Desiderio Alberto Arnaz de Acha was born on March 2, 1917 in Santiago , Cuba , to Desiderio Arnaz II and Dolores de Acha. Desi spent most of his young life in Cuba , living a very rural life. He milked cows, swam, fished, went sail boating � all those very storybook-esque pastimes. His father was the mayor of Santiago , so they were always very well-provided for and had two residences, along with three farms. They had a Spanish-Colonial style home at Santiago , and a summer home at Cayo Smith, �a small island in Santiago Bay �Cayo Smith looks like a little mountain thrusting itself out of the water.� 11 This was Desi's favorite place.
Desi's peaceful life was shattered in 1933. Before this, the two biggest problems for him had been an earthquake that hit when he was 15 that destroyed surprisingly little, and his first failed sexual experience at 12 (involving a changing room and the cook's daughter, and culminating in him diving from a high window into the ocean to try and avoid detection). But the Cuban Revolution of 1933 was a far more serious upset. The anarchists and Bolsheviks attacked any and everyone connected with Machado, arresting political leaders and burning buildings. Desi's family was forced to flee their home and hide with a friend who was a member of the ABC. When they were able to return home, everything had been ransacked. Anything that could be destroyed was, and anything of value was taken. Even all of their animals were killed. His father was arrested and in prison for six months, and once he was out he moved to Miami , Florida , as Cuba was no longer safe for him. Desi followed shortly after, in 1934.
Once in Miami , Desi eventually finished high school at 19, and polished his English. Back in Cuba , he had gotten very high grades in the subject, but upon coming to the US , he discovered his class was almost completely useless. A few days after he had moved to Florida and rejoined his father, he went out for dinner alone to try and get a feel for the city. He found a nice place, and was promptly sorry. He sat down, and a waitress came over and asked what he wanted. He described the situation as �She said something that sounded like �Areyouabouttoorderyourdinnernow?' That's the trouble with a foreign language, you see; nobody stops in between words. She could have said �AreyougoingtositthereallthefuckingnightorareyouabouttoorderyourdinneryousillylookingCuban?' And I wouldn't have known the difference�I pointed to four different lines of the menu and wound up with four different kinds of soups, which I ate or drank, or whatever the hell you call it, as if this were what I normally ordered for dinner.� 12
Desi worked a few odd jobs before getting into show business. He and his father had an import business that started with building materials (ceramic tiles from Mexico ) and moved to bananas (until the second shipment came in completely rotten) and then back to tiles. But this time, they needed a way to sell all the broken pieces of tile they had leftover from the business originally. They managed to convince a local builder that the random mosaic style was the way it was done in Cuba , and soon the trend caught on and they had to buy new tiles and break them themselves. After that, he worked for a friend who owned canaries that he put in shops around town, and Desi's job was to make the rounds of them, cleaning out the cages.
Desi managed to land a job with a small rumba band, the Siboney Septet, in the winter of 1936. He was there for a few months before he was discovered by Xavier Cugat, who was the �king of rumba� at the time. 13 He moved to New York and worked with Cugat for six months before quitting, as Cugat was paying him so little he had to steal food from the hotels they played in to keep from going hungry. Desi credits Cugat with teaching him �about how music should be played, how it should be presented, what the American people like to dance to, but also how to handle the band, the rehearsals, the salaries, and the angles of the band business.� 14 He worked at a bar in Miami and gained a lot of success by introducing the conga in a moment of panic one night when he realized how terrible his band was. When that job ended, he got a gig at a club called La Conga. It was there he was noticed by Richard Rogers and Larry Hart, the best musical-comedy writing team at the time, who got him involved with the Broadway production of �Too Many Girls,� which opened in New York on October 14, 1939. During the productions, he was still working at La Conga, meaning he did the conga routine five times a day.
Eventually, RKO bought the rights to the play and turned it into a movie, and Desi was signed on. It was on this set that he met future wife and business partner, Lucille Ball. They married on November 30, 1940. Desi went on to do a few more films, the most notable of which is �Bataan .� His touching death scene won him a Photoplay Award for the best performance of the month, which he was very proud of.
Shortly after the film, in May of 1943, Desi was called into the military. He applied for the Air Force, but due to injuries he had suffered to both of his knees, he didn't pass the physical. Instead they assigned him to the infantry, which was �a nice place to be with two goddamn torn cartilages.� 15 He stayed in the US , eventually becoming a Staff Sergeant working in the psychiatry ward in Birmingham Hospital in San Fernando Valley in 1944. On November 16, 1945, he was discharged from service.
After his service, Desi made another few B-rate movies. He also got back into performing, although his �little rumba band� had grown considerably in size. Then, in 1951, Lucy and Desi formed the Desilu production company and created the wildly popular television show, �I Love Lucy.� Originally it was going to be about the couple and their exact relationship, but that idea was tossed when it was realized most of the audience wouldn't be able to identify, so instead they chose to draw on the more universal themes of regular people, marriage and its problems, battle of the sexes, things like that. The show ran for six years, spawned a sequel and a plethora of merchandise. It was notable for being the first show to be shot on film, instead of RKO, and for having a more politically correct view of humor � the only ethnic jokes were about Ricky's accent and those only came from Lucy. No comments about physical or mental defects, or ethnicity were allowed.
After �I Love Lucy,� Desi went on to do the sequel, �The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour� until 1960. He also hosted the �Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse� from 1958 until 1960. He was on �The Mothers-in-Law� for two years, from 1967 until 1969. He then dropped out of acting to focus more on production and directing, until his last role in �The Escape Artist� in 1982.
In 1986, Desi was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was in and out of the hospital for the rest of year, receiving chemotherapy. The only people he allowed to see him, nearly bald and weighing very little from the treatment, were Lucy and his daughter Lucie. He passed away on December 2, 1986. He will always be remembered for his charm, his charisma, and his talent.