Born: March 2, 1917
Died: December 2, 1986

A musican, singer, songwriter, actor and television producer, Arnaz came to the US from Cuba when he was sixteen and became a professional bandleader of popular Latin music. He married actress Lucille_Ball in 1940 and, in 1951, costarred with her in their long-running and successful television series, I_Love_Lucy, in which he played the charming but long-suffering husband/straightman, Ricky Ricardo, a successful nightclub owner and entertainer. Arnaz insisted that the series be photographed on 35mm film at a time when syndicated reruns were a thing of the future and a TV show was lucky to even be preserved as a 16mm kinescope. He hired top Hollywood cinematographer Karl Freund for the job and supervised the entire making of the series through his and Ball's company, Desilu Productions. Arnaz appeared in several films with and without Ball up until 1960 when they were divorced and she bought out his interest in Desilu. In 1982 he came out of retirement to play a corrupt mayor and father to Raul_Julia in the film, The_Escape_Artist. He died of lung cancer in 1986. Bruce Lawton, Rovi

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