Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television is the first full biography solely about Desi in many years. Desi’s own memoir, A Book by Desi Arnaz, has been out of print since the 1970s. Written with the blessing of Desi’s children Lucie and Desi Jr., Todd S. Purdum was allowed access to the family’s archive which includes unpublished drafts of Desi’s memoir along with many documents and letters. Purdum has weaved it all together and done a wonderful job in bringing Desi’s story back to the forefront. Lucy of course is a prominent feature but the spotlight is fixed firmly on Desi. Purdum’s insightful work helps restore Desi to his place in television history as the man behind many innovations that had a lasting effect on how TV shows are produced and filmed to this day.
Buy Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented TelevisionDesiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha was born in Cuba and is descended from one of its first families which include doctors, mayors, and an original founder of Bacardi rum. Exiled from his home in the uproar of 1933 while his father was still the beloved Mayor of Santiago de Cuba, Desi would finish high school in Miami, Florida alongside his pal Al Capone Jr. After high school, Desi decided to make a go in music, singing and strumming his guitar. He gigged around with a small band until he caught the eye of Latin music legend Xaviar Cugat, who hired Desi to tour with him as a singer/conga drum player and to capitalize on the Cuban kid’s good looks.
From Cugat, Desi learned all the aspects of running a band, from rehearsals and salaries to reading a room to keep the crowd involved. Desi would eventually break from “Cugie’s” tutelage and form his own small orchestra, applying what he learned to make his band a very popular one. Desi’s fame spread as he just about single-handedly launched the conga line dance craze that swept America in the late 1930s. These years would also find Desi dating many up-and-coming starlets including a young Betty Grable before her gams really hit the big time.
These formative years also found Desi rubbing elbows with notorious underworld types, including an infamous madam who would send her patrons to watch him play the clubs. It’s at this madam’s high-class establishment where Desi would spend his time recovering from his late-night show with her best girls seeing to his every need. Those pampered nights led to a lifelong fascination with such ladies, eventually causing him some trouble in later life. Between the shows in Florida and New York, Desi became the talk of the town and in 1939 he grabbed the attention of Broadway’s elite team of songwriters Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart, who cast him in a new show called Too Many Girls.
When RKO Pictures brought Too Many Girls to the silver screen, they insisted that Desi reprise his role. It’s here that he would meet the person forever linked to his life and name, Lucille Ball, reigning “Queen of the B pictures.” They fell for each other instantly and Desi quickly dubbed her Lucy, because others had loved Lucille but he would be the first to love Lucy. They loved hard and fought harder even after they were married. Both would accuse the other of infidelity while working on separate coasts, Lucy in Hollywood and Desi back in New York, where he would head after WWII and his own Tinseltown career had fizzled.
Being separated is what led them to try television and a sitcom where they could work side by side while keeping tabs on each other. The concept of I Love Lucy was rejected at first as major TV execs thought no one would believe they were married. So they took to the road where Lucy joined Desi in his act and they could test out a live-audience reaction. Their act was funny and the people loved it. So the Arnaz’s headed back to Hollywood where they began to assemble the pieces and players that would change television history.
Desi’s and Lucy’s on-screen story is fairly well trod ground. What isn’t as widely known is that Desi, armed with Lucy’s years of Hollywood experience, would transform television-show production into what it is today. Under the Desilu banner, Desi and Lucy would put together a team of top writers to ensure the material would be funny and relatable. This team would include Jess Oppenheinmer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carrol Jr., who had worked with Lucy on her popular radio show My Favorite Husband, which I Love Lucy would be based on. Oppenheinmer was brought on as head writer but he would also help produce and bring the show to dazzling life.
At Desi’s insistence, the show would be filmed instead of broadcast live, giving those watching at home a clear picture instead of a lackluster kinescope view. Desi also had the foresight to secure the rights to those films so he could show them again later, thus launching the ”re-run” as we know it today and banking millions in the process. Not only would the show be filmed, it would be done using not one but three cameras in front of a live studio audience.
As everyone was saying “that can’t be done,” Desi was talking with legendary cinematographer Karl Freund about the challenges of making this wacky dream a reality. Freund would eventually come up with a whole new lighting design to help those three cameras capture the action properly with stunning results. Desi’s team would innovate new crane designs as well as a new editing machine to get the best results possible. While Desi was learning his parts as Ricky Ricardo, he was also addressing safety codes for the audience while ensuring they had a clear view of the stage at all times. Desi’s creative innovations would lay the foundation for how TV sitcoms would be filmed and produced for decades to come.
Desi Arnaz was more than just the man who loved Lucy and played “Babalu” on a conga drum. Throughout these enjoyable 355 pages, Todd S. Purdum presents Desi in all his genius but does not hide his flaws. We see Desi’s love for his family and for Lucy as well as his creative/innovative outlook which made him a natural problem solver. From his days as a band leader, Desi learned how to assemble a team that could deliver the best product possible, bringing to life the ideas he had in his head. Did Desi “invent” television? No, but his groundbreaking techniques revolutionized an industry in ways no one thought possible. Hopefully, with this new biography, we’ll see Desi’s memoir reprinted as it’s a great companion to Purdum’s work especially when it comes to Desi’s early life and days on the set creating I Love Lucy.
