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Desi Arnaz Jr. revealed that his superstar parents were actually just like everybody else
"We put them on a pedestal and think of them as being different. Even I bought into that!"
Unusual and kooky, Lucille Ball delighted in entertaining audiences for years. However, many assumed that because she played an unorthodox character on television, roles like Lucy Ricardo are assumed by viewers to be identical to Ball's real personality.
Ball's son, Desi Arnaz Jr. was able to set the record straight and prove that there are downfalls to idolizing someone and forgetting that they're a person just like the rest of us. "Mom is not the looney character on television," he said during an interview with the Courier-Post. "She was a forerunner, I guess because she's a woman and she was in business. She owned the whole studio. But in fact, she's no different from other women. The things she went through in her life — just like everybody else. She doesn't come from show business."
Particularly, Arnaz highlighted that Ball came from simple beginnings, and worked hard for her fame. "She was a small-town girl (Jamestown, N.Y.) and she left home early and went into a whole other deal," he said. "But I saw her concerned with another kind of life different from show business, with a down-to-earth kind of caring for other people."
Audiences tend to worship stars, both on film and television. However, they don't recognize that the humanity of an actor is truly what makes them special. Ball made mistakes, just like the rest of us. Her true power was the ability to get back up when she was knocked down.
"We look to people in show business and in the public eye," Arnaz said. "We put them on a pedestal and think of them as being different. Even I bought into that! I obviously grew up in that. And yet I saw this contradiction. I saw that my mom and dad were just regular people and had the same problems as everybody else."
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