Desi Arnaz

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born on March 2, 1917, in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, and died on December 2, 1986. Known professionally as Desi Arnaz, he built a career spanning Broadway, film, television, and music, working as an actor, musician, bandleader, and producer.

Arnaz came from a prominent Cuban family. His father, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Alberni II, served as Santiago's youngest mayor and held a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives. His maternal grandfather, Alberto de Acha, was an executive at Bacardi & Co. Arnaz was of Spanish, Irish, and French descent and counted among his ancestors José Joaquín, a mayor of Santiago de Cuba. The Cuban Revolution of 1933 upended the family's circumstances entirely. A mob destroyed the family's houses, property, and livestock, and his father was jailed and had all his property confiscated. Arnaz escaped the attack by fleeing in a car. His father was released after six months following the intervention of his father-in-law, Alberto de Acha. The family subsequently relocated to Miami with no money, and Arnaz lived with his father in a rat- and roach-infested garage.

In Miami, Arnaz attended high school, where one of his classmates was Albert "Sonny" Capone, the only child of Al Capone. To improve his English, he attended Saint Leo Prep near Tampa in the summer of 1934. His early jobs included working at Woolworth's and cleaning canary cages. He and his father later went into the tile business before Arnaz turned to show business full time.

After finishing high school, Arnaz joined a Miami band called the Siboney Septet. Bandleader Xavier Cugat saw him perform and hired him to play conga drum and sing with his touring orchestra. That experience led Arnaz to form his own group, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, which became a fixture in New York City's club scene. At a club called La Conga, he is credited with introducing the conga line to the United States. He was known for his skill on the conga drums and continued to lead the Desi Arnaz Orchestra throughout his career.

Rodgers and Hart took notice of Arnaz and cast him in their 1939 Broadway musical Too Many Girls, his sole Broadway credit. The show was a success, and RKO Pictures purchased the film rights. Arnaz traveled to Hollywood the following year to appear in the film adaptation, where he met Lucille Ball. The two fell in love during production and eloped on November 30, 1940. Arnaz went on to appear in several films during the 1940s, including the 1943 war film Bataan, starring Robert Taylor, in which he played Felix Ramirez, a jive-loving California National Guardsman. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther described Arnaz and several other supporting players as "convincing in soldier roles."

On April 27, 1943, Arnaz received a draft notice as a citizen of Cuba. He enlisted on May 23, 1943, and later that year became a naturalized United States citizen, legally adopting the name Desi Arnaz. He was disqualified from overseas service due to hypertension and knee injuries documented in his military physical examination. He had injured his left knee before enlisting and his right knee during a baseball game at Camp Arlington shortly after enlisting. Assigned to the 9th Service Command, Army Service Forces, he was placed in limited domestic service and directed United Service Organization programs at Birmingham General Army Hospital in the San Fernando Valley, arranging entertainment and bringing celebrities to visit recovering soldiers. He served two years, seven months, and four days and was discharged as a staff sergeant on September 30, 1945. For his service, he received the Army Good Conduct Medal, the American Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.

On December 1, 1945, Arnaz formed a new orchestra that found success in live appearances and recordings. He hired his childhood friend Marco Rizo to play piano and serve as arranger. For the 1946–47 season, Arnaz served as bandleader on Bob Hope's NBC radio program, The Pepsodent Show. In January 1951, CBS gave him a musical game show called Your Tropical Trip, on which he hosted and featured his orchestra, with audience members competing for a Caribbean vacation. The program ran until September 1951.

In October 1951, Arnaz and Ball co-founded Desilu Productions, originally created to bring I Love Lucy to television networks. CBS had been pursuing Ball to adapt her radio series My Favorite Husband for television, but Ball insisted that Arnaz play her on-screen husband. The network had preferred her radio co-star Richard Denning. The show's original premise featured a glamorous show-business couple, but market research led writer Jess Oppenheimer to revise it, making Ricky Ricardo a struggling young orchestra leader and Lucy an ordinary housewife with show-business ambitions. The character name Larry Lopez was dropped because of a real-life bandleader named Vincent Lopez and replaced with Ricky Ricardo, a name inspired by Henry Richard, a family friend and brother of P.C. Richard of P.C. Richard & Son. I Love Lucy premiered on October 15, 1951, with Arnaz playing Enrique "Ricky" Ricardo, a fictionalized Cuban orchestra leader. Arnaz and Ball are credited as innovators of the syndicated rerun, which they pioneered through the series. Rizo arranged and orchestrated the music for I Love Lucy, and Arnaz kept the orchestra on his payroll throughout the show's run.

After I Love Lucy concluded, Arnaz continued producing television through Desilu Productions and later independently. His subsequent productions included The Ann Sothern Show and The Untouchables. In 1951, CBS had also offered him a radio game show, Your Tropical Trip, partly to keep Arnaz and his band in Hollywood rather than touring. Throughout his career, Arnaz remained associated with Latin music and is credited with popularizing the conga line in the United States.