Desi Arnaz ( March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986 ) was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer.

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.

Desi Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III in Santiago de Cuba to Desiderio Alberto Arnaz II ( March 8, 1894-May 31, 1973 ) and his wife Dolores de Acha ( April 2, 1896-October 24, 1988 ).

Following the 1933 Cuban Revolution, led by Fulgencio Batista, which overthrew President Gerardo Machado, Alberto Arnaz was jailed and all of his property was confiscated.

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.

Arnaz also pushed the network to allow them to show Lucille Ball while she was pregnant.

Arnaz was patriotic.

Arnaz and Ball's marriage ( 1940 ) was turbulent, and convinced that Arnaz was being unfaithful to her, and also because Desi came home drunk several times, Ball filed for divorce in September 1944, but returned to him before the interlocutory decree became final.

Arnaz was also suffering from diverticulitis.

"' I Love Lucy ' was never just a title ", wrote Arnaz in the last years of his life.

Arnaz was cremated and the whereabouts of his ashes are unknown.

Desilu Productions, jointly owned by Desi Arnaz and Ball during their marriage, was the production company for the Our Miss Brooks television show, which filmed during the same years as I Love Lucy.

She later co-starred with Kaye Ballard as her neighbor and in-law, Eve Hubbard, in the 1967 – 69 situation comedy The Mothers-in-Law, which was produced by Desi Arnaz after the dissolution of Desilu.

Lucille Ball was offered Gloria Grahame's role in the picture by DeMille, but dropped out when she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, Lucie Arnaz.

Only a photograph of the first specimen of this species was made at a local market by Arnaz and Mark Erdmann before it was bought by a shopper.

He received Roman Catholic funeral rites four days later, with fellow entertainers including Desi Arnaz, Ernest Borgnine, Marty Allen, and Jack Carter in attendance, and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.

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 convinced them to allow Desilu to cover all additional costs associated with the filming process, under the stipulation that Desilu owned and controlled all rights to the film.

Arnaz consulted a priest, a rabbi, and a minister, all of whom told him that there would be nothing wrong with showing a pregnant Lucy or with using the word pregnant.

When Ball sold her share of Desilu to what became Paramount Television, Arnaz went on to form his own production company from the ashes of his share of Desilu, and with the newly formed Desi Arnaz Productions, he made The Mothers-In-Law ( at Desilu ) for United Artists Television and NBC, this ran for two seasons from 1967-68.

Both Desilu, Too and Lucille Ball Productions work hand-in-hand with MPI Home Video in the home video re-issues of the Ball / Arnaz material not currently owned by CBS ( successor-in-interest to Paramount Television, which in turn succeeded the original Desilu company ).

Family home movies later aired on television showed Ball and Arnaz playing together with their grandson Simon shortly before Arnaz's death.

Arnaz appeared with his son in the 1974 television special, " California, My Way ".

In the 1970s, Arnaz co-hosted a week of shows with daytime host and producer Mike Douglas.

Arnaz also headlined a Kraft Music Hall special on NBC that featured his two children, with a brief appearance by Vance.

To promote his autobiography, A Book, on February 21, 1976, Arnaz served as a guest host on Saturday Night Live, with his son, Desi, Jr., also appearing.

Minnelli also had relationships with Desi Arnaz, Jr. ( the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz ), Peter Sellers, and Martin Scorsese.

* Forever, Darling ( with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz ) ( 1956 )

Among those who crossed paths with Abbott early in their careers are Desi Arnaz, Gene Tierney, Betty Comden, Hal Prince, Adolph Green, Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, Bob Fosse, Stephen Sondheim, Elaine Stritch, John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Liza Minnelli.

After the series ended in 1957, however, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials, running from 1957 to 1960, known first as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns as The Lucy – Desi Comedy Hour.

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.

* 1986 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor and band leader ( b. 1917 )

* 1917 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor and bandleader ( d. 1986 )

** Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor, bandleader, and musician ( d. 1986 )

In 1977, she starred in the film Joyride with Robert Carradine, Melanie Griffith and Desi Arnaz, Jr. She played the young Eunice St. Clair in the 1986 horror film Troll, with her mother playing the older version of her character.

The pair also wrote episodes for The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show ( aka The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour ) and Ball's final series, the unsuccessful Life With Lucy ( 1986 ).

According to Arnaz himself, in his autobiography A Book ( 1976 ), the family owned three ranches, a palatial home, and a vacation mansion on a private island in Santiago Bay, Cuba.

When he moved to the United States, Desi Arnaz turned to show business to support himself.

Arnaz and Ball married on November 30, 1940.

Arnaz also played guitar for Xavier Cugat.

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.

Ball insisted on Arnaz playing her on-air spouse so the two would be able to spend more time together.

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.

This material includes Here's Lucy and the aforementioned The Mothers-In-Law, as well as many programs and specials Ball and Arnaz made independently of each other.

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.

Arnaz recalled that the only exception consisted of making fun of Ricky Ricardo's accent, and noted that even these jokes worked only when Lucy, as his wife, did the mimicking.