Notes on Desi Arnaz

• Desidario Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago de Cuba on March 2 1917. His family owned 3 ranches, and his father was the Mayor of Santiago.
• When Desi was 15 his father was elected to the Cuban congress, but as the family prepared to move to Havana, Gerardo Machado's dictatorship was ended by the Batista uprising (known as the Revolt of the Seargents). The Arnaz estates were seized and burned, and Congressman Arnaz was sent to prison.
• Desi and his mother (Dolores) moved to Miami, Florida, with barely the clothes on their backs. Young Desi took on a series of odd jobs to help the family, but it was music that would make him a success.
• After 6 months in prison, Desi's father was tried and released. He promptly joined his family in the U.S.
• Famed bandleader Xavier Cougat saw Desi perform with the Siboney Septet and offered him a job as soon as he finished high school. Once he began to play with the band, his salary was $25 per week.
• After touring with Cugat for a year, Desi got permission to launch Desi Arnaz and his Xavier Cugat Orchestra. The band soon became popular, creating the "Conga" craze of the time in Miami's and then New York's top nightclubs.
• In 1940 Desi played "Manuelito" in the successful Broadway musical Too Many Girls. The finale of Act 1 featured Desi leading the entire cast in a Conga dance that brought the house down.
• When RKO Studios decided to make a movie of Too Many Girls, Desi was the only cast member picked to star in the film. It was on that set that Desi met Lucille Ball, and they were married during the promotion of the film.
• Although Too Many Girls was not a box office success, it gave Desi a 2-year contract with RKO, which lead to a costarring role in Father Takes a Wife (with Gloria Swanson) and the lead in the comedy Four Jacks and a Jill (with Ray Bolger and Anne Shirley). Desi also made a few war movies, taking patriotic roles in The Navy Comes Through (with Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Jane Wyatt and Jackie Cooper), and Bataan (with Robert Taylor and George Murphy).
• Desi served 2 years in the U.S. Army beginning in 1943.
• True to his "Latin Lover" image, Desi had widely known infidelities with pin-up queen/actresses Betty Grable and others. Lucille ball filed for divorce in 1944, but they reconciled when he left the Army in 1945 and began to look for projects together.
• In October 1951 I Love Lucy premiered on CBS. In 1952 the show was the first to reach 10 million viewers, and a year later 44 million tuned in for the show in which little Ricky is born.
• Desi and Lucy made two films for MGM: The Long, Long Trailer in 1954, and Forever, Darling in 1956. Their company, Desilu Productions, became a major player in the TV world, producing popular programs such as The Loretta Young Show, The Untouchables and The Red Skelton Show.
• In May 1960, Desi and Lucy's divorce was finalized.
• Desi married Edie Mack in 1962, and they were together until she died in 1983.
• In 1982 Desi starred in The Escape Artist, and the following year entered a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.
• Desi died of cancer on December 2 1986.

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