Lucille Ball's Daughter Starred on "Here's Lucy." See Lucie Arnaz at 70.
And find out what she thinks about the new biopic about her parents, Being the Ricardos.
Lucille Ball's biggest contribution to TV history was I Love Lucy, but she also starred on another show that included her real life family members. After starring with husband Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy, Ball went on to act with her two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. on Here's Lucy. By this point in their lives, Ball and Arnaz had divorced, and on Here's Lucy, she played a widow with two teenage kids. Both Lucie and Desi Jr. remained in show business after the series, and at 70, Ball's daughter has acted on TV, in films, on stage, and in her own touring show. She's also involved with controlling her parents' estate and has commented on the new biopic about them, Being the Ricardos. Read on to find out more about Lucie's life now.
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Starring in Here's Lucy wasn't exactly her choice.
Lucie got her showbiz start appearing with her mother in various episodes of The Lucy Show. Then, she took on a bigger role in Here's Lucy from 1968 to 1974. As she explained in 2013 to Smashing Interviews, she wanted to go to college to study theater, but her mother convinced her to stay and do the series for a worrisome reason. "I think she was scared if I went to college, I'd get shot because it was the year of Kent State," Arnaz said. "I'm not kidding. She literally put us on the show so we wouldn't get shot. [laughs] It's funny, but when I think about it now, that's what happened." In 1970, four Kent State students were killed by the Ohio National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War.
She still loves performing live.
Lucie has appeared in movies and TV shows including The Jazz Singer, Fantasy Island, Sons and Daughters, and her own series, The Lucie Arnaz Show, but performing live is her biggest passion. She has appeared in Broadway productions and also toured her own shows.
"I went back out to Los Angeles and did a little television work, but what really happened when I was there was that I put together a nightclub act, and it was like it was just meant to be," she told Smashing Interviews of the time after Here's Lucy. "It was like it was just waiting for me all this time like, 'Oh you finally got here! Well geez, it took you long enough!' It's just where I love to be. I love to be on stage in front of a big band doing great arrangements."
Her current live show is called I Got the Job! Songs from My Musical Past.
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She helps run her parents' estate.
In a 2020 interview with Closer, Lucie explained that while the estate doesn't own I Love Lucy episodes, it does own the "images and likenesses Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz." She also said that she wasn't thrilled to take on the business side of her family legacy at first but realized the importance of doing it right because companies want to put her parents' faces on all sorts of things.
"My father died in '86, my mother died in '89, so we've been doing this for a while now and finally treat it like a business, because it's not going away," Lucie said. "So, you treat it like a business. It's a prime piece of real estate that my brother and I have to protect and make sure it's still got some class to it."
She approves of the new movie about her parents.
Being the Ricardos, which dramatizes the lives of Ball and Arnaz during the time they were making I Love Lucy, premiered in December. The film is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin and stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. Lucie praised the movie in a video posted to her Instagram account.
"I finally saw it. It's freakin' amazing," she said. "[Sorkin] captured the essence of that time in their lives so well. He captured the heart of my mother, my father, their relationship." Lucie was particularly impressed with Kidman. "Nicole Kidman became my mother's soul," she said. "She crawled into her head. I don't know how you do that. She cared very deeply about this part, it shows."
She has a family of her own.
Lucie has three children with her second and current husband, actor Laurence Luckinbill. While talking to Smashing Interviews, she commented on how happy she is that her mom got to be with her grandchildren before she passed.
"She got to see the first shows I did, and then she died in April 1989," Lucie said. "We were living out in LA at the time, so it was nice because she had a chance to spend more time with my kids and see the show and all that. She loved it. She thought it was great that I was doing that."
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