Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz Remember Father Desi: He ‘Never Said, I’m Sorry’
Desi Arnaz Jr. shared some rare insights into his childhood growing up with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz with biographer Todd S. Purdum for the new book titled Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television. The book dives into the life of Arnaz — who worked with his wife, the incredibly talented Ball, on many projects, most famously in I Love Lucy, but often saw himself overshadowed by her. The pair had two children together, Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz and ultimately divorced in 1960, after 20 years of marriage.
Arnaz Jr. saw a different side to his parent’s relationship, and it wasn’t always good. He remembers how they used to argue all the time and recalls when they told the children they were getting divorced. He said in the book, according to PEOPLE, “And we’ll always remember when they sat us down and said, ‘Look, you know, things aren’t working.’ I mean, I remember word for word.”
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Lucie added about their parents in the book, “He [Arnaz] would get really angry and blow his stack, and be loud, but then he’d be done and it would be like it never happened. Like a storm just passed. The storm never said, ‘I’m sorry,’ the storm never left a note saying, ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t your fault.’ But it stopped, right? My mother would get personally offended by childhood behavior or what you said, because you should have known not to say that somehow, even though no one’s taught you what to say. And she would emotionally separate from you for however long she wanted to. And it would be sometimes days, sometimes weeks.”
Arnaz Jr. also spoke about helping his father seek treatment for addiction, after he sought treatment himself. “It was really nice,” he said, “because whatever I was going through, it was paying off. I said, ‘I can’t do anything for you, but there’s a place that can.’ He understood that.”
Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television (Simon & Schuster) is now available to purchase. Get it on Amazon here.
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