Marriages
Arnaz and Ball's marriage (1940) was turbulent. Convinced that Arnaz was being unfaithful to her, and also because he came home drunk several times, Ball filed for divorce in September 1944, but returned to him before the interlocutory decree became final. He and Ball are the parents of actress Lucie Arnaz (born 1951) and actor Desi Arnaz, Jr. (born 1953).
Arnaz's marriage with Ball began to collapse under the strain of his growing problems with alcohol and womanizing. According to his memoir, the combined pressures of managing the production company as well as supervising its day-to-day operations had greatly worsened as it grew much larger, and he felt compelled to seek outlets to alleviate the stress. Arnaz was also suffering from diverticulitis. Ball divorced him in 1960. When Ball returned to weekly television, she and Arnaz worked out an agreement regarding Desilu, wherein she bought him out.
Arnaz married his second wife, Edith Mack Hirsch, on March 2, 1963, and greatly reduced his show business activities. He served as executive producer of The Mothers-in-Law, and during its two-year run, made four guest appearances as a Spanish matador, SeƱor Delgado. Edith died in 1985.
Although both Arnaz and Ball remarried to other spouses after their divorce in 1960, they remained friends, and grew closer in his final decade. "'I Love Lucy' was never just a title", wrote Arnaz in the last years of his life. Family home movies later aired on television showed Ball and Arnaz playing together with their grandson Simon shortly before Arnaz's death.
Read more about this topic: Desi Arnaz
Famous quotes containing the word marriages:
“The happiest two-job marriages I saw during my research were ones in which men and women shared the housework and parenting. What couples called good communication often meant that they were good at saying thanks to one another for small aspects of taking care of the family. Making it to the school play, helping a child read, cooking dinner in good spirit, remembering the grocery list,... these were silver and gold of the marital exchange.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.”
—Joseph Addison (16721719)
“You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.”
—Bernard Devoto (18971955)