Desi Arnaz Talks About How He Got His Role On "I Love Lucy" | Letterman

first guest tonight is an actor a musician a producer uh director and author and to millions of television viewers however he will always be known as ricky ricardo uh more than a pleasure now to welcome mr desi arnez very nice to see you go give him thank you david thanks for being on the show what is that now this reaction you must get this wherever you go people like you they love you they've seen you on television for a long long time it must be very gratifying we love them too yeah did you uh uh at any point in the project realize what you were getting into that this thing was going to be no that's that's kind of one of those things you know that um if you're lucky enough maybe it's a once in a lifetime deal you know now we uh we wanted to work together and lucy was doing a radio show called my favorite husband and then cbs wanted her to uh was the radio show version as popular as the tv show turned out it was a very popular writing show yeah she was on for about three years and then they wanted to transfer to television and we you know we wanted to work together yeah so she says i want desi to play the hospital well the husband in the radio show was richer than him guy that played the governor in hawaii five oh you know well as a tall blond blue eye vice president of a bank or sometimes i'll never be able to get away with that part you know so the same writers that were doing my favorite husband just oppenheimer and bob carl jr and madeleine davis they're now doing hours bob and madeline they you know kind of came up uh and me with the music and the orchestra leader and then nobody wanted me to play ricky uh by nobody you mean the heads of the network i would guess the network the sponsor nobody yeah they say who the hell is going to believe this uh babalu fellow is going to be married to this yeah typical american girl you know yeah funniest part of it is that we had been married for 10 years right then you know uh so so how is this thing finally resolved how did you bump mr denning out of the picture well you know george ham kohan always said that those people are there the audience they tell you what's good and what isn't you know so i told lucy said maybe they're right maybe nobody will believe you and i work together you know so in those days i had the big band you know and then we used to do waterville play the paramount theater and roxy that's not there anymore so i said well the next time that i go on tour why don't you come with me you know we'll do a couple of numbers together and see what the audience thinks of us working together so we worked the roxy here in new york where we're still there radio city minneapolis that's not there anymore chicago we picked about five or six you know cross-country yeah places and the audience were wonderful and mr paley which is the head of cbs at the time chairman of the board he saw us on the stage i said well the audience seems to like them together and they have been married for 10 years or maybe they'll believe that they're not at the time they don't give you enough credit ever at the time though i guess it uh uh a more exotic coupling you couldn't come up with it seemed a guy from cuba and then the other and then the people that worked with us you know fred and ethel that were just sensational yeah you know uh right yeah in the television program you and lucy slept in separate beds now uh there were there were some other things that uh they wouldn't let you do and when we come back after the commercial i want to talk about uh other things that you couldn't do uh on television we talked about you couldn't sleep in the same bed what what other kinds of things uh compromises did you have to make well well you know when she was gonna have the baby i told the head writer at the time was jess oppenheimer and i said lucy's going to have a baby she says what are we going to do i said well you mean what we're going to do she's going to have a baby that's what we're going to do she already had my daughter lucy and that won't let us do the thing you know you could even say they were pregnant in those days right they say i had to say specton [Laughter] [Applause] [Applause] it was better for me to use spectrum anyway yeah yeah it's still it would never get in love with pregnancy finally the uh the the head of philip morris is a wonderful old guy called alfred lyons he he wrote him a note saying don't uh fool around with the cuban i cleaned her up a little yeah and that was one of the most successful shows of the whole uh run wasn't it could you believe they won't let us do it they said well can you hide her you know be behind high chairs or sitting down on the table says not lucy when she gets pregnant brother there's no question about ritchie she walls around like a big elephant there's no way no way to hide her for six months you know yeah so uh now he's making a picture my daughter is uh doing a show for hbo and she's going on the road with her husband larry lockembill and i do i do i'm the only bomb in the family i'm the only one that's gonna work now in addition to being on the the television program which is uh just legendary uh you were responsible for other firsts you developed the first uh way to syndicate off network television shows um which this one well the only ones that did it that uh in front of an audience in front of an audience multiple commerce sometimes you use four cameras like you used three here they had been doing them live hadn't they you were doing it on film we always did it on film but in front of an audience we never use can laughter yeah that's when some of our laughter i hear some other shows is that yeah is is that true i've heard that rumor before that the the audience sounds from your program is still well you know you worked in front of an audience for most of your life and you know sometimes you get the regulars and you can detect the same laughter right but lucille's mother you couldn't miss her life did he and my assistant director jim paisley and you know he was close like around here you know so not only did they the audience microphone picked up his life but you our dialogue might wiggle his left so we had the dialogue the laughter the music the applause everything on the same track with all four cameras coordinating one soundtrack you know the first time anybody done that and that's what made desilu a big big success yeah and but you now have heard those laughs from many many years back on new shows on other shows yeah uh lift them up uh what what is as a musician what was your first instrument what was your instrument of uh preference i drive a guitar guitar all cubans play the guitar and sings you need that you need that to romance uh-huh we serenade i just say i've been on your show oh [Music] well no i was just starting down and i saw him across the way there the dressing rooms i i met i i uh i've never met a jack parr before and i met him earlier tonight and i said why don't you uh be a guest on our show and he said uh something did the effect it sounded like a fat chance i don't know what he said um and and he he said that okay he would consider it and uh so there he was well he did it do we have to pay him for that that's the strangest thing i thought not as much as you pay me and that's not a hell of a lot [Applause] well uh there's nobody getting rich on this deal let me tell you uh anyway but i do it for the love

Channel: Letterman

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Id: WHBJPL3fOe4

Length: 8min 40sec (520 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022