Oh, how I love Lucy. So how cool is it that at next Saturday's TV Land Awards, "The Legacy of Laughter Award" will be given to the late Lucille Ball? Her two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. will be on hand in Santa Monica to accept the award which will be presented by Carol Burnett, a close family friend.
While "I Love Lucy" is the show that is the classic that lives on and on (thank God!), Miss Ball followed it up with two long-running sitcoms: "The Lucy Show" which ran 1962-68 then "Here's Lucy" which ran from 1968-74. The reason she revamped the show in 1968 and changed her character from Lucy Carmichael to Lucy Carter was simple: she wanted to give the Arnaz children their start in show business.
Desi Jr. was a teen idol right off the bat as Craig Carmichael and he was also in a popular band with one of Dean Martin's son (I think it was called Billy, Dino and Desi). He went on to star in various films like "Red Sky at Morning," "Joyride," and "Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones" and played his father, Desi Arnaz Sr., in the film "The Mambo Kings." He was a gossip magazine fave due to his high-profile romances with Oscar-winners Patty Duke and Liza Minnelli.
But Desi Jr. has not been as consistently committed to his show business career as his big sister who stayed with her mother's sitcom all six seasons then went on to star on Broadway in "They're Playing Our Song," "Lost n Yonkers," and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and on London's West End" in "Witches of Eastwick." Lucie also had her own sitcom "The Lucie Arnaz Show" for a season in the mid-80s and co-starred in the films "The Jazz Singer" and "Billy Jack Goes to Washington." She has always worked and clearly inherited her mom's hard-work ethic.
Boith Lucie and Desi Jr. have embraced their parent's legacy and, I think, would have made them proud.