Ball, who had only briefly known Frawley from her days at RKO, suggested him to both Arnaz and CBS.

CBS relented only after Arnaz contractually bound Frawley to complete sobriety during the production of the show, and reportedly told the veteran actor that if he ever appeared on-set more than once in an intoxicated state he would be fired.

At that time, CBS executives were somewhat dubious as to whether Ball could not only carry a show without Arnaz, but also follow such a landmark series as I Love Lucy.

When Arnaz Jr. was only 15 years old he got a 15-year-old Suzanne Howe ( Callahan ) pregnant and she gave birth to a baby named Julia Arnaz who later married Timothy E. Cook ( 1963-2012 ).

They are probably the most familiar body of work from 1950s television with the possible exception of episodes from I Love Lucy starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

As originally broadcast, the episodes opened with animated matchstick figures of Arnaz and Ball making reference to whoever the particular episode's sponsor was.

Thibodeaux was making $ 500 a week at the age of 3, touring with the Horace Heidt Orchestra, when he was " discovered " by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who hired him for the role of " Little Ricky " because he looked so much like Desi.

While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to whom he was married at the time.

On October 15, 1951, Arnaz co-starred in the premiere of I Love Lucy, in which he played a fictitious version of himself, Cuban orchestra leader Enrique " Ricky " Ricardo.

Originally set in an apartment building in New York City, I Love Lucy centers on Lucy Ricardo ( Lucille Ball ) and her singer / bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo ( Desi Arnaz ), along with their best friends and landlords Fred Mertz ( William Frawley ) and Ethel Mertz ( Vivian Vance ).

During the second season, Lucy and Ricky have a son named Ricky Ricardo Jr. (" Little Ricky "), whose birth was timed to coincide with Ball's real-life delivery of her son Desi Arnaz Jr.

An extended flashback segment in the 1957 episode " Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana " of The Lucille Ball – Desi Arnaz Show filled in numerous details of how Lucy and Ricky met and how Ricky came to the United States.

* Desi Arnaz as Enrique Alberto " Ricky " Ricardo

Arnaz and Ball capitalized on the series ' popularity by starring in Vincente Minnelli's 1954 film The Long, Long Trailer as Tracy and Nicky Collini, two characters very similar to Lucy and Ricky.

* 1955: Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo as Don Juan in several episodes ( Season 4, Episode # 6, # 9, # 10, # 17, # 21 ) of I Love Lucy, the television series.

" Desi Arnaz as " Ricky " awarded the cup to Longden, but it was attached to Lucy's head.

In a 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by both Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr., the younger Arnaz played Ricky Ricardo and Gilda Radner played Lucy in spoofs of supposed ill-fated pilots for I Love Lucy.

For this one, it was established that Lucy McGillicuddy ( played by Lucille Ball ) and her best friend MacNamara were cruising Havana, where they encounter two tour guides, Lucy's future husband Ricky Ricardo ( Desi Arnaz ) and his pal, Carlos Garcia ( guest star Cesar Romero ).

Eddie also makes a parody of Desi Arnaz ( Ricky Ricardo ) from the show, ' I Love Lucy ' about his famous laugh.

", features the four principal cast members beginning a cross-country road trip from New York City to California, where Ricky Ricardo ( Desi Arnaz ) plans to make a movie.

On the TV series I Love Lucy, the character Ricky Ricardo ( played by Cuban-born Desi Arnaz ) was a singer and bandleader at Manhattan's fictional Tropicana nightclub, now recreated in reality in Jamestown, New York at the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center's Tropicana Room.

Also seen, as such, with the character of Ricky Ricardo ( played by Desi Arnaz ) on the classic TV comedy series I Love Lucy.

Desi Arnaz, who produced and directed the show, appeared in three episodes, using his Ricky Ricardo accent and trademark mispronunciation of words to full effect.

Initially, the idea of having Ball and the distinctly Latino Arnaz portray a married couple encountered resistance as they were told that Desi's Cuban accent and Latin style would not be agreeable to American viewers.

The network finally relented and let Arnaz and Ball weave the pregnancy into the story line, but remained adamant about eschewing use of pregnant, so Arnaz substituted expecting, pronouncing it ' spectin ' in his Cuban accent.

Lyrics, were written by Harold Adamson ( nominated 5 times for an Oscar )-nephew Bruce Adamson noted, that " Harold wrote several hundred songs for the film industry such hits as Wyatt Earp ; Time on My Hands ; Coming in on A Wing and a Prayer ; Around the World in 80 Days, An Affair to Remember, Sinatra's first Oscar nomination " I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night ," Jean Harlow's last song, Did I Remember ; naming a few " and the lyrics to ' I Love Lucy ' was sung by Desi Arnaz, written for the episode by Harold Adamson " Lucy's Last Birthday ":

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, noted television and movie stars.

Karl Freund, Arnaz's cameraman, and even Arnaz himself have been credited with the development of the multiple-camera setup production style using adjacent sets that became the standard for all subsequent situation comedies to this day.

Arnaz nonetheless liked Frawley and lobbied hard for him to have the role, even to the point of having Lucy scribes re-tailor the role of Fred Mertz to be a less financially successful and more curmudgeonly ( in contrast to Gale Gordon's Mr. Atterbury ) character to fit Frawley's persona.

Some even referred to the Vigoreaux-Echevarria couple as the Lucy and Desi of Puerto Rico, in reference to the marriage of American comedians Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

After her death, Desi Arnaz remarked, " It ’ s bad enough to lose one of the great artists we had the honor and the pleasure to work with, but it ’ s even harder to reconcile the loss of one of your best friends.

Patty was convinced that Arnaz was the father even though she was briefly married to Michael Tell and then later believed that John Astin was the biological father.

Arnaz and Ball decided that the show would maintain what Arnaz termed " basic good taste ", and were therefore determined to avoid ethnic jokes as well as humor based on handicaps, mental disabilities, and so on.

In Season 1, Episode 14 of " Saturday Night Live ," host Desi Arnaz jokes that the cast gifted him Alcapulco Gold cigars.

Arnaz was told that it would be impossible to allow an audience onto a sound stage, but he worked with Freund to design a set that would accommodate an audience, allow filming, and also adhere to fire and safety codes.

When Ball returned to weekly television, she and Arnaz worked out an agreement regarding Desilu, wherein she bought him out.

When Desi Arnaz and wife Lucille Ball were casting their new television sitcom I Love Lucy in 1951, director Marc Daniels, who had previously worked with Vance in a theater production, suggested her for the role of landlady Ethel Mertz.

In his autobiography, Arnaz, who worked on the picture, referenced that from then on, if you watched the crowds, they would visibly disperse anytime an American got out onto a balcony.

Most of the episodes were written by Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr., who had worked with series producer Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy.

When the cast was being chosen, Executive Producer Desi Arnaz had approached his old friend, Ann Sothern, who had worked on seven episodes of The Lucy Show as Lucy's old friend, the Countess Framboise ( née Rosie Harrigan ), to play the role of Eve Arden's next-door neighbor.

Eve Arden was also an old friend of Arnaz and his ex-wife Lucille Ball, with whom she worked at RKO in the 1930s.