Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s real-life marriage was far from the one they shared onscreen.
Their daughter Lucie Arnaz is a second-generation TV star who also featured on her mom’s show at the young age of 11.
Lucie was married briefly in her twenties but found lasting love with an actor and writer.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz depicted the perfect couple, and later the ideal nuclear family, as the Ricardos in “I Love Lucy.” The classic six-season sitcom from 1951 to 1957 followed Lucille as Lucy Ricardo, a middle-class housewife who gets up to hijinks.
Behind the scenes, the former Broadway starlet and her Cuban bandleader husband had a volatile relationship. Following a six-month whirlwind romance after they met on the studio lot while filming “Too Many Girls,” they eloped in November 1940.
Just over a decade into their marriage, Lucille and Desi became parents to Lucie Arnaz on July 17, 1951. Desi’s name sake Desi Arnaz Jr. was born two years later on January 19, 1953.
Their children co-starred with their mother in the two spin-offs of the show that made the family a household name. Twenty years into their marriage, the creative duo got a divorce in May 1961.
In 2018, Lucie spoke to Closer about her parents’ relationship and subsequent divorce when she was nine. “They were fighting all the time when we were growing up. There was a lot of anger and screaming,” she said, adding:
“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. ”
The split was hard on Lucille, who felt guilty for shattering the American public’s perception of them. She remarried a year after her divorce to comedian Gary Morton.
Lucie Arnaz Followed Her Parents into the Entertainment Industry, but Did She Follow Their Example in Matters of the Heart?
In her early twenties, in 1971, Lucie tied the knot with “The Doctors” actor Philip Vandervort Menegaux. The marriage ended in divorce court five years later. Then she found lasting love with her second husband, actor and writer Laurence Luckinbill.
On June 22, 2023, Lucie celebrated her 43rd wedding anniversary to Laurence. In an Instagram post on that day, she remembered the last morning she woke up as a single woman on an apple farm in the coastal city of Kingston, New York.
Family and friends arrived on a “big yellow school bus.” The bride wore a “lovely cream crocheted gown” as her father walked her down the outdoor ceremony aisle. She continued:
“…[I] vowed to love Laurence Luckinbill till death us do part. 15,695 days, 5 kids, and three grandchildren later, I am proud to still say,’‘ I do.'”
The “Murder, She Wrote” actress paid tribute to her “kind, talented, adorable, wise, [and] sexy” husband’s 88th birthday a few months earlier in November 2022.
“What a catch! I love him so much,” she wrote in part alongside a photo of Laurence smiling with multiple hashtags including, “88 years young,’’ “treasure beyond measure,” and “men who inspire.”
In addition to two children from his previous marriage, Nicholas Luckinbill and Benjamin Luckinbill, Lucie and Laurence had two sons and a daughter together.
Simon Thomas Luckinbill was born in December 1980, Joseph Henry Luckinbill came along on New Year’s Eve 1982, and they welcomed Katharine Desirée Luckinbill on January 11, 1985.
Lucie has embraced her gray hair with a spunky pixie cut, à la Jame Lee Curtis, as she chases after her brood of grandchildren. The actress and her husband live in Palm Springs with most of their family nearby.
She bragged about hitting the “jackpot” on Grandparents Day 2019, having welcomed their first two grandchildren, JD Conner and Eliza Grace Luckinbill, within four weeks of each other. They have since grained more beautiful grandbabies.
Lucie became a second-generation television star on “The Lucy Show” at 11 opposite her mother, which she followed up with “Here’s Lucy.”
She played the title character in the TV movie “Who Is the Black Dahlia?” and led the short-lived comedy “The Lucie Arnaz Show” in 1985 as psychologist Dr. Jane Lucas.
The former child star has had guest starring parts in “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Fantasy Island,” “Law & Order,” and the reboot of “Will & Grace.” She was in “Smoking Nonsmoking” and “Down to You” too.
Behind the scenes, Lucie was credited as an executive producer on three projects related to her parents, “Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie,” ” I Love Lucy’s 50th Anniversary Special,” and ” Being the Ricardos,” and produced the documentary “The Desilu Story” in 2003.
She announced in June 2023 that she would do an encore of her cabaret act, “I Got The Job! Songs From My Musical Past,” at 54 Below in New York City, which she initially performed to a sold-out crowd before the pandemic.
While Lucie shares her family life on social media freely, her younger brother Desi Jr. keeps a low profile. His mom’s pregnancy with him was written into the show during the third season of “I Love Lucy,” and by fate, he was born on the evening the episode aired that Lucy Ricardo gave birth to ‘Little Ricky.’
As a youngster, Desi Arnaz Jr. developed identity issues from people referring to him as Little Ricky and began to feel competitive with the actor who played the part.
He struggled with drug and alcohol abuse from his teen years. At 15, he became a father to model Susan Howe, also 15. He was briefly married to actress Linda Purl between 1980 and 1981.
With the help of family and friends, the performer came clean and turned his life around. He married dancer Amy Arnaz from 1987 until she died in 2015. He adopted her daughter Haley Arnaz.
