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Miami Herald
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Desi Arnaz found life in Miami before he hit the big time. Here are 5 takeaways
Desi Arnaz's connection to Miami is celebrated in a new book by Todd S. Purdum, including the city's role in shaping his early career. The book, 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television,' explores how Arnaz's Miami roots influenced his rise to stardom and his lasting impact on television. FULL STORY: It all began in Miami for TV genius Desi Arnaz. Then he made it big with Lucy Here are the highlights: Miami's influence: Desi Arnaz honed his musical talents in Miami, where he became a sensation with the conga, a pivotal step in his journey to stardom. Television innovations: Arnaz's vision for television, particularly through 'I Love Lucy,' revolutionized the industry by introducing techniques like multi-camera filming and live audience recordings, paving the way for reruns and impact: Arnaz's introduction of the conga line to the U.S. from Miami Beach in 1937 left a lasting cultural mark, celebrated decades later with a permanent marker in Miami Beach honoring his journey: Arriving in Miami from Cuba as a teenager, Arnaz initially worked odd jobs before reinventing himself as a musician, leading to a successful career that included collaborations with notable band leaders and performances in New York and Miami event: Todd S. Purdum will discuss his book, 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television,' at Books & Books in Coral Gables at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 21. The event is free, with the option to purchase the book. The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in the Miami Herald newsroom. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by Miami Herald journalists.
Miami Herald
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
It all began in Miami for TV genius Desi Arnaz. Then he made it big with Lucy
Desi Arnaz is returning to Miami as the focal point of a new book. Long before he loved Lucy, Arnaz loved Miami. The city and the budding celebrity fueled one another. 'Desi's time in Miami is where he became a professional musician, honing his skills with audiences and creating a sensation with the conga,' author Todd S. Purdum said in an email to the Miami Herald while traveling on his book tour. 'It was a crucial stop on his journey to stardom in the days when Miami Beach featured the top stars of show business, who were impressed by Desi's charisma and appeal. He and his parents were grateful for the foothold that Miami gave them to pursue the American dream.' Purdum will read selections from his new book, 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television,' Saturday evening, June 21, at Books & Books in Coral Gables. The book is a tribute to a man who started his entertainment life in Miami. He died in 1986. Arnaz's TV vision The book's title isn't hyperbole. Sure, television existed before 'I Love Lucy,' the sitcom Arnaz starred in with his wife, Lucille Ball and which debuted on CBS on Oct. 15, 1951. But Arnaz's vision shaped the way we watch TV today. Do you enjoy streaming syndicated reruns of 'I Love Lucy' as well as 'Law and Order,' 'Friends' and 'Star Trek?' Thank Arnaz. Arnaz and Ball's production company, Desilu, formed during their 20-year marriage and 'I Love Lucy' partnership, was behind that 1960s 'Star Trek' TV show, too, a sci-fi staple that turned into a television and film franchise. Just another of the duo's behind-the-scenes achievements. 'He was a proud yet simple man with chispa, spark. He never forgot where he came from even as he built a studio empire in Hollywood and changed forever the way television sitcoms are created,' former Miami Herald Editorial Board leader Myriam Marquez wrote in a column in 2010. Arnaz's band life in the 1930s, '40s and '50s was the basis for the musical 'Babalu' that was playing at downtown Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts at the time. 'To this day, most sitcoms are shot with three cameras and before a live audience using video. He started with film until video was developed. Arnaz's technique opened the way for TV reruns and syndication,' Marquez wrote. Leading conga lines 'Babalu' took its title from Arnaz's signature tune, a joyous Afro-Cuban song he performed as host and music guest of the Feb. 21, 1976, episode of 'Saturday Night Live' during its first season. Arnaz, at 58 and starting the last decade of his life, closed that show by leading the 'SNL' cast on a conga line through the NBC studio in New York. This exuberant televised live showcase of the conga line with the late night 'SNL' Not Ready for Prime Time Players cast came a decade before Gloria Estefan's 'Conga' English-language breakthrough. Nearly 50 years ago, that 'SNL' performance was a reprise of the way Arnaz, in his struggling musician days, introduced the conga line to the U.S. direct from Miami Beach in 1937. He had done so from the stage of the Park Avenue Restaurant on the corner of Collins Avenue and 23rd Street, once a main artery of Miami Beach's entertainment scene. He initially dubbed his conga line his 'Dance of Desperation.' In October 2024, city of Miami Beach officials installed a permanent marker honoring Arnaz at Collins Park near where the Park Avenue stood. Today, the site of that former restaurant-entertainment venue at 2200 Liberty Ave. is the Miami City Ballet's headquarters. You can stream that 'SNL' episode featuring Arnaz on Peacock because of his original vision to film 'I Love Lucy' with multiple cameras, giving studios the opportunity to share classic TV moments for generations to come. Miami's blueprint Even that inspired vision could be traced to the actor-musician's earliest days in Miami and Miami Beach. Arnaz simply had an eye for a room and how to maximize the space for aesthetic as well as monetary purposes. From the 'Desi Arnaz' book: '[H]is father had joined some other Cuban exiles in starting a business to import Mexican tile — roof tiles, bath tiles, kitchen tiles. The Pan American Importing and Exporting Company was capitalized with all of $500 and was operating in a small building on Third Street southwest in Miami. Desi suggested to his father that they close off a portion of the warehouse as living quarters and save the $5 a week they had been paying the boardinghouse. Purdum's 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Changed Television' recounts Arnaz's career, starting with his arrival in Miami from Cuba in 1933 with his father, Desiderio Sr. The elder Arnaz had been Santiago's youngest mayor and a member of the Cuban House of Representatives before Fulgencio Batista's first coup. Arnaz's maternal grandfather, Alberto de Acha, was an executive at rum producer Bacardi & Co. The man born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III in Santiago de Cuba on March 2, 1917, arrived penniless in Miami before his 17th birthday. He initially made a living in the U.S. cleaning canary cages. In the fall of 1936, he enrolled at Miami Beach's St. Patrick Parish School on Garden Avenue and completed his formal education at Miami Senior High School. In Cuba, Arnaz once envisioned a law career. After school at Miami High, Arnaz reinvented himself as a self-taught musician in Miami Beach. Without that South Florida start, it's likely there would have been no Lucy to love. Arnaz's father remained in Miami until his death in 1973. After 'I Love Lucy' ended in 1960, Arnaz continued his career in production and performing from a base in California. But he helped support relatives who lived in Miami. 'He did make a number of emotional return visits — to perform or celebrate the first Carnaval — and he always retained a warm affection for Miami and the friendships and formative experiences he had there,' Purdum said. Arnaz was the first king of Carnaval Miami in 1982. He played his music with his children Lucie and Desi Jr. at that inaugural event before a crowd of 35,000 on Southwest Eighth Street. Miami in the 1930s 'It's easy to forget that when Desi and his father arrived in Miami, it was 25 years before the mass exodus of Cubans after Fidel Castro's revolution,' said Mindy Marqués Gonzalez, editor of 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television' and a vice president at publisher Simon & Schuster. 'The main Cuban emigre community was in Tampa and Miami was still a sleepy southern town. They would have been one of the few Cubans here. In some ways, Desi and his father were trailblazers for the thousands of Cubans who would follow and transform the city into a multicultural mecca,' said Marqués, a former Miami Herald executive editor. This earlier era of Miami was where Arnaz and a school chum, Sonny Capone (son of the gangster, Al, who had lived on Miami Beach's Palm Island), would get together after class to sing and play the bongo drums. Arnaz parlayed his talents to a spot in a rumba group called the Siboney Septet, named for the seaside Cuban town just outside Santiago, that was playing at Miami Beach's original Roney Plaza on Collins Avenue. For $39 a week. Arnaz's Latin rhythm skills on the conga drums and infectious stage mannerisms came to the attention of popular band leader Xavier Cugat. 'Miami was the formative stage of Desi's new life in America after Cuba,' Marqués said. 'It's here that he picked up a $5 guitar at a pawn shop and started playing again, like he did in Cuba. And that led to his being 'discovered' by Xavier Cugat, which led to everything else.' That introduction to Cugat, and joining his orchestra for six months, led to Arnaz's musical career at New York clubs and his winter return engagements with his own band at Miami Beach entertainment venues like La Conga on 23rd Street. Thanks in part to Arnaz's musical chops and other musicians he played alongside, the area came to be known by locals and music fans as a 'corner of Havana in Miami Beach,' Purdum reported in his book. 'Desi left his mark, without ever denying who he was,' Myriam Marquez, the Herald's former opinion editor, wrote in her 2010 column. 'How hard must it have been 75 years ago in a country that still had segregated public facilities and often looked at 'foreigners' with suspicion. I recall his writing about his days on the tour bus heading from one gig to another, how he would hang out with his Black musician friends, even when promoters weren't too thrilled about that.' Marrying Lucy Arnaz met Lucille Ball on the set of a 1940 film, 'Too Many Girls,' in which they both had roles. The New York-born redhead and the Cuban Miami music maverick wed that year. 'Today, this kind of marriage in Miami is commonplace. It was such a precursor of what was to come in this community,' Miami filmmaker Joe Cardona said in a 2001 interview with the Herald on the 50th anniversary of 'I Love Lucy.' 'To Cubans in South Florida, this was kind of like looking into a crystal ball,' Cardona said. 'Here was a show that actually featured somebody who sounded like my father. Somebody who looked like my uncle. Somebody my brother could grow up to be,' wrote former Herald columnist Ana Veciana Suarez in 2001. Within a decade of their marriage, the world would come to consider the Ball-Arnaz couple family, a relationship that outlasted their marriage, their professional union, Arnaz's post 'Lucy' career, and their lives. Arnaz died of lung cancer at age 69 in 1986. Smoking Purdum recounts in his book, 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television,' how, upon arrival from Cuba by ferryboat to Key West in the early 1930s, father and teenage son were driven to their first home in Miami. 'On the bus ride to Miami, the mayor made a gesture that implied recognition of how fast Desi had grown up since they'd last met: He offered his son a cigarette,' Purdum wrote. Arnaz, like so many actors of the time, smoked on camera. His habit formed the basis for a sketch on the 1976 'Saturday Night Live' episode he hosted. Arnaz played an acupuncturist treating an ailing patient portrayed by John Belushi. But not 'Chinese acupuncture with needles' Arnaz warns the wary Belushi. 'Cuban acupuncture, with cigars.' When Arnaz died at his California home, after visits from his family, including ex-wife Ball, and with their daughter Lucie at his bedside, the Miami Herald's obituary quoted the musician-actor's doctor. 'He died of lung cancer. It was from smoking those Cuban cigars — that's the truth.' Remembering 'Ricky' Actress and singer Lucie Arnaz said of her father's lifelong work ethic in a 2006 interview: 'He had a lot of moxie and integrity because he had to keep on going. He had to start over, and he had to build everything again. He was fearless.' Ball, in a 1983 interview with Ladies Home Journal six years before she died in 1989 at 77 after heart surgery, said of her ex-husband: Desi 'was much smarter than anyone thought. He was a great showman, a great businessman, a fantastic entrepreneur, and I loved watching the executives finding that out.' In his 1976 autobiography, 'A Book,' that he plugged on 'SNL,' Arnaz recalled his 'great days in Miami Beach.' Basketball. Hot dogs. Beach picnics. On one of his last visits to Miami in 1982, to take his crown as king of the first Carnaval Miami, he told Herald reporters, 'I am returning to my first place — Miami. I started here.' If you go What: An Evening with Todd S. Purdum and moderator Carlos Frias discussing Purdum's book, 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television.' When: 7 p.m. Saturday, June 21. Where: Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. Cost: Free. You can buy the book at the event. Or buy tickets in advance and get one copy of the book for $29.99 plus tax.
San Francisco Chronicle
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review: Desi Arnaz biography highlights triumphs of Lucy's favorite foil
Once a second banana, always a second banana when in the shadow of a brighter star. For musician and actor Desi Arnaz, that shadow belonged to Lucille Ball, his wife and co-star on the ground-breaking 1950s sitcom 'I Love Lucy.' Etched in television history are the images of Lucy falling on her rear while stomping grapes at a winery, Lucy overwhelmed by a conveyor belt of chocolates, and Lucy acting nonchalant as movie star William Holden lights up her fake nose instead of her cigarette. Desi seems as important as the cone is to the ice cream. Not only was Arnaz his wife's straight man, he endured non-stop mocking of his Cuban heritage on screen and off. In fact, he was a rare Latino on American screens, big and small, and played a successful husband and father, not a gangster or peon. His character achieved some degree of immortality in the catchphrase, 'Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!' 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television,' Todd S. Purdum's deeply researched, insightful and enjoyable biography, gives Arnaz his due as an entertainer and a savvy businessman. With help, Arnaz envisioned, assembled and led the transformation that provided early television production its bedrock. Arnaz (1917-1986) was the only child of a prominent family in Santiago, his father the mayor and a member of the Cuban national assembly. The 1933 revolution forced the privileged family to flee to the United States — their home set on fire, their cattle herd slaughtered and the father jailed for months. Arnaz spoke little English when he began attending high school in Miami and took any kind of work to earn some money. Show business was an unlikely pursuit given that Arnaz couldn't read music, but the handsome and energetic young man could sing and play guitar and the conga drum. Soon he was working in New York with the popular band leader Xavier Cugat and turning the conga line into a dance craze. He was cast in a 1939 Broadway musical, 'Too Many Girls,' and sent to Hollywood for the film version. At RKO studios, he met his future wife and co-star, then a veteran of dozens of uncredited and supporting roles and struggling to break out. Had either Arnaz or Ball been more successful in films in the 1940s, they would not have turned to the newborn medium of television. Had their marriage not been rife with problems — mainly their separate careers plus his womanizing and drinking — Ball might not have demanded that Arnaz be cast when her radio show, 'My Favorite Husband,' was transferred to TV in 1951. In that sense 'I Love Lucy' was designed to save their marriage. The show turned out to be the innovative outlet Arnaz needed. The industry norm was a show broadcast live in New York sans audience and recorded with a film camera pointed at a TV monitor. Arnaz insisted that 'Lucy' episodes be filmed before an audience in Los Angeles. Film meant higher image quality and that episodes could be shown at any time and later repeated — the idea of a 'rerun' was new — and sold for syndication around the country and the world. Three cameras worked in sync and the show was presented like a play. An audience necessitated a redesigned studio placing seats in bleachers for an unobstructed view. All this became the new standard for a situation comedy and jump-started the move of television production from East Coast to West Coast. Arnaz didn't create the machinery, but he did oversee the operation, hire the right people and lead the charge. With 'I Love Lucy' a hit — it was the first TV show to reach 10 million homes, about two in three TV sets in the U.S. — their company Desilu expanded to produce other programs and rented space to even more. By the end of the 1950s Desilu was the biggest studio in the world in terms of hours of filmed entertainment. With sympathy but open eyes Purdum chronicles Arnaz's descent into alcoholism, which sapped his creative energy and the goodwill he had established over the years. Arnaz also could not control his sexual drive, especially his desire for prostitutes. The combination of booze, adultery and fiery outbursts finished his career and marriage, destroyed his health, and broke him financially. Ball, meanwhile, had career challenges of her own — she couldn't move beyond her Lucy persona — but she was wise enough when it came to handling her money. As the head of Desilu, having bought out her husband in 1962, she gave the greenlight for two television series that resonate today, 'Star Trek' and 'Mission: Impossible.' When she sold the studio in 1967, the on-screen ditzy redhead walked away with what today would be $100 million. America's favorite make-believe couple in the 1950s each married again. Yet they were never out of each other's life completely, due in large part to their two children and extended families, some business interests and a unique professional legacy. Their undying affection for each other needs no 'splainin' at all. ___
Winnipeg Free Press
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Book Review: Desi Arnaz biography highlights triumphs of Lucy's favorite foil
Once a second banana, always a second banana when in the shadow of a brighter star. For musician and actor Desi Arnaz, that shadow belonged to Lucille Ball, his wife and co-star on the ground-breaking 1950s sitcom 'I Love Lucy.' Etched in television history are the images of Lucy falling on her rear while stomping grapes at a winery, Lucy overwhelmed by a conveyor belt of chocolates, and Lucy acting nonchalant as movie star William Holden lights up her fake nose instead of her cigarette. Desi seems as important as the cone is to the ice cream. Not only was Arnaz his wife's straight man, he endured non-stop mocking of his Cuban heritage on screen and off. In fact, he was a rare Latino on American screens, big and small, and played a successful husband and father, not a gangster or peon. His character achieved some degree of immortality in the catchphrase, 'Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!' 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television,' Todd S. Purdum's deeply researched, insightful and enjoyable biography, gives Arnaz his due as an entertainer and a savvy businessman. With help, Arnaz envisioned, assembled and led the transformation that provided early television production its bedrock. Arnaz (1917-1986) was the only child of a prominent family in Santiago, his father the mayor and a member of the Cuban national assembly. The 1933 revolution forced the privileged family to flee to the United States — their home set on fire, their cattle herd slaughtered and the father jailed for months. Arnaz spoke little English when he began attending high school in Miami and took any kind of work to earn some money. Show business was an unlikely pursuit given that Arnaz couldn't read music, but the handsome and energetic young man could sing and play guitar and the conga drum. Soon he was working in New York with the popular band leader Xavier Cugat and turning the conga line into a dance craze. He was cast in a 1939 Broadway musical, 'Too Many Girls,' and sent to Hollywood for the film version. At RKO studios, he met his future wife and co-star, then a veteran of dozens of uncredited and supporting roles and struggling to break out. Had either Arnaz or Ball been more successful in films in the 1940s, they would not have turned to the newborn medium of television. Had their marriage not been rife with problems — mainly their separate careers plus his womanizing and drinking — Ball might not have demanded that Arnaz be cast when her radio show, 'My Favorite Husband,' was transferred to TV in 1951. In that sense 'I Love Lucy' was designed to save their marriage. The show turned out to be the innovative outlet Arnaz needed. The industry norm was a show broadcast live in New York sans audience and recorded with a film camera pointed at a TV monitor. Arnaz insisted that 'Lucy' episodes be filmed before an audience in Los Angeles. Film meant higher image quality and that episodes could be shown at any time and later repeated — the idea of a 'rerun' was new — and sold for syndication around the country and the world. Three cameras worked in sync and the show was presented like a play. An audience necessitated a redesigned studio placing seats in bleachers for an unobstructed view. All this became the new standard for a situation comedy and jump-started the move of television production from East Coast to West Coast. Arnaz didn't create the machinery, but he did oversee the operation, hire the right people and lead the charge. With 'I Love Lucy' a hit — it was the first TV show to reach 10 million homes, about two in three TV sets in the U.S. — their company Desilu expanded to produce other programs and rented space to even more. By the end of the 1950s Desilu was the biggest studio in the world in terms of hours of filmed entertainment. With sympathy but open eyes Purdum chronicles Arnaz's descent into alcoholism, which sapped his creative energy and the goodwill he had established over the years. Arnaz also could not control his sexual drive, especially his desire for prostitutes. The combination of booze, adultery and fiery outbursts finished his career and marriage, destroyed his health, and broke him financially. Ball, meanwhile, had career challenges of her own — she couldn't move beyond her Lucy persona — but she was wise enough when it came to handling her money. As the head of Desilu, having bought out her husband in 1962, she gave the greenlight for two television series that resonate today, 'Star Trek' and 'Mission: Impossible.' When she sold the studio in 1967, the on-screen ditzy redhead walked away with what today would be $100 million. America's favorite make-believe couple in the 1950s each married again. Yet they were never out of each other's life completely, due in large part to their two children and extended families, some business interests and a unique professional legacy. Their undying affection for each other needs no 'splainin' at all. ___ Douglass K. Daniel is the author of 'Anne Bancroft: A Life' (University Press of Kentucky) ___ AP book reviews:
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lucie Arnaz Returns to the Lot Her Parents Built—This Time to Help a Fan Finish His Film
Lucie Arnaz Returns to the Lot Her Parents Built—This Time to Help a Fan Finish His Film originally appeared on L.A. Mag. Raji Ahsan proves it's always great to meet your heroes. Perhaps your childhood obsession was Barbie or board games, but for young Ahsan growing up in Orange County in the 90s, it was Desilu Studios, the long-gone TV production company founded by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The filmmaker is partnering with Lucy and Desi's daughter Lucie Arnaz for 'Lucie on the Lot' a fundraising event to complete his new film Dr. Sam at the old family studio on June 5. After completing their iconic series, I Love Lucy, Desilu produced shows like Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and Mannix from the old RKO Studios (now Paramount) at the corner of Melrose and Gower in Hollywood. Lucy sold her shares in the company to Paramount decades before Raji was born. 'I'm a Desilu nut,' Ahsan says. 'Right after 9/11 they stopped giving studio tours. When I was 12 I had a school assignment to write a persuasive essay and my teacher said you should mail it to the studio so I did…and I put in my tiny little headshot.' Two weeks later he dialed up the studio and a friendly page told him he was moved by the letter and offered a private tour. 'My mom lived in a shelter and she cleaned houses to keep us fed,' Ahsan remembers. 'When she was home, we'd watch I Love Lucy. It was my comfort.' Ahsan grew up to become an actor and a waiter – the classic Hollywood combo. Through mutual friends, he met Emmy-winning actress Lucie Arnaz and a friendship was born. 'He had a podcast and asked me to be a guest,' says Arnaz. 'He's really smart and funny and full of ideas. I instinctively took him under my wing and wanted to help him. He's a powerhouse. You've gotta be like that to get anything done in this world.' Ahsan wrote the short film Dr. Sam about a struggling actor, musician and waiter who masquerades as a therapist and offered a part to his hero Arnaz. 'He said he'd like me to play his mom,' she says. 'I so do not look Egyptian, so in the movie he's adopted.' Lucie and her brother Desi Jr. spent part of their childhood exploring the historic Hollywood lot that today is part of Paramount. 'We would be let loose in some wonderful big empty stages,' Armaz remembers. 'It was so fun to go through the prop room at RKO and play with a life size King Kong and all the wonderful costumes and amazing props from all the films they had done. It was a kid's paradise.' Today, Arnaz lives in Palm Springs, where she writes and produces new shows and oversees the merchandise end of the family business with her daughter. Her brother Desi is retired, and jokingly calls himself a 'self-imposed recluse.' Arnaz will be performing standards live in concert at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood on June 27-28 and opening the new season of the Purple Room in Palm Springs August 29 and 30. The 'Lucie on the Lot' event on June 5 will screen Arnaz's award-winning film Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie on the big screen at the Paramount Theater. There will be a celebration of the 75th anniversary of Desilu, photo ops in front of the famous Bronson gate you remember from Sunset Boulevard and a chance to chat up the filmmakers. Proceeds will be split between finishing up Ahsan's film and the Long Beach shelter his mom landed in when the family immigrated to L.A. 'I wanted to live on the lot,' Ahsan says. 'The fact that Lucie is coming to this place I wrote a letter to when I was 12 is full circle.' This story was originally reported by L.A. Mag on May 30, 2025, where it first appeared.
