Random Complicated And Dark History Of Lucille Ball And Desi Arnaz's Marriage (14 items)

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  (#1) It Was Essentially Love At First Sight For Ball And Arnaz

  A Broadway director noticed Arnaz working as a bandleader in New York and hired him for his musical, Too Many Girls. In 1940, Hollywood adapted the show into a movie and cast Ball in the lead role. According to the story, Ball first met her co-star in the MGM commissary, still wearing the costume for the picture she was filming at the time. The role required her to have messy hair, a revealing gold lamé gown, and a black eye. Until this point, Ball felt indifference towards the young and inexperienced Arnaz, referring to the first-time actor as "that Cuban."

  However, when Ball actually met Arnaz, she quickly changed her mind. A co-star remembered, "Lucille followed my eyes, and I could almost hear the bells ringing in her head. The first words Lucille uttered when seeing Desi for the first time were, 'Oh, my God.' It was love at first sight for her." The 28-year-old Ball and 23-year-old Arnaz soon fell in love.
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  (#2) Ball And Arnaz Had An Impromptu Elopement 

  A few hours before Arnaz asked Ball to elope with him, she gave an interview entitled "Why I Will Always Remain a Bachelor Girl." She was in Wisconsin appearing in an extended engagement and after having a fight with Arnaz, decided to take her time traveling back to him in New York. When she finally arrived home, Ball learned Arnaz was angry because her extended stay had ruined his secret elopement plans. Ball brushed aside her indignation and the fact she left her clothes in Wisconsin; she wore the only thing she had - a black wool dress - as she and Arnaz traveled to Connecticut to get married in November 1940.

  Aranz sent his manager to Woolworth to buy a cheap replacement for the ring he had failed to pick up beforehand. Ball wore the cheap ring throughout their marriage, despite Arnaz later giving her a more expensive one. She explained:

  In many ways, marrying Desi was one of the boldest things I ever did. I had always gone with older men. I had also achieved some kind of stability in Hollywood, and Desi with his beautiful girls and good times seemed headed in another direction. Yet I sensed in Desi a great need. Beneath that dazzling charm was a homeless boy who had no one to care for him, worry about him, love him.
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  (#3) Being Separated By Different Careers Almost Broke Them Up

  While they were dating, Ball gave Arnaz as much attention as she could. One friend recalled, "I found it surprising because she was such a strong, independent lady, but when it came to Desi, she was very old-fashioned."

  However, since she was a working actress and Arnaz was an in-demand bandleader, their careers frequently kept the couple apart. When Ball began a nationwide promotional tour, they stayed in touch through letters, but Ball grew jealous and believed that Arnaz had continued to see other women during their separations.

  According to one story, Ball had appeared at Arnaz's home that he shared with his mother, angry over a perceived affair with his ex-lover Betty Grable. Their differences seemed too big to keep them together - until Arnaz suggested they get married. Only six months after they had met, Ball and Arnaz eloped.
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  (#4) Arnaz Was An Alleged Womanizer, Which Ball Tolerated For Years

  One of Ball's writers said about Arnaz, "[He was] the Cuban Arm because he'd put his arm around you and say, 'Listen, amigo...' And you were done for." Other people, especially women, had similar sentiments, and Arnaz's reputation as a womanizer grew along with his success. During rough patches, Arnaz often stayed out all night, causing the tabloids to sensationalize his affairs. While his infidelities let up slightly after his daughter's birth, he reportedly never completely changed his ways.

  Ball realized her husband's affairs for many years and, for a time, tolerated his behavior, confessing, "I closed my eyes, put blinders on, and ignored what was too painful to think about. I tried to view my troubles less seriously, and worry less. I tried to curb my temper."

  According to one story, Ball got an advance copy of Confidential magazine, which printed a story about Arnaz's love of women. She read it in her dressing room and surprised the cast and crew when she emerged casually, saying, "Oh, hell, I could tell them worse than that."
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  (#5) Arnaz's Problems With Alcohol Reportedly Fueled His Problems With Women

  Arnaz enjoyed alcohol - at times, a little too much. Despite his behavior off-set, he remained professional on set. Writer Bob Weiskopf recalled, "We once worked very late, and I started to look at my watch. Desi says, 'Jesus, I'm sorry, amigos. Who'd like something to drink?' No thought as to whether anyone might like a sandwich. Just, 'My God! Going all this time without a cocktail!'"

  Some claim alcohol further fueled his desire for women, and Arnaz allegedly often hired sex workers when drunk. According to Associated Press reporter Jim Bacon, "He wouldn't call in one [pro], he'd call in 18. One night when I was with him in Palm Springs, he didn't do anything but sit on the floor naked and sing 'Babaloo' with all these [women] around."

  According to others, Arnaz would occasionally go off and drink alone, wanting Ball to believe he was with other women just to hurt her. One night Arnaz's behavior caught up to him, and police arrested him after he decided to serenade streetwalkers on Hollywood Boulevard drunkenly.
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  (#6) Ball Had To Fight For Arnaz To Appear As Her Husband On TV

  When Ball and Arnaz married in 1940, segregation was still legal in many areas of the US. As a mixed-race couple with a six-year age difference, some took offense to their relationship. When Ball demanded that Arnaz play her husband on I Love Lucy, the producers refused at first. They supposedly had no interest in an American girl marrying a Cuban man and thought the audience wouldn't buy their relationship. Producers held concerns about Arnaz's accent as well, as writer Bob Weiskopf stated, "What the hell do we want with a Latin bandleader who can't speak English?"

  To test their show idea and public interest, Arnaz and Ball created a live show for the vaudeville circuit. They toured the country, allowing Arnaz to sing and Ball to show her comedy skills by breaking into his act. They even put together a pilot episode, produced with their own $5,000. Eventually, CBS decided to give the couple a shot with I Love Lucy. They had recycled a few of the skits from the vaudeville show for the sitcom.
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  (#7) Ball Demanded Arnaz Star In Her TV Show To Keep Him At Home

  Even after their marriage, separate work schedules often kept Arnaz and Ball apart. For her acting career, Ball had to be in makeup by 3 or 4 am, about the same time Arnaz returned home from work as a bandleader. Both this and their personality differences led others to assume their marriage would quickly fail.

  "Nobody gave it more than two weeks. There were bets all over the country, with astronomical odds against us," Arnaz said. While they bought and fixed up a home together to attempt a normal married life, Ball and Arnaz's conflicting schedules almost proved the pessimists correct.

  In 1950, CBS began developing Ball's radio series My Favorite Husband as a television show with Ball to reprise her role. Ball realized it was a golden opportunity to capture her husband's time and attention, demanding that Arnaz play her husband. One writer explained, "She wanted him because she knew that if he went on the road with the band, he'd be catting around all the time. She wanted him at home, where she felt the marriage would have a better chance of lasting."
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  (#8) Arnaz And Ball Argued Frequently, And Sometimes Heatedly

  Arnaz and Ball's differences caused them to argue frequently. "They were fighting all the time when we were growing up. There was a lot of anger and screaming," remembered their daughter Lucie Arnaz. The couple kept their conflicts private and refrained from arguing on set. Their home life was another matter, and to save money from angrily retreating to a hotel, Arnaz built himself a guest house in the backyard. Family members and friends visiting the home sometimes heard screaming, cursing, and glass shattering coming from behind closed doors.

  However, Arnaz and Ball soon reconciled after their disagreements. According to one story, Arnaz once became so angry that he decided to move back in with his mother, but returned a few days later and stood in the front yard crying until Ball came out to console him. 
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  (#9) Ball Had Multiple Miscarriages Before Having Two Children

  Though Ball wanted to have children and believed a child would help hold her marriage together, it was a challenge for her to conceive. One of Ball's closest friends later told People magazine Ball had endured two or three miscarriages. Ball and Arnaz's marriage almost ended in divorce. Despite this, they stuck it out, and even held a second wedding, this time in a Catholic church.

  In 1950, Ball became pregnant again, and relations between the couple improved, as Ball commented, "The best year of my marriage to Desi was just before and after the birth of our first child. We exchanged no harsh words and experienced no upsets of any kind. Desi hovered about me, attentive to every need... The more conservative he became, the happier I grew."

  Ball gave birth to Lucie on July 17, 1951, and I Love Lucy aired three months later. Both the baby and the show brought Ball and Arnaz closer together; allegedly, Arnaz's drinking and womanizing ceased temporarily.

  In 1952, Ball was pregnant again, but this time had to contend with the producers' distaste for showing a pregnant woman on screen. Perhaps due to the show's success, the producers decided to write Ball's pregnancy into the storyline, making Lucy the second television show in history to do so. Due to conservative minds at the time, the characters couldn't use the word "pregnant" and instead referred to Ball as "expecting."

  Ball broke the news to Arnaz, and the episode showed his actual reaction. His excitement towards Ball was so intense that the scene was almost cut. Desi Arnaz Jr. ended up being born at the exact time his fictional counterpart, Little Ricky, debuted on television, in an episode with more viewers than President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inauguration, which aired one day later.
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  (#10) Arnaz Was Protective And Perhaps A Little Envious Of Ball 

  Writer Madelyn Pugh Davis claims Arnaz knew Ball was the star of I Love Lucy and therefore the most important to the production. He would watch out for her safety on set and, according to Davis, thought "if she was taken care of, that was all that counted. He protected her. People were always asking her to do commercials and things, and he'd say, 'No, she doesn't do that.'"

  In fact, Arnaz's work behind the scenes was as crucial as Ball's acting when it came to I Love Lucy's success. From casting, moving filming from New York to Hollywood, and obtaining ownership of the show from the beginning (and later making millions selling it to CBS), Arnaz often tried to help his wife's career.

  For years, he supposedly kept mum about his insecurities about having a wife more famous than he was, at one point referring to himself as "Mr. Ball." 
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  (#11) They Ran Their Own TV Studio, But Had Different Ideas About How It Should Operate

  To produce the I Love Lucy pilot, Ball and Arnaz formed their own television production studio named Desilu. As Lucy became more successful, so did Desilu, and they branched out to produce other shows, eventually getting behind titles like Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. Arnaz had retained the rights to I Love Lucy, which he later sold to CBS; they used the millions earned to buy the RKO movie studio.

  However, according to their daughter Lucie, Ball and Arnaz felt differently about their growing popularity. Arnaz acknowledged that they would need more notoriety to compete with other studios, but preferred to settle down, saying, "We made all the money we could ever use in our lives. Let's just cash in the chips now, go home. We'll do a special every now and then, and we'll get to fish and ride horses."

  But Ball wanted to become a bigger star and pushed for their purchase of RKO. In 1962, two years after their divorce, Arnaz wished to leave the studio altogether and asked Ball to buy him out, making her the first female head of a major television studio. Five years later, Ball sold Desilu to Paramount Pictures.
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  (#12) Too Many Differences Led Ball And Arnaz To Divorce

  According to author Bart Andrews, Ball and Arnaz's marriage had come to its end by 1956. "They were just going through a routine for the children," he claimed. "She told me that for the last five years of their marriage, it was 'just booze and broads.'"

  In fact, Ball had reportedly grown so fed up with Arnaz's problems with women and alcohol that she mentioned them explicitly in the divorce papers. The couple had allegedly considered divorce three times during their 20-year marriage. However, each time Ball changed her mind, and the couple would resolve their issues for a short while. Ball and Arnaz filed for divorce in 1960.

  Ball explained, "We had a great attraction going for each other in the beginning, but we didn't approve of each other. He disapproved of my moderation and my conservatism. I was square, he said. I disapproved of the way he worked too hard, played too hard, and was never moderate in anything."

  The final scene of their last project together, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, features their characters arguing until their fight builds up to a kiss. Arnaz felt it was a perfect end, saying, "This was not just an ordinary kiss for a scene in a show. It was a kiss that would wrap up 20 years of love and friendship, triumphs and failures, ecstasy and sex, jealousy and regrets, heartbreaks and laughter... and tears."
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  (#13) Both Got Remarried But Supposedly Never Stopped Loving One Another

  After their divorce, both Arnaz and Ball got remarried: Ball to nightclub comic Gary Morton in 1961, and Arnaz to one of his neighbors, Edie Hirsch, in 1963. Ball reportedly felt that attending her ex-husband's wedding would prove too painful, so she did not want an invitation.

  Those who knew Ball and Arnaz said they both loved each other and always would, believing neither truly got over their divorce. William Asher, director of I Love Lucy, noted Arnaz's new wife physically resembled Ball. Ball would frequently ask mutual friends how Arnaz was doing after the divorce and watched their old home movies. In return, Arnaz continued to send Ball white and red carnations every year on their anniversary.

  When Arnaz was dying of lung cancer in 1986, Ball called to check up on him. Their daughter Lucie recalled, "She just said the same thing over and over again. It was muffled, but you could clearly make out it was the same thing over and over again. It was, 'I love you. I love you. Desi, I love you...' And he said, 'I love you, too, honey. Good luck with your show.'"

  Arnaz died two days later, and Ball passed away three years later. 
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  (#14) Arnaz Urged His Ex-Wife To Return To TV And Helped Her Create A Show

  In the two years between when Arnaz and Ball had divorced, and the time that Arnaz left their production company, Desilu, the pair still managed to work together. Desilu had lost a few of its produced shows, so Arnaz offered Ball a slot to form a new show.

  Though producers expressed doubt about Lucy being able to carry a show without Arnaz also starring, Ball ignored them and created The Lucy Show, which ran until 1968. Ball played a widow, setting up a trend she continued through the rest of her television sitcom career. As executive producer, Arnaz remained on set to support her, wanting Ball to succeed. After filming 15 episodes, Arnaz moved on from the show.

  Even before this brief joint project, Arnaz proved his enduring compassion for Ball by sending Bob Hope a stern telegram after she had sustained a concussion on his set. 

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