Dreamers and Deceivers (18 page)

Quietly, Desi buried his head in his hands and sobbed. This was not the life he’d envisioned. For his father, or for himself.

Roney Plaza Hotel

Miami Beach, Florida

December 12, 1936

“No way my son is going to be a musician.” His father’s words echoed through his head as he peered through the curtains at the audience that had assembled to hear him. Being a musician was considered a lowly profession in Cuba and that tainted his father’s opinion. But Desi harbored no such notions and jumped at the idea of a $39 a week salary.

Desi swallowed hard, adjusted his borrowed suit, and forced himself onto the stage. He was excited, but also very nervous. He’d never performed in front of a crowd before and his English was still barely passable.

The curtains parted and the penniless Cuban with the bongo drums strapped around his neck was transformed into a handsome and
charismatic singing sensation. When he was finished, the applause from the crowd was almost deafening. Standing there, feeling loved and alive for the first time since the revolution, Desi Arnaz began to cry.

RKO Studios Commissary

Hollywood, California

May 12, 1940

The black Buick Roadmaster convertible rolled into the legendary RKO Studios lot. Desi Arnaz’s initials were etched into the paint in gold. He had, both literally and figuratively, arrived—and he wanted the world to know it.

Desi’s meteoric rise was miraculous, even to him. While 1940s Hollywood produced its share of overnight sensations, Desi’s accession was still lightning fast. Movie producers, like the legendary and powerful Louis B. Mayer, were always discounting talent and experience in favor of personality and a pretty face.

But Desi Arnaz had all of it.

His current project, a film adaptation of a forgettable Broadway show called
Too Many Girls,
was typical Hollywood fluff. A rich debutante brings four bodyguards with her to college, each of them posing as football players. Desi’s part, the one he’d been playing in performances on Broadway and in stage versions across the country, was of a handsome South American football phenomenon.

The debutante was being played by a twenty-eight-year-old acting veteran. Desi first saw her as she walked onto the set with a fake black eye and bedraggled clothes from a movie she was filming with her friend Maureen O’Hara. She looked like a washed-up mess.

“Who the hell was
that
?” Desi asked a producer after she walked by.

“That was Lucille Ball.”

“
She’s
going to be the ingénue?” Desi asked incredulously. He didn’t see it.

On the second day of filming, Desi was at the piano, rehearsing his part, when he saw another woman pass by. She was dressed in a
yellow sweater and tight beige pants. Her piercing blue eyes were in sharp contrast to her flowing reddish-blond hair.

“Who was that?” Desi whispered to the pianist.

“That’s Lucille Ball.”

Desi looked at her again.
Really? The same woman from yesterday? It couldn’t be.

“Man, that is one hunk of a woman,” Desi raved in his unique pronunciation of the English language—
hunk
sounded like “hoonk” and woman came out like “woo-men.” Despite his broken English, he had no shortage of confidence. In just a few years, he had developed a reputation as a notorious Latin lover, often seen in the company of any number of prominent leading ladies.

Lucille Ball was a renowned beauty who had starred in more than forty films by the time she walked onto that RKO stage. She didn’t think too much of this particular play—but it was all in a day’s work. Another forgettable film in the career of a woman who’d become known as the Queen of B-Movies.

“Meess Ball?”

Contrary to her public persona, Lucille was shy and introverted. She constantly struggled to come across as sophisticated and cool.

The young Cuban walking toward her was not the sort of person who would typically catch her eye. Always in search of father figures who promised stability, she had favored the company of older men: Broderick Crawford, William Holden, George Raft, and her current fiancé, Al Hall. Yet, for whatever reason, this man’s mane of black hair, wildly expressive eyebrows, and chiseled chest made her instantly smitten.

“Why don’t you call me Lucille,” the starlet responded. “And I’ll call you Dizzy.”

“It’s De-si,” he replied, pronouncing it slowly. “Do you know how to rumba, Lucille?”

“No. I’ve never learned.”

“Wouldya like me to teach you?” Desi asked. “It may come in handy for your part.”

Her part didn’t call for anything resembling a rumba, but she didn’t know that yet. So they danced.

Two Years Later

Office of Louis B. Mayer

MGM Studios

September 3, 1942

Desi was furious. Not because Lucy had just signed a multipicture deal with Louis B. Mayer, the powerful head of MGM. People killed for contracts like that, and Desi was never jealous of his wife’s success. What ticked him off was
how
she got the contract: with the help of producer Pandro Berman, a confidante of Mayer and, not coincidentally, Lucy’s former lover.

But Lucy was not unfaithful. True, her contacts at MGM had helped her move ahead with the studio, but what, she asked her husband, was wrong with
that
? Besides, she made no secret of her desire to help him get a movie deal at the same studio—a deal that might keep him around the house and not on the road with his band, his drinking habits, and his adoring female fans.

Desi never understood his wife’s preoccupation with his other women. Back in Cuba, his beloved grandfather had a mistress and his grandmother never said a word. Only in his old age did Grandpa settle down at home, telling young Desi with a wink that his “bird” didn’t fly anymore.

It was for all those reasons that friends had given their marriage six months. Lucille jokingly gave it six weeks.

Desi knew he and Lucille shared qualities that caused friction: They were both headstrong; ambitious; and volatile. In most other respects they were complete opposites. Desi was charming and always looking for fun; Lucy was serious and did not laugh easily. He was gregarious; she was shy. He was always looking for the next big thing; she was cautious, conservative, reserved. But their love was passionate, enduring, and intense. They had already celebrated their second anniversary. Now they dreamed of working together in films and seeing their names sharing the same marquee.

Desi had cooled down considerably by the time Louis B. Mayer finally called him into the office. Known around MGM as L.B., the powerful cigar-chomping producer was an immigrant like Desi—he and his
family had moved from Russia in the late nineteenth century. He built Hollywood’s “star system” and had made a career out of turning young, attractive talents into household names. His success also made him wealthy, as Mayer became the first person in American history to make an annual salary of more than a million dollars.

“Something happens to you when you put that bongo drum around your shoulder,” Mayer said. “Up until that point you’re just another Mexican.”

“Cuban, sir,” Desi responded.

“Well, one of those Latin fellows. Now I want to see what we can do with you around here.” He pressed the intercom button on his desk.

“Yes, Mr. Mayer?”

“See if Lana Turner is around. And send her on up.”

When Mr. Mayer summoned an actress, she’d better be around. And of course Ms. Turner was. The voluptuous twenty-one-year-old with blond hair and smoldering eyes said hello to a starstruck Desi and then turned to the studio mogul.

Mayer sketched out a quick scene for the duo to play. Then he said, “Now, Desi, I want you to sweep Lana into your arms and kiss her passionately.”

With no sign of reluctance, Desi did what he was told. And he did the same thing again minutes later when Mr. Mayer buzzed for another actress named Judy Garland. Mayer was impressed enough with the performances to offer Desi a contract for five hundred dollars a week.

What a sweet job,
Desi thought.
Now my bird can really fly!

Eight Years Later

CBS Television

New York, New York

Summer 1950

“I don’t think people would accept it.”

“He’s just not right for the part.”

“I’m not sure the audience would go for it.”

Lucy was desperate. The executives at CBS were eager to have her
adapt her popular radio show,
My Favorite Husband,
to television. The program, about a zany wife and her long-suffering husband, played by actor Richard Denning, was a surprise hit. She wanted to discuss an adaptation that would replace Denning with Desi, but now, as she met with executives across a long conference table at CBS headquarters, both sides expressed considerable reservations.

Lucy knew that starring in a television show might well be a death sentence for her film career. Television was the enemy of Hollywood. The rise of TV programs, shot almost exclusively in New York City, offered millions of people the chance to watch entertainment from their homes, rather than buying tickets at a movie theaters. Though some thought television was just a fad, others believed that it would doom the motion picture industry. Most actors with any hope of keeping their film careers alive wouldn’t even dream of making a
guest
appearance on a television program, let alone starring in one.

But Lucy had a more pressing concern than her career: the state of her marriage. Only a few years earlier, after four passionate but stormy years together, Lucy and Desi had filed for divorce. Their different personalities and cultural backgrounds had, as so many predicted, made things untenable. He was on the road with his band, carousing with other women, and drinking constantly. She was hurt and angry, and largely alone at their “Desilu” ranch in Chatsworth, California. She wanted a family, but often remarked to friends, “You can’t have children over the telephone.”

Desi was simultaneously annoyed and baffled that his wife would have a problem with what he did when he wasn’t at home. But they still loved each other. And the day before their divorce decree came down, they reconciled.

But things hadn’t changed much in the six years since. Lucy still had no children, Desi was still drinking and flirting with admirers, and they were still apart for long stretches. Costarring in a television show would force them to live in the same zip code for a while.

CBS executives, however, were proving to be a problem. They didn’t share her vision. Some of them seemed to have a problem with a Cuban on their airwaves in an interracial marriage with a redheaded American woman. Or at least they thought the rest of America would.

“People won’t believe you’re married,” one of them protested.

“But
we are
married,” Lucy snapped. “And I want him.” She meant that in every conceivable way. She had almost lost her husband once; she was determined to keep him this time.

Desi was touched that his wife was fighting so hard for him. If she hadn’t been so dogged, he might well have given up. But she believed in him, and in them as a couple, and that was enough.

At an impasse with the executives, Lucy, as usual, was extraordinarily direct. “If no one will give us a job together,” she told them, “then we’ll give ourselves one.”

Desilu Ranch

Chatsworth, California

January 1951

Desi was overseeing the addition of an extra room to their home. After many years of trying, and at least one miscarriage, Lucy was pregnant. Nothing thrilled her more than the prospect of a child. She was nearing forty and thought her chance had passed.

For months Desi and Lucy had been on the road performing a comedy act together in an effort to prove to CBS that America would accept the idea of a Cuban singer married to a white American woman. Their original plot, with characters named Lucy and Larry Lopez, was based pretty closely on their actual lives. Both were successful entertainers: Larry a Cuban bandleader, and Lucy a well-known movie actress. The plot centered on the couple’s desire to celebrate their anniversary privately and avoid showing up on the cover of
Look
magazine. The writers Desi had hired were talented, and the script was funny, but Desi saw a big problem: Few Americans were going to sympathize with their characters.

“Why are they so unhappy about
Look
magazine?” he asked the writers. “Who’s going to care about that?” So they came up with another idea: Desi would still play a bandleader, but Lucy would be a wacky housewife determined to make it into show business, but lacking any real talent.

To finance the show, Desi and Lucy invested $5,000 in a start-up production company. Like their home, they named the company “Desilu,” and Desi listed himself as president and Lucy as vice president.

A bongo player who had come to America with nothing but the clothes on his back had just created the first independent television company in America.

A Few Months Later

“CBS wants to do a pilot.”

“That’s great!” Desi replied to his agent. He was happy, but he wasn’t surprised. Desi had approached CBS’s main rival, NBC, about picking up the TV show. They’d even gone so far as to hire new writers to work out a pilot script. Once the press revealed that another network was interested in a show with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, CBS suddenly became much more agreeable.

Desilu Ranch

Chatsworth, California

July 30, 1951

“All right, Desi,” said the exasperated voice on the other end of the line. “You’ve got a deal.”

He had been firm with the executives in New York: He and Lucy were going to stay in California. The whole point of doing the show together was so they could live at home together. And a now very pregnant Lucy wasn’t about to relocate.

“You can’t do the show on the West Coast,” one of the show’s potential advertisers told him. “It’s impractical.”

Desi found it hard to disagree. He hated watching the grainy TV broadcasts that most viewers in California were forced to watch. Nearly all television programs originated in New York, where they aired live, and were then fed to West Coast viewers through gray, grimy, and often garbled kinescopes. These poor-quality tapes were disastrous. What’s
more, they offered no ability to correct flubs from the live performances out east. Desi remembered watching one program in which an actor who played a corpse thought he was no longer on camera and could be seen getting up and walking offstage in the middle of a scene.