Lucie Arnaz
Arnaz at the Academy Awards, 1988
Born	Lucie Désirée Arnaz (1951-07-17) July 17, 1951 (age 60) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1968–present
Spouse	Phil Vandervort (m. 1971–1977) «start: (1971)–end+1: (1978)»"Marriage: Phil Vandervort to Lucie Arnaz" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Lucie_Arnaz) Laurence Luckinbill (m. 1980) «start: (1980)»"Marriage: Laurence Luckinbill to Lucie Arnaz" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Lucie_Arnaz) (three children, two stepsons)

Lucie Désirée Arnaz (born July 17, 1951) is an American actress, singer, dancer and producer. She is the daughter of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and is the sister of actor Desi Arnaz, Jr.^[1]

Early life[link]

Lucie Arnaz was born and raised in Los Angeles, and attended the Roman Catholic Immaculate Heart High School.

Career[link]

Arnaz, her mother Lucille Ball, and her brother Desi, Jr., in Here's Lucy, 1968.

Having had one walk-on part in her parents' television series I Love Lucy and on Lucille Ball's second TV series The Lucy Show, Arnaz made her first acting appearance in a continuing role in the series Here's Lucy from 1968 to 1974. She played Kim Carter, the daughter of the eponymous Lucy—who was played by Arnaz's real-life mother, Lucille Ball.

Arnaz branched out into television roles independent of her family from the mid-1970s. In 1975, she played infamous murder victim Elizabeth Short in a production of Who is the Black Dahlia?, while in 1978, she appeared in an episode of Fantasy Island as a woman desperately trying to save her marriage. She has continued to make appearances in a number of popular television series over the years, including Murder, She Wrote, Marcus Welby M.D., Sons and Daughters, and Law & Order. Arnaz also briefly had a series of her own, The Lucie Arnaz Show, in 1985.

She has also had a lengthy career in musical theatre. In the summer of 1978, she played the title role in "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Jones Beach Theatre on Long island, NY. This was the first production at Jones Beach Theatre after the death of longtime producer Guy Lombardo. She made her Broadway debut in 1979 in the musical They're Playing Our Song. Arnaz won the Theatre World Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portray of Sonia Walsk in the show. In 1986, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her tour with Tommy Tune in the international company of the musical My One and Only. She has numerous other theater and musical credits both in the United States and abroad, including roles in Seesaw, Annie Get Your Gun, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, The Guardsman, The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True, Sonia Flew, The Witches of Eastwick, Vanities, Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Terence McNally's Master Class.

Arnaz has also made some feature film appearances, the most prominent of which was 1980's The Jazz Singer, in which she co-starred with singer Neil Diamond and renowned actor Laurence Olivier. She earned a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe nomination for her work in the film.

She won an Emmy Award in 1993 for her documentary Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie.

Activism[link]

From about 2002 to 2007, Arnaz was the President of the Board of Directors of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, New York. She resigned over a dispute with the Executive Director over the future direction of the Center.^[2]

In October 2008, Arnaz and long-time family friend, Hollywood columnist and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne participated in a tribute to Arnaz's mother, Lucille Ball, at The Paley Center For Media in New York City. The program, Lucie and Lucy: Lucie Arnaz Shares Treasures From The Family Video Collection, included a discussion between Osborne and Arnaz about Ball, and also focused on Ball's last long-running series, Here's Lucy (which was celebrating its 40th anniversary) as well as several of Ball's television specials and guest appearances during 1970s, which Arnaz had recently donated to The Paley Center for Media.

In the summer of 2010, Arnaz performed in (along with Raul Esparza and Valarie Pettiford) and directed "Babalu: A Celebration of the Music of Desi Arnaz and his Orchestra". There was a Miami, Florida performance in July 2010.^[3]

On July 17, 2010, Heritage Auction Galleries planned to auction off some items that belonged to Lucille Ball. Arnaz has gone to court to block the auction of love letters from Ball to her second husband, Gary Morton, as well as photos and awards, which Arnaz claims are hers. Morton's third wife, Susan McAllister Morton, has sued Arnaz for the right to conduct the auction.^[4]

A judge agreed with Arnaz, but charged too high a bond, so the auction went on but the auction house agreed to return lifetime achievement awards to Arnaz.^[5]

Personal life[link]

She has been twice married, to Phil Vandervort (July 17, 1971 – 1977) and Laurence Luckinbill (June 22, 1980 – present).

She and actor-writer Luckinbill have three children together: Simon, Joseph and Katharine. Luckinbill has two sons from his previous marriage: Nicholas and Benjamin.

She shares a birthday with her uncle, her mother's brother, Fred Ball.

Stage[link]

• They're Playing Our Song
• My One and Only
• Lost in Yonkers
• Seesaw
• Vanities
• Master Class
• The Witches of Eastwick
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Filmography[link]

• Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977)
• A Different Approach (1978) (short subject)
• The Jazz Singer (1980)
• Second Thoughts (1983)
• Down to You (2000)
• Wild Seven (2006)
• The Pack (2010)
• The Thought Exchange (2012)

Television[link]

• Here's Lucy (1968–1974)
• Who Is the Black Dahlia? (1975)
• Marcus Welby, M.D. (1975)
• Death Scream (1975)
• Fantasy Island (1978)
• The Mating Season (1980)
• Washington Mistress (1982)
• The Lucie Arnaz Show (1985)
• Murder, She Wrote (1988)
• Who Gets the Friends? (1988)
• Sons and Daughters (1991)
• Abduction of Innocence: A Moment of Truth Movie (1996)
• Law & Order – episode "Bitch", as Jackie Scott, a cosmetics mogul (2003)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lucie Arnaz

• Lucie Arnaz at the Internet Movie Database
• Lucie Arnaz at AllRovi
• Lucie Arnaz at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lucie Arnaz at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• The Lucie Arnaz Homepage
• Lucie Arnaz in Which Witches of Eastwick by Alex Catarinella
• Arnaz on 100,000 Pyramid, video clip

Laurence Luckinbill
Born	Laurence George Luckinbill (1934-11-21) November 21, 1934 (age 77) Fort Smith, Arkansas, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1967–present
Spouse	Robin Strasser (1965-1976; divorced; 2 sons) Lucie Arnaz (1980-present; 3 children)

Laurence George Luckinbill (born November 21, 1934) is an American actor.

Life and career[link]

Luckinbill was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the son of Agnes (née Nulph) and Laurence Benedict Luckinbill.^[1] He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1956 and The Catholic University of America in 1958.

He starred in the 1976 Broadway play Poor Murderer. He portrayed Spock's half-brother Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). He also appeared in The Boys in the Band, reprising the part of Hank, which he originated on stage. Other film appearances include Such Good Friends, Cocktail, and The Promise, and he has been seen in numerous television shows, including Law & Order, Barnaby Jones and Murder, She Wrote.

His acting career has also included writing and directing. He has written and performed in several one-man shows including, "Hemingway", "Teddy", "An Evening with Clarence Darrow", as well as, "Lyndon", which he didn't write, but has performed numerous times, including a schedule at the LBJ Museum in Austin, Texas, where Lady Bird Johnson was one of those in attendance. He narrated the documentary Moonwalk One which has recently been restored and re-released.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

He is married to actress/singer Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, with whom he has three children. He has two sons from his previous marriage to actress Robin Strasser.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Laurence Luckinbill at the Internet Movie Database
• Laurence Luckinbill at the Internet Broadway Database
• Laurence Luckinbill at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Laurence Luckinbill at AllRovi
• Laurence Luckinbill at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

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Desi Arnaz, Jr.
Arnaz and his father in a 1974 television special.
Born	Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV (1953-01-19) January 19, 1953 (age 59) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor/Musician
Years active	1957–present (appeared multiple times on parents' TV show I Love Lucy)
Family	Lucille Ball (mother) Desi Arnaz (father) Lucie Arnaz (sister)

Desi Arnaz, Jr. (born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV; January 19, 1953), is an American actor and musician and the son of entertainers Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Early life[link]

Desi Arnaz, Jr., was born in Los Angeles, California, on January 19, 1953. He has an older sister, Lucie Désirée Arnaz, born in 1951.

His birth was one of the most publicized in television history. His parents were the stars of the American television situation comedy I Love Lucy, and Ball's pregnancy was part of the storyline, considered daring in those times. The same day Lucy gave birth to Desi Jr., the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth to "Little Ricky". Little Ricky as a baby was played by two sets of twins, Richard and Ronald Lee Simmons (1953–1954), followed by Joseph and Michael Mayer (1954–1955). A boy named Keith Thibodeaux (using the stage name Richard Keith) was later cast to play 6-year-old Little Ricky. As a testament to how interested the American public was in Lucy's TV baby, Desi Arnaz Jr. appeared on the cover on the very first issue of TV Guide with a title that read: "Lucy's $50,000,000 baby."

Career[link]

Arnaz, his mother Lucille Ball, and his sister Lucie in Here's Lucy, 1968.

At age 12, Arnaz was a drummer with Dino, Desi, & Billy. The others were Dean Paul Martin, (son of Dean Martin), and Billy Hinsche. The band scored two hit singles with "I'm a Fool" and "Not The Lovin' Kind" in 1965. In 1968, he and his sister Lucie, played opposite their mother in Here's Lucy as her children. In 1970, Desi appeared on The Brady Bunch episode "The Possible Dream". In 1974 he played the title role in the Western movie Billy Two Hats with Gregory Peck. In 1977, he was the lead in the film Joyride opposite fellow children of famous actors Melanie Griffith, Robert Carradine, and Anne Lockhart. Arnaz attended University High School in West Los Angeles.

Arnaz Jr.'s acting extended into the 1980s with TV productions and a leading role in Automan. He played his father in the movie The Mambo Kings (1992), based on a Pulitzer Prize novel that treated his father with respect. The film includes a scene in which Desi Jr., playing his father's character Ricky Ricardo, acts opposite his mother as Lucy Ricardo with film from the TV series intercut with the cast. In a 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by both Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr., the younger Arnaz played Ricky Ricardo and Gilda Radner played Lucy in spoofs of supposed ill-fated pilots for I Love Lucy.

From about 2002 to 2007, he was vice-president of the board of Directors of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, New York. He resigned over a dispute with the executive director over the direction of the center.^[1][2]

In 2007, Desi appeared at the 5th Annual TV Land Awards with his sister Lucie to accept the Legacy of Laughter award posthumously given to their mother.

At present,^[when?] he is touring with a new configuration of Dino, Desi & Billy called Ricci, Desi & Billy, featuring Arnaz Jr. reunited with Billy Hinsche, and joined by Ricci Martin (youngest son of Dean Martin). The group performs original material as well as the songs the original band performed.^[3]

Currently, Arnaz is performing in Babalu: A Celebration of the Music of Desi Arnaz and his Orchestra with Lucie Arnaz, Raul Esparza, and Valarie Pettiford. There was a Miami, Florida, performance in July 2010.^[4]

Boulder Theatre

On October 15, 2011, Arnaz performed in Babalu at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. The performance was in conjunction with the Library's Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Collection. ^[5]

Personal life[link]

Arnaz lives in Boulder City, Nevada with his wife Amy and their daughter. They own the Boulder Theatre, a cinema converted into a theatre and home to the Boulder City Ballet Company. ^[6]

Arnaz dated actress Patty Duke and entertainer Liza Minnelli. Duke wrote in her autobiography Call Me Anna that Lucille Ball intervened to end the relationship. In 1980-81 Arnaz was married briefly to actress Linda Purl. On 8 October 1987, Arnaz married Amy Laura Bargiel. ^[7]

It was also reported that at age 15 Arnaz fathered a daughter named Julia, which was confirmed by a court ordered DNA test. ^[8]

Actor[link]

• 1992: The Mambo Kings — Desi Arnaz Sr.
• 1987: Paul Reiser Out on a Whim (TV)
• 1987: Matlock — Michael Porter (1 episode, 1987)
• 1983: Automan — Walter Nebicher (13 episodes, 1983–1984)
• 1983: The Night the Bridge Fell Down (TV) — Johnny Pyle
• 1983: House of the Long Shadows — Kenneth Magee
• 1982: Fake-Out — Det. Clint Morgan
• 1981: Advice to the Lovelorn (TV) — Steve Vernon
• 1980: Gridlock (TV) — Robbie Reinhardt
• 1979: Crisis in Mid-air (TV) — Tim Donovan
• 1978: How to Pick Up Girls! (TV) — Robby Harrington
• 1978: Fantasy Island — Barney Hunter (1 episode, 1978)
• 1978: A Wedding (as Dezi Anaz, Jr.) — Dino Sloan Corelli
• 1978: The Courage and the Passion (TV) — Sgt. Tom Wade
• 1978: To Kill a Cop (TV) — Martin Delahanty
• 1978: The Love Boat — Steve Hollis (2 episodes, 1978)
• 1977: Black Market Baby (TV) — Steve Aletti
• 1977: Joyride — Scott
• 1977: Flight to Holocaust (TV) — Rick Bender
• 1976: The Streets of San Francisco — B. J. Palmer (1 episode, 1976)
• 1976: Police Story — Jay Vernon / ... (2 episodes, 1976)
• 1976: Having Babies (TV) — Frank Gorman
• 1975: Medical Story — Jerry Mitchell (1 episode, 1975)
• 1975: Medical Center (1 episode, 1975)
• 1974: Billy Two Hats — Billy Two Hats
• 1973: Marco — Marco Polo
• 1973: She Lives! (TV) — Andy Reed
• 1973: Voyage of the Yes (TV) — Cal Markwell
• 1971: Love, American Style — Alan (segment "Love and the Motel Mixup") (1 episode, 1971)
• 1971: The Mod Squad — Victor Emory (1 episode, 1971)
• 1971: Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (TV) — Bo Jo Jones
• 1971: Night Gallery — Doran (1 episode, 1971)
• 1971: Red Sky at Morning — William 'Steenie' Stenopolous
• 1970: The Brady Bunch (as Dezi Anaz, Jr.) ("The Possible Dream" episode)
• 1968: Here's Lucy — Craig Carter (1968–1972)
• 1968: The Mothers-In-Law — Tommy (2 episodes, 1968)
• 1962: The Lucy Show — Spectator (5 episodes, 1962–1965)
• 1957: I Love Lucy — Extra at Unveiling (1 episode, 1957)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Desi Arnaz, Jr.

• Desi Arnaz, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
• Desi Arnaz, Jr. at AllRovi

Desi Arnaz
Arnaz as a musician, 1950.
Born	Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (1917-03-02)March 2, 1917 Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Died	December 2, 1986(1986-12-02) (aged 69) Del Mar, California
Cause of death	Lung Cancer
Occupation	Actor, musician, producer
Years active	1936-1982
Spouse	Lucille Ball (m.1940-1960; divorced) Edith Mack Hirsch (m.1963-1985; her death)

Desi Arnaz (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban-born 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[link]

Desi Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III in Santiago de Cuba to Desiderio Alberto Arnaz II (March 8, 1894 - May 31, 1973) and his wife Dolores de Acha (April 2, 1896 - October 24, 1988)^[1]. 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 Prep^[2] (near Tampa) to help improve his English.

Film career[link]

When he moved to the United States, Desi Arnaz turned to show business to support himself. In 1939, he starred on Broadway in the musical Too Many Girls. He went to Hollywood the next year to appear in the show's movie version at RKO, which starred Lucille Ball. Arnaz and Ball married on November 30, 1940. Arnaz also played guitar for Xavier Cugat.^[3]

Arnaz appeared in several movies in the 1940s, notably Bataan (1943). He received his 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.

[edit] I Love Lucy

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, 1957.

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.^[4] 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[link]

With Ball, he founded Desilu Productions. At that time, most television programs 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 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.

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 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, 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. 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. 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[link]

Arnaz and Ball decided that the show would maintain what Arnaz termed "basic good taste", and were therefore determined to avoid ethnic jokes 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[link]

with Lucille Ball in Los Angeles, 1953.

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 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.^[5] Family home movies later aired on television showed Ball and Arnaz playing together with their grandson Simon shortly before Arnaz's death.

Later life[link]

Arnaz appeared with his son in the 1974 television special, "California, My Way".

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. 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" and another favorite from his dance band days, "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 thoroughbreds. He contributed to charitable and non-profit organizations, including San Diego State University. Arnaz would make a guest appearance on the TV series Alice, starring Linda Lavin and produced by I Love Lucy co-creators Madelyn Pugh (Madelyn Davis) and Bob Carroll, Jr.

Death[link]

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.^[6]