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What happened to Desi Arnaz after he divorced Lucy?
"The things that got me where I was, were the things I couldn't do when I got there."
Aren't you glad there weren't reporters there to document you at your lowest? No matter who we are and what we've accomplished, we all have times when we're not at our best. That's just the nature of life. Luckily, for most of us, the paparazzi don't care if we have a bad hair day or a misstep in our relationship. Unfortunately for Desi Arnaz, though, fame brings scrutiny, and everybody wants to know the truth.
A 1967 interview with Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press gives us a glance at the famed actor/producer's time away from the public eye.
"The things that got me where I was, were the things I couldn't do when I got there," said Arnaz.
By then, he was a few years removed from his divorce from Lucille Ball. He'd sold his share of Desilu Productions and quit show business altogether. Arnaz vanished from the entertainment world, retiring to his horse farm. He spent his days on his boat, on the track, or at the golf course.
But after three years, Arnaz was ready to return to Hollywood. He'd processed his meteoric rise and understood what went wrong and why.
"I got where I didn't want to be because things began parlaying," said Arnaz.
"We had a little studio and I Love Lucy and then to compete we had to get a larger studio and from there on we had to get out or get bigger. We wound up with three big studios. But by 1962 I decided I didn't want to be [Universal Studios head honcho] Lew Wasserman. I wanted to be [film director] Willie Wyler."
Instead, he became neither, and Desi Arnaz was a ghost for three years. He spent his time breeding and racing thoroughbred horses, buying alfalfa, and selling foals.
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in exchange for taking less money to produce I Love Lucy, he and Lucy got ownership of the episodes after
they were shown 2 or 3 times. In todays money we are talking billions of dollars.
Unfortunately he became a alcoholic, he was obviously drunk in the last - or next to last - episode
of the hour long Lucy sequel series.
The worst - and it's sad to see - was his appearance on The Virginian as a Mexican border official.
He was stinking drunk, the producers should be ashamed of themselves for not replacing him,
he deserved better, if only out of respect for his pioneering work on I Love Lucy and building the
DesiLu empire.
Lucy's last go at a comedy series in the 80's bombed, but while it was on I wrote co-star Gale
Gordon for an autograph as he was one of the greatest straight men in history.
He sent me not only his pic but an autographed cast pic.
I tried to find out what the cast photo is worth, but I couldn't find any other cast photo
or any item from that series either for sale or just appraised on line.
My sister's hairdresser is a Lucy fanatic, his house overflowing with Lucy items, he told me he never
saw a cast pic either, probably because the series was only on a few weeks.
I'm hoping MeTV one of these Sundays runs a episode of Collector's Call
with a Lucy expert who may have a cast photo as well, and say what its worth. There had to be other
people back when who obtained a cast photo, the production folk at least.
