that Desi couldn't even find RKO studio on his first day in Hollywood, He'd been signed after clicking on Broadway in "Too Many Girls." He drove through the entrance to a cemetery ad joining the studio that first day and announced to the surprised gateman:
"I'm Desi Arnaz. I work here."
The gateman laughed and said, "Mister, if you're a live actor, you belong next door. Drive down the street a couple of blocks. That's RKO." And that's Hollywood, too. Today Desi owns RKO.

That all changed within two years. Lucy and Desi shot their final scene together on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour in 1960. Lucy filed for divorce days later.

What happened to Desi? Let’s jump ahead nine years. Here’s a wire service piece from August 23, 1967. There were two versions of this feature story. One started “On a clear day, Desi Arnaz can see the horizon line of the blue Pacific from the terrace of his beach home here and even on a foggy morning, he can spot neighbor Jimmy Durante studying a racing form sheet.” There’s no mention of Durante or “buying alfalfa and selling yearlings” in this longer version.

Back In Show Business, Desi Arnaz Is Surprised
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP Television-Radio Writer
DEL MAR, Calif. (AP) — Desi Arnaz, in the period following his divorce from Lucille Ball, sold his stock in Desilu, quit show business and retired to his horse farm, his boat, the track and golf course. He stood it for three years, but now he's back with both feet—and seems a little surprised.
"Things that got me where I was were the things I couldn't do when I got there," said the man who built a camera technique and a comedy series into a giant production company, Desilu, and a fortune.
Arnaz, now in his early fifties, has picked up some weight and his hair shows considerably more salt than pepper. After three years in retirement and two developing new shows he was lured back into television as producer and director of NBC's new comedy series, "The Mothers-in-Law," and has even been persuaded to act in one of the episodes.
After directing the first eight episodes, he is sidelined at his beach home at this Pacific Ocean resort recuperating from a freak accident which almost took his life. A veranda on which he was sitting collapsed and threw him against a metal stake, puncturing his side and requiring emergency surgery.
"I got where I didn't want to be because things began parlaying," said Arnaz, lighting a slim cigar and squinting at the ocean through dark glasses.
"We had a little studio and 'I Love Lucy' and then to compete we had to get a larger studio and from there on we had to get out or get bigger. We wound up with three big studios. But by 1962 I decided I didn't want to be Lew Wasserman (head of Universal Studios). I wanted to be Willie Wyler (a top film director)."
But for three years, Desi was neither. But his attention inevitably was caught by a book which he thought would make a good movie. Soon William Paley, chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System, called him, Arnaz said, and asked if he really intended to return to work—outside television. "No more rat race," Desi told him. "No more wanting things day before yesterday."
"It takes three years to get even in television while losing $5,000 or $10,000 a year," he explained. "I was even then and I didn't know anything about comedy shows with gimmicks where the people take pills or live in bottles. . . Comedy is where you pile one joke on top of another joke and people laugh.
But the result was that Desi Arnaz returned to television, signed by CBS, his old network, to develop shows. And the first venture was based on an idea that had been kicking around Desilu since "I Love Lucy" days.
He first managed to get back Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis who had written all 180 original Lucy shows. Eve Arden was added as the star comedienne, and although not Desi's first choice, Kaye Ballard joined her when Arnaz saw her performing in a night club.
The show was called "The Mothers-in-Law." Then CBS and a rich, important sponsor interested him in finding a situation comedy for Carol Channing. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly.
He planned to use the three-camera, live-on-film technique, made before a studio audience, which he developed for "I Love Lucy."
But then the come-back-story of Desi Arnaz took an unexpected turn. First "The Carol Channing Show" was dropped—then CBS turned thumbs down on "The Mothers-in-Law."
Later, "The Mothers-In Law," which had been developed with CBS money, was rescued—by NBC. Arnaz, naturally, feels that he has a good, funny show for the home folks, but he is hardly cocky since NBC has slotted it in a Sunday night half-hour that has proved to be a Death Valley for a succession of predecessors—opposite the second halves of both CBS' Ed Sullivan hour and ABC's "The FBI."
"I think it's honest comedy," he said with a shrug. "I guess somebody at CBS didn't like it. But I think you have to do something that you like, and then you have to find the right writers and actors who can play it. You start out to do something you think is fun. Then the public will judge. And if we are wrong, well, nuts, I'll go back to the horse ranch."
Arnaz, who handpicked Eve Arden to top-line the new show, says that effective, disciplined comedienne is the rarest bird in show business.
"In the past 30 years, how many really attractive women comediennes can you think of?" he asked. "Carole Lombard, Jean Arthur, Roz Russell, Kay Kendall, Lucy, of course, and Eve—that's just about the whole list.”
Arnaz, talking about women "who do things funny"—as opposed to doing funny things—observed that Jean Arthur can even "open a door funny" and that "Lucy can walk funny."
He is still convinced that the only way to achieve his ideal of television comedy is by using the technique of filming it while the cast is performing each show like a short play before a studio audience.
"You just can't fake those laughs we got," he said. "Hell, they are still using some of those old 'I Love Lucy' laughs as tracks for shows they are making today. Charlie Pomerantz—once the 'Lucy' press agent—and Dee-Dee—Desiree Ball, Lucy's mother—used to come to all the shows, and we all got to know the sound of their laughs. Just the other night I was watching a show and all of a sudden I heard Charlie and Dee Dee laughing."
Since Desi went back to television, Arnaz and his second wife, the former Edie Mark Hirch, have added a third home—an apartment in remodeled offices in one of the Desilu studios which Desi ruled when he was married to Lucille Ball. Now he’s just another of tie studio lessees.
"I like that," he said. "It's good when somebody in the studio comes up to tell me how much it's going to cost me to use something. And I can tell him, hell, he doesn't have to tell me because Fin the guy that set the price originally."

The Mothers in Law had casting problems and eked out two seasons. He made a few TV appearances and packaged some old shows for home video but, basically, it seems he pretty much concentrated on his horses. Arnaz died of lung cancer in late 1986.

People loved Lucy, and still do. I suspect they still like Ricky Ricardo and the man who played him.