Inside mad world of Nicole Kidman’s new character Lucille Ball whose life was blighted by cheating, booze and violence
AS kooky couple Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, their sugar-sweet marriage delighted millions of fans worldwide.
But behind the scenes of iconic Fifties TV sitcom I Love Lucy, the show’s stars, real-life couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, had little to laugh about.
The pair’s turbulent relationship was plagued by violence, infidelity, booze and prostitutes — leaving the flame-haired actress describing her 19 years of wedded life as a “nightmare”.
Now a new Amazon Prime film Being The Ricardos — starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as the couple — will lift the lid on them both on and off screen.
As The Sun reported yesterday, Nicole is a dead ringer for the comedy great in the movie.
The Aussie actress says as Lucille in the voiceover: “You know I did this show so Desi and I could be together? I had no idea it was going to be a hit.”
Indeed, six months after I Love Lucy’s debut in October 1951, the CBS sitcom was America’s favourite show, with 11million families tuning in every week — when there were only 15million TVs in the country.
It continued to be the most-watched programme in the US for four of its six seasons and was one of the first ever to be aired on commercial television in the UK.
But as Desi admitted: “We were anything but Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. They had nothing to do with us.
“We dreamed of success, fame and fortune. And guess what? It all led to hell.”
‘Kicked Desi in the nuts’
Lucille struggled to cope with his cheating, alongside what she described as his “roof-raising temper, gambling and drinking”.
And her own hot-blooded fits of rage led her to once knock out her husband with a hammer.
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At the height of I Love Lucy’s success the set was rocked when US magazine Confidential splashed its January 1955 cover with the question: “Does Desi Really Love Lucy?”
The report described his “off-pasture passions”, accusing him of being “an artist at philandering”.
It described a business meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel where his friend summoned “one of Hollywood’s best door-to-door dame services”.
According to the report, the pal “ordered two cuties, medium rare”, with Desi spending the night with a woman called Mindy who left at 3.45am “considerably richer”.
Lucille put on a brave face on set, joking: “Christ, I can’t go out and buy that (magazine) myself — somebody go out and get one for me!”
Her long-time publicist, Charles Pomerantz, would later reveal: “It was during a rehearsal day, and she went into her dressing room.
“Everybody was frozen on the set. She finally came out, tossed the magazine to Desi and said, ‘Oh, hell, I could tell them worse than that’.”
Desi allegedly argued: “What’s she upset about? I don’t take out other broads. I just take out hookers.”
The incident was undoubtedly humiliating but Lucille was no innocent, with friends claiming she was prone to violence.
Her scriptwriter, Maury Thompson, said: “She loves to hurt a man. She’s kicked Desi in the nuts several times. Just bowled him over. She laughed about it.”
She reportedly punched a pimp in the face at a Hollywood party on learning he had arranged women for Desi and, according to Kathleen Brady’s biography Lucille, once knocked her husband unconscious with a hammer.
Like a farce straight from the show, Lucille and her panicked maid rehearsed what they would tell the cops — until Desi came to and joined the discussion.
Even on set her passions could get the better of her. She would throw scripts and, on one occasion, slapped her make-up artist. She took umbrage with her co-star Vivian Vance’s initial appearance, allegedly ripping off her false eyelashes and declaring: “Nobody wears false eyelashes on this show but me!”
Her temper perhaps stemmed from her younger years in Michigan and New York, where she endured a childhood marred by “death and cruel circumstances”.
Tragedy first hit when Lucille was three and her 27-year-old father Henry, an electrician, died of typhoid.
On the day of his death, a bird was trapped in the house, leaving her with a life-long phobia of the creatures. When her mum Désirée remarried four years later, Lucille was cared for by her new stepfather’s parents, who were puritans and banned mirrors from the house.
At the age of 14 she embarked on a relationship with 23-year-old Johnny DaVita, who ran illegal booze in from Canada and acted as a local gigolo.
Fiery relationship
Lucille’s biographers, Darwin Porter and Danforth Price, claimed in their book, They Weren’t Lucy & Ricky Ricardo, that the relationship “catalysed some personality changes in her”.
They wrote: “She developed a foul mouth, to match his own and those of his hoodlum friends.”
In a bid to separate them, Lucille’s mother agreed to send her to theatre school in New York.
But even then it wasn’t plain sailing. Lucille once said the only thing she learned in drama school was “how to be frightened”, and was outshone by her peer Bette Davis.
Later, while auditioning for Broadway roles under the stage names Montana Ball and Diane Belmont, she “scrounged” to survive.
Porter and Price claimed this included nude modeling and that she even “turned the occasional trick”.
Lucille was briefly cast in the popular theatrical show The Ziegfeld Follies — but was fired after just two weeks because, as she was told: “You’ve got no t*ts and you can’t dance.”
CROC MOCKS FAME
I LOVE Lucy has been dubbed into 22 languages and syndicated in 80 countries.
The show’s universal popularity became a source of fun in the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee.
When the lead character Mick Dundee checks into his New York hotel, fresh from the Australian outback, he turns on a TV for the second time in his life and sees the opening credits to I Love Lucy.
Dundee swiftly turns the set off, saying he’s seen it already.
She eventually found fame as a model and moved to Hollywood, where she went on to star in more than 50 films. Her career had far outshone that of Desi’s when the couple wed in 1940.
His family had lost everything in the Cuban Revolution and fled to America, where Desi found work as a janitor cleaning out canary cages.
The pair met on the set of the aptly named comedy Too Many Girls, in which she had won the leading role and he played a bandleader.
The couple eloped just six months later.
Lucille admitted: “Everybody gave it about a year and a half. I gave it six weeks. I thought it was the most daring thing I’d ever done, and it certainly was.”
It was a fiery relationship from the start and the couple separated four years later — only for Lucille to annul the divorce by heading straight from the courthouse to Desi’s bed.
Also a bandleader and often away travelling with his band, Desi continued to drink and be unfaithful.
Lucille told a friend she was “seriously contemplating doing a television show because it would keep Desi at home”.
And she coaxed TV executives at CBS to cast her husband as her on-screen partner in I Love Lucy when the opportunity arose.
‘Fighting all the time’
They allegedly told her that the average viewer wouldn’t accept a Cuban husband for a “red-blooded American girl” but eventually gave in.
The show proved so popular that audiences flocked to their comedy movie The Long, Long Trailer in 1954.
I Love Lucy blurred the lines of personal and professional.
The pair had two children, Lucie and Desi Junior — and when expecting her youngest, Lucille convinced CBS to write the pregnancy into the plot of I Love Lucy.
A record 44million people watched Lucy and Ricky Ricardo have Little Ricky.
Viewers relished their on-screen relationship but the show’s success drove a further wedge between the couple as Desi struggled to play second fiddle.
Their daughter Lucie, now 70 — who helped advise the Amazon Prime movie — said: “They were fighting all the time when we were growing up. There was a lot of anger and screaming.”
In March 1960 — the day after they filmed the last episode of their final TV show together, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour — Lucille filed for divorce. Describing her husband as a “Jekyll and Hyde”, she said: “He drinks and he gambles, he’s awash in broads and booze, and that gay actor Cesar Romero is his devoted slave.”
Lucille, who went on to star in spin-off sitcom The Lucy Show, added: “I was always falling in love with the wrong man. Including Desi.”
Daughter Lucie recalled: “Their divorce was horrible and then there was the alcoholism. I had preferred those things had never been there.
“We didn’t have any abuse, but we did go through some pretty hard stuff and that’s why my parents didn’t stay together.”
Both later found love again. Lucille was married for 28 years to comedian Gary Morton, and Desi tied the knot with his neighbour Edith Hirsch. After he and Lucille divorced, they formed a strong friendship, which lasted until Desi died from cancer, aged 69, in 1986.
Lucille was reportedly one of the last people he spoke to. Lucie had to hold the phone up for her father as the two said, “I love you” back and forth to each other.
Lucille died three years later, aged 77, from a ruptured aorta.
William Asher, director of I Love Lucy, mused: “Maybe I’m the romantic, but there was a great, great love there, there really was. Desi was very unhappy about the break-up, and I think she was too.
“I don’t think either one of them ever got over it.”
- Being The Ricardos will be available to stream on Prime Video from December 21
SHREWD TREKKIE PIONEER
LUCILLE was a pioneer in comedy and influenced generations of female comedians.
I Love Lucy was one of the first TV shows with a woman as the star and, in the title role, Lucille diverted from the typical Hollywood image of a “proper lady”.
It turned her into a feminist icon – but off-screen she was also a shrewd businesswoman.
She co-founded Desilu Productions with her husband in 1950. When the couple split, Desi decided to sell his ownership of the company to her.
It made her the first woman to own a major TV studio – and one that went on to produce several iconic television shows, including The Untouchables and Star Trek.