DESI ARNAZ & LUCILLE BALL - When Cuban immigrant Desi Arnaz married American B-movie star Lucille Ball, they created a top-playing team in TV production that embraced everything from sitcom to Star Trek. Kennedy Wilson reports.

Desi was a showman. He was a Cuban bandleader who helped popularize dance crazes like the mambo and cha-cha-cha, and scion of a wealthy family with connections to High Society. Lucy was a queen of the B-movies, a comedienne who became ‘America’s favourite redhead’. By the time Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball married in 1940, her fi lm career was on the wane. The arrival of TV in America was threatening to change Hollywood forever and Desi and Lucy were determined that their combination of showbiz nous and comic chutzpah could be harnessed if they could hit on the right formula.

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha was born in 1915 in Santiago de Cuba where his father was the mayor. His mother Dolores was a famous beauty whose family helped found the Bacardi rum company. After the 1933 revolution Desi and his parents fled Cuba for Florida in the US. Desi started his career as a singer and even made a few films before he made his name starring with his wife in long-running weekly comedy shows. He and Lucy formed their company Desilu in 1950 and together they helped shape – some would say revolutionize – television production and licensing. By 1952 there were 18 million TV sets in the US. Five years before the figure had been in the thousands.