Name: Desi Arnaz Talks About How He Got His Role On "I Love Lucy" | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:01:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Desi Arnaz Talks About How He Got His Role On "I Love Lucy" | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Desi Arnaz Talks About How He Got His Role On "I Love Lucy" | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

First guest tonight is an actor, a musician, a producer, a director and author,
and to millions of television viewers, however, he will always be known as
Ricky Ricardo.
More than a pleasure now to welcome Mr. Desi Arnaz.
Very nice to see you.
Thank you.
Cuban Pete.
Thank you, David.
Thanks for being on the show.
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, at any point in the project, realize what you were getting into,
that this thing was going to be...
No, that's kind of one of those things, you know, that if you're lucky enough,
maybe it's a once-in-a-lifetime deal, you know.
We wanted to work together, and Lucy was doing a radio show called My Favorite
Husband,
and then CBS wanted her to...
Was the radio show version as popular as the TV show turned out to be later?
It was a very popular radio show, yeah.
She was on for about three years, and then they wanted her to transfer to
television,
and we, you know, we wanted to work together.
So she said, I want Desi to play the husband.
Well, the husband in the radio show was Richard Denning, the guy that played
the governor in Hawaii, 5-0, you know.
Well, there's a tall, blonde, blue-eyed vice president of a bank, or something.
I'd never be able to get away with that part, you know.
So the same writers that were doing My Favorite Husband, Jesse Oppenheimer and
Bob Carroll Jr. and Madeline Davis,
they're now doing Alice, Bob and Madeline and I.
They, you know, kind of came up, and me with the music and the orchestra leader,
and then nobody wanted me to play Ricky.
By nobody, you mean the heads of the network, I would guess?
The network, the sponsors, nobody.
You know, they said, who the hell is going to believe this Babalu fellow is
going to be married to this typical American girl, you know.
Yeah.
Funniest part of it is that we had been married for 10 years right then, you
know.
So how was this thing finally resolved?
How did you bump Mr. Denning out of the picture?
Well, you know, George M. Cohen always said that those people out there, the
audience,
they tell you what's good and what isn't.
So I told Lucy, I said, maybe they're right.
Maybe nobody will believe you and I work together, you know.
So in those days, I had a big band, you know.
And we used to do Waterville, play the Paramount Theater, and the 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 at the Roxy here in New York when we're still there.
Radio City, Minneapolis, that's not there anymore.
Chicago, we picked about five or six, you know, cross-country 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.
He 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 a more exotic coupling you couldn't come up with.
It seemed a guy from Cuba, and then the old American redhead.
And then the people that worked with us, you know, Fred and I thought that we're
just in such, you know.
Right.
Yeah, in the television program, you and Lucy slept in separate beds.
Now, there were some other things that they wouldn't let you do.
And when we come back after the commercial, I want to talk about other things
that you couldn't do on television.
We talked about you couldn't sleep in the same bed.
What other kinds of things, compromises, did you have to make for the show?
Well, you know, when she was going to have the baby, I told the head writer at
the time, it was Jess Oppenheimer, and I said, Lucy's going to have a baby.
She says, what are we going to do?
I said, what do you mean, what are we 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 they wouldn't let us do the thing, you know.
You couldn't even say the word pregnant in those days.
Right.
They say, I had to say, spectin.
It was better for me to use spectin anyway.
Yeah, it still is.
I could never get it off with pregnant.
Yeah, yeah.
Finally, the head of Philip Morris was a wonderful old guy called Alfred Lyons.
He wrote him a note saying, don't fool around with the Cuban.
I cleaned it up a little.
Yeah.
And that was one of the most successful shows of the whole run, wasn't it?
Do you believe they won't let us do it?
They said, well, can you hide her, you know, behind high chairs or sitting down
on a table?
I said, not Lucy.
When she gets pregnant, brother, there's no question about it.
She rolls around like a big elephant.
There's no way.
Yeah.
No way to hide her for six months, you know.
Yeah.
So now he's making a picture.
My daughter is doing a show for HBO, and she's going on the road with her
husband, Larry Lockenbill.
And I do, I do.
I'm the only bomb in the family.
I'm the only one that's not working.
Now, in addition to being on the television program, which is just legendary,
you were responsible for other firsts.
You developed the first way to syndicate off-network television shows, which
this one.
Well, the only ones that did it in front of an audience.
In front of an audience?
Three multiple cameras.
Sometimes you use four cameras, but you use 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.
Right.
We never used kind of laughter.
Yeah.
That's why I did it.
Some of our laughter are here in some other shows.
Now, is that true?
I've heard that rumor before that the audience sounds from your program is
still used.
Well, you know, you worked in front of an audience 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 laugh, Diddy.
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 laugh,
but you, our dialogue mic, picked up his laugh.
So we had the dialogue, the laughter, the music, the applause, everything on
the same track, with all four cameras coordinating one soundtrack.
And the first time anybody done that.
And that's what made Desi Lou 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.
They lift them up.
What is, as a musician, what was your first instrument?
What was your instrument of preference?
I drive with guitar.
Guitar?
All Cubans play the guitar and sings.
You need that.
You need that to romance.
Uh-huh.
When we serenade.
I just say, I've been on your show.
I just...
Hey, Jack!
Well, uh...
I was just telling David, I saw him across the way there, in the dressing rooms.
I, I met, I, I, uh, I've never met 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 to the effect, it sounded like fat chance.
I don't know what he said.
Um, and, and he, he, uh, he said that, okay, he would consider it, and, uh, so
there he
was.
Well, he did it.
Now, do we, do we have to pay him for that?
That's the strangest thing.
I thought that...
Not as much as you pay me, and that's not a hell of a lie.
No, there...
Uh, what, uh, there's nobody getting rich on this deal, let me tell you.
Uh, anyway, but...
I do it for the love.
Thank you.