Review by C.J. Bunce
Most of the world only encountered bandleader, actor, and businessman Desi Arnaz from the role and series he made famous with his wife, comedienne Lucille Ball on their classic TV series I Love Lucy. But behind the scenes Desi was a young man from Cuba who made his way to Miami and from there took his band to New York City where Latin rhythms and musical elements picked up from his upbringing in Santiago introduced America to a new sound in the years before World War II and the first conga line in the U.S. Desi quickly was befriended by the biggest celebrities of music and film, among them Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Orson Welles, eventually negotiating ground-breaking deals with the heads of the major motion picture studios, creating Desilu Productions and acquiring the two remaining arms of old RKO Studios. His idea for a television studio format with a live studio audience in lieu of a kinescope image broadcast live and his advanced camera equipment began the modern era of TV production. Hundreds of TV series and films would emerge from Desilu, including the original 1960s Star Trek series and The Untouchables. His daughter, actress Lucie Arnaz and grand-daughter Kate Luckinbill have added new history to his 1976 autobiography (originally promoted by Arnaz on an episode of Saturday Night Live) and Running Press has re-issued it this year. A surprising, inspiring story of an American immigrant who lived the American dream, and a prequel to every other television production book reviewed here at borg, this expanded edition of A Book—The Outspoken Memoirs of the Man Who “Loved Lucy” and Revolutionized Television is available now here at Amazon.
From the author’s own words, “Welcome to A Book, in which I try to explain how a kid from Cuba found a way to make a living in the United States. It’s all here—the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the unbelievably lucky breaks, and the heartbreaking failures… You will learn what Lucy and I had to do to convince people we could play husband and wife in I Love Lucy. Shortly afterward Lucie and Desi Jr. were born and our world was paradise. The irony of it all is how our undreamed-of success, fame, and fortune turned it into hell. It wasn’t easy to write about all of it, but as my son said, ‘There’s only one way to do it, Dad. Tell it like it was.’”
The lucky breaks are the stuff of great storytelling, and Arnaz is a fantastic storyteller. The book is artfully written by an intelligent chronicler of his times, beginning with unveiling Arnaz as a kid in Cuba being forced to leave his home with his family, viewing a neighbor’s head on a pike as political battles forced him to flee to Miami. It’s in Miami where Arnaz developed his ability to charm people and do whatever was required to make money, leading to his assembling a band. He found unconventional (but legal) means, and his ability to stitch a deal together showed the foundations of one of TV’s most successful businessmen. His vaudeville-inspired entertaining led him to meet Lucille Ball, and their fiery, on-again off-again relationship would create a dynasty that created #1 TV series and award-winning productions. History, her husband, and studios and production staff have pointed to Lucille as the master of television, but details in the book show the kind of business acumen that was necessary to support her work as the greatest comedienne of her era, and the story of how so much depended on both luck and street smarts makes for a great read.
Arnaz is a talker and name-dropper, but A Book reads as authentic. This isn’t the kind of questionable storytelling found in accounts like Dylan Struzan’s biographical account of a mob insider A Bloody Business–yet some of Arnaz’s world mirrors the changing times of overlapping eras discussed in that account. Arnaz’s book is a story of a flawed man who claims his culture allowed mistresses who also had a code he followed that made him reliable, dependable, and a blueprint for achieving success as a first generation immigrant in America. The results of his success, in both monetary wealth and cultural influences on a generation, speak for themselves.
The best of the book is the first third, where readers meet an ambitious young man who didn’t hesitate to join the Army when war broke out, ultimately leading USO projects for wounded soldiers. His days as leading edge bandleader show a part of American music history missing from other books. The fun and excitement of his story grinds to a halt once the McCarthy’s people went after Lucille as a possible Communist sympathizer, and even as it was swept away it seemed to draw their lives together to a close. Arnaz’s personal beliefs and trials are a good example for those in the 2020s of how America was built by immigrants like Arnaz.
Arnaz and Lucille divorced, and he left the Desilu company that Lucille would manage to move forward–the one that launched Star Trek–so that part of Desilu is not a part of this book. But his autobiography stands as a kind of prequel in the world of TV studios and film production that should be read before books like Herb Solow and Bob Justman’s Inside Star Trek, Irwin Allen’s Lost in Space, These Are the Voyages and The Fifty Year Mission, and it’s a great biographical read that surpasses books like TCM’s 20th Century Fox, the Howard brothers’ The Boys, and Cy Chernak’s The Show Runner.
For some great history, for fans of I Love Lucy, and for an education in television history, don’t miss the new expanded edition of A Book—The Outspoken Memoirs of the Man Who “Loved Lucy” and Revolutionized Television is available now here at Amazon.
