After reading Todd S. Purdum’s compelling biography of Desi Arnaz, a character from the popular Broadway musical Chicago came to mind.
It’s Amos Hart, the “Joe Shmo” husband of Roxie Hart. While she was constantly grabbing headlines as a cause celebre in a sensational murder trial, poor Amos was by her side, but completely forgotten by the general public and the press in particular. It was as if he was completely invisible. He lamented his sad personal situation quite effectively when he sang the memorable solo number “Mr. Cellophane”.
In the shadow of Lucy
Desi Arnaz’s situation practically mirrors that of Amos Hart. No matter what his accomplishments were as an entertainer, pioneering TV producer and astute businessman in the entertainment industry, Desi couldn’t shrug off the fact that he was constantly in the shadow of his famous wife Lucille Ball; it was a burden that he lived with until his death in 1986.
It was if Desi Arnaz was the “Mr. Cellophane” of the golden age of television.
Shining a light on Desi and his contributions to television
Thankfully, this biography gives Arnaz his due and the respect for his contributions to the development of television as a mass form of popular entertainment that is so long overdue.
In case you’re not familiar with the story of the marriage and partnership of Lucy and Desi, he was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha in 1917 in Santiago, Cuba, where his father was the city’s popular mayor. His upbringing was a privileged one, until then-Cuban President Gerardo Machado was overthrown in a coup in 1933. Desi and his mother fled to Miami with the clothes on their back and barely able to speak English.
From a Cuban life of privilege to poverty after the coup and a move to Miami
This sudden change from a life of privilege to a life of poverty was a shock to Desi, but his resilience was remarkable. He started earning money cleaning bird cages for a friend of his father’s who raised and sold canaries. He utilized his musical talents to the utmost and by the end of the decade, became a local sensation with his orchestra by introducing Floridians to the Conga line dance and the hot rythms of Cuban music, especially through his trademark song “Babalu”. In 1939, be became a Broadway sensation with his performance as Manolito in the hit musical Too Many Girls. The following year, he was brought to RKO Studios in Hollywood to perform in the movie version of Too Many Girls. That’s where he met one of the female members of the cast who would play a major role in the next 20 years of his life and career: Lucille Ball.
Marriage to Lucy and concert tours
They were married in 1940, and their 20-year marriage was filled with love, volatility and collaboration. By 1950, Desi and his orchestra were constantly touring across the U.S., and Lucy was appearing in numerous movies alongside such stars as the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Katherine Hepburn, William Holden and Henry Fonda. She was also starring in a popular CBS Radio sitcom called My Favorite Husband.
TV saved their marriage
When CBS wanted to make a TV version of “Husband”, and as a way to save their marriage, Lucy recommended that the role of her TV husband should go to her actual husband. But the network and the sponsors ruled out that idea, believing that no viewer in post-war America would buy the idea of a sitcom with an American wife and a Cuban husband as the lead characters.
I Love Lucy is Born
And leave it to Desi to prove them wrong. To show that he and Lucy could legitimately work together onstage, he organized a cross-country vaudeville tour filled with musical numbers and various comedy routines. In January 1951, he decided to film a TV pilot that incorporated some of their onstage routines in the format of a sitcom about a New York married couple in which the husband was a bandleader in a popular nightclub and the housewife who wanted to go into show business, much to her husband’s reluctance and resistance. That pilot became the basis for I Love Lucy, which debuted in October 1951 and became an immediate hit with viewers across the U.S.
He blazed the trail for TV production and its business model in the decades ahead
It didn’t stop there for Desi. Purdum deftly chronicles how his penchant for innovation and strong business acumen blazed the trail for TV production and its business model in the decades ahead. There is the three-camera system, doing the episodes in front of a live studio audience, the decision to record the episodes on film instead of the kinescope system which led to the concept of reruns and TV syndication, and creating their own production company — Desilu — that produced such future TV classics like Our Miss Brooks, December Bride, The Untouchables, Mission Impossible and Star Trek.
Thrust into oblivion
As well, the book chronicles Desi’s personal weaknesses that lead to his personal and professional downfall. They were mainly attributed to his rampant alcoholism, constant philandering with prostitutes and his hot temper. By the mid-60s, Desi was thrust into oblivion and mostly forgotten by Hollywood, while Lucy was still in the spotlight thanks to the continuing popularity of I Love Lucy, as well as her subsequent starring TV vehicles (The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy) that ensured her status as a TV legend.
Book publishing and TV appearances
However, through the last 16 years of his life, Desi attempted several comebacks, which included the publication of his best selling memoir A Book (yes, that was its title), numerous talk show appearances (even as host of an episode of Saturday Night Live during its first season) and minor film parts and voice work for animated features. However, the one constant thing through that period was his love and affection for Lucy. It was evident during Desi’s final days, when Lucy would regularly visited him at his home and spent their time watching I Love Lucy reruns and reminiscing.
A multi-faceted story
Purdum has succeeded in telling the multi-faceted story of Desi Arnaz thanks to a number of interviews with past friends and associates, as well as with Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill and Desi Arnaz, Jr. Plus the valuable asset of the draft notes from the manuscript of his memoir, which revealed the thoughts and reflections of this most under-appreciated and somewhat overlooked figure in the early days of television.
A genuine original!
What made up Desi Arnaz the man and the innovator is best summed up towards the end of the book, as Purdum writes: “The upside of his profligacy was his generosity; the flipside of his restlessness was his creativity; the corollary of his addictions was his drive. Asking what he might yet have achieved if he had stopped drinking earlier is like asking him to have been a different person. In the end, the professional achievements he built have endured despite the personal bonds he broke. He was a genuine original, and for better and worse, he knew it.”
A wonderful tribute to Arnaz
Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television is a wonderful tribute to an unsung hero of an infant medium, whose vision and genius is not only still relevant 75 years later, but should also serve as the model for future TV producers and showrunners. Part show business history, part soap opera and mostly a story of courage and resilience, this biography strongly proves that Desi Arnaz was more than just “Babalu”. He is “Mr. Cellophane” no more.
by Stuart Nulman
Find more reviews by Stuart on Montreal Times and follow his blog: https://stuartnulmansgrapevine.wordpress.com/
Lead image right side Desi and Lucille Nall 1957 By Ford Motor Company (show sponsor). Ford used their advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, to distribute the photos. Uploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia – eBay itemphoto frontphoto backTransferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBot, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16995179
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