Lucie Arnaz Is Working On A Film To Depict The Real Life Behind ‘I Love Lucy’

“The CD was not so much a tribute show,” said Lucie. “The CD has three or four of my dad’s songs, but most of it is American music with a Latin seasoning – like Dad used to do, oddly enough. But then, when ‘Babalu’ didn’t fly all the way (to Broadway), I said, ‘Let’s take that and meld that and make this.’”

The result is the “Latin Roots” show she’s bringing to the McCallum with a 12-piece band. She’s adding “I Love Lucy” clips because “people really want to know what it was like.

“The Babalu show is a celebration of Desi Arnaz and his music,” Lucie explained. “It told the story of how this guy lost everything in the revolution, came here, introduced the conga to the United States and became this Latin sensation and changed the face of television. He influenced Latin music because suddenly that music was on television and they weren’t afraid of that jungle rhythm as much they were.

Lucie Arnaz has an extensive collection of cassette tapes with recordings of her past concerts, Palm Springs, Calif., March 7, 2018.

“The Latin Roots show is a tip of the straw hat, if you will, to my dad because, if it hadn’t been for the inspiration of that music and him in my life, I don’t think I’d be able to get up and do what I do. But, I can honor him with his music and take it down the next generation and it becomes my music. I introduce myself as Lucie Desirée Arnaz y Ball because I like that in Latin they always use both parents’ names for the child. It reminds you-you’re a product of this variety of soils, and it’s nice to be reminded of all of that.

“So, now I’m at a point in my life where I feel it’s kind of nice to reminisce about it in a gratitude way.”

Spiritual practice

Lucie’s husband, writer-actor Laurence Luckinbill, also credits their emphasis on family and Unity Church principles for getting them to look back with gratitude.

They were both acclaimed Broadway actors when they met in 1979. Luckinbill had just been nominated for a Tony for “The Shadow Box” and Lucie was on her way to winning an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Talent in the Neil Simon-Marvin Hamlisch musical, “They’re Playing Our Song.”

Luckinbill had also starred on Broadway in “A Man For All Seasons” and “Tartuffe,” and off-Broadway in the groundbreaking “Boys in the Band,” which he also did on film.

Like most Broadway actors, the Luckinbills also made film and TV appearances. Lucie, who had been a series regular on her mother’s “Here’s Lucy” in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, got her own TV series, “The Lucie Arnaz Show” in 1985. Luckinbill was nominated for an Emmy in 1987 for a PBS version of his one-man stage show, “Lyndon Johnson.” He’s doing a new one-man play, “The Abraham and Larry Show,” based on the book of Genesis (slated June 10 at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs).

But they married in 1980 and put family ahead of career. They had three children to go with Laurence’s two kids from a previous marriage.

“We’ve both spent a lot of time throttling our egos,” said Luckinbill. “We made a decision a long time ago to back off from big show business because of the children. We moved out of L.A. and went back to Katonah, New York, lived in the country away from the city and that had a huge effect on my movie presence. When you get out of position in the movie trade, you’re done. It’s very hard to get back.

“There were times in our marriage where I was jealous of her and she was jealous of me. We were both stepping back for the kids, but, when the phone rang, we busted each others’ elbows to get to the phone, hoping it was my agent or her agent giving us a job. And yet, the transition has been to be a husband, to be a father, to be a writer, and I am just so completely enamored of her. She deserves every support that comes to her because she is such an amazing human being.”

Luckinbill, 83, said it didn’t bother him that a photographer was taking pictures of his wife as he toiled in his office, writing his memoir in longhand. But he said he worked at it.

A poster from “They’re Playing our Song” hangs on the wall of a hallway in Lucie Arnaz’s Palm Springs home, March 7, 2018.

“We fell into the Unity movement, which is an old American partition of spiritual health,” Luckinbill said – “the Daily Word and all that, which really supported us and our ideas that we’re not special. Both of us have lots of posters and awards, but that doesn’t make us special. There are actors out there who think that makes them special because they need the support. The ego support. I’m trying to kill my ego. You never get rid of it, but, it’s in conflict with the larger spiritual part of you that is the free part of you.”

As busy as the Luckinbills are with their careers, family and local involvements, they realize they’re blessed to be less busy than Lucie’s parents when they were raising children, producing and starring in TV shows, and running the Desilu Studio.