INTERVIEW WITH TODD PURDUM

By Elise Cooper | July 1, 2025

Uncategorized

Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television

Todd S Purdum

Simon & Schuster

June 3^rd, 2025

Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television by Todd S Purdum is a captivating biography. The book shows how he was a trailblazing Cuban American who helped to revolutionize television and its technology. Readers will learn about Desi’s personal and professional life including his family, the famous TV show “I Love Lucy,” and the studios.

Desi Arnaz is presented as a conflicted person. As a child his family went from being very affluent to owning nothing after the 1933 Cuban Revolution. Eventually, they came to America as refugees. By twenty, he had formed his own band and sparked the conga dance craze in America. He met Lucille Ball when they both were filming a movie. They fell madly in love, married, and eventually decided to work together on their TV show, “I Love Lucy” to salvage their faltering marriage.

Readers learn about his many achievements, including pioneering the three-camera setup for sitcoms, filming in front of studio audiences, and syndicated reruns. But unfortunately, he had faults that affected his marriage, including drinking too much and infidelity. In later life, both stayed in touch and never fell out of love with each other.

Anyone who has watched reruns of “I Love Lucy” will enjoy the tidbits and facts presented in this book. Readers will see Desi Arnaz in a different light from a television pioneer to a savvy businessman. A bonus is how the author intertwines the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz with the social, political, and cultural events of the time from the Communist Red Scare to Americans moving to the suburbs.

Elise Cooper: Why write about Desi Arnaz now?

Todd S. Purdum: I first started to pursue the idea about five years ago, a time when there was a re-examination of people who were under appreciated. During the pandemic I had lost my job, and a friend suggested I should write about Desi Arnaz. The more I investigated it, I realized people still regarded him as just Desi Ricardo. People did not understand all he had done to help create the early days of television. I hope I balanced the scales a little.

EC: Was he the brains and Lucille Ball the talent?

TSP: This is a very interesting way to put it. Yes, he was the brains, and she was the talent. I refer to the song in “Damn Yankees,” “a little brains, a little talent with an emphasis on the latter.” Desi knew that Lucy’s genius was the spark for the show. But Lucy gave Desi the credit of getting the show on the air, building the company, and expanding their empire as the largest producers of shows. They never again, before or after, did anything quite as amazing as what they did together. I would argue the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. There was something chemical in how they worked together.

EC: Who influenced each other more, her or him?

TSP: They influenced each other. She had faith in him, inspired him, and used her leverage with CBS to insist he be her co-star. She helped him get his foot in the door and he used his judgement to see her real talents. It was “I Love Lucy” that made her one of the biggest stars in the world, something never achieved in Hollywood. Somehow Desi knew she had an incredible gift for comedy and was able to get the show on the air by having them take the act on a vaudeville tour to prove to CBS that audiences would accept them as a married couple.

EC: Could there have been a Desi without Lucy, and vice versa?

TSP: Without Lucy Desi would have been a second-tier band leader. Without Desi Lucy would have been the queen of the B movies. What is wonderful about their story is what they gave to each other. Desi gave Lucy a foil to play against, a brilliant counter point, since he reacted to her. He was the eyes and ears of the show’s audience. It is Desi’s frustrations and exasperations that people identify with, more than Lucy’s adventures. She gave Desi a brilliant co-star that elevated him. He let her get the laughs and he was the set-up.

EC: Do you think the show is dated?

TSP: No. It has some feminism since Lucy is always complaining that being a housewife is not enough for her, and she wants something more. Usually, the episode ends up with her abandoning her ambitions. Sometimes she wins out. What makes the show enduring and not dated is that it was never political nor was there ever a discussion of current events. The show was about friendship, jealousy, regret, ambition, and love which never dies.

EC: Are other comedies influenced?

TSP: I think performers from Carol Burnett to Amy Poehler to Tina Fey are the heirs to Lucy’s comic sensibility. She paved the way to showing women could be funny. Although Lucy was not verbally funny and could never tell a joke. But she was funny when she could act out a story with physical moves and gestures. Her influence is very long lasting.

EC: What were Desi’s greatest achievements?

TSP: The decision to film on high quality 35 mm film so it still looks pristine. He also wanted to own the rights to the film, his own intellectual property, the foundation of his empire. His decision to use three cameras at once to record the comedy to get the action/reaction in the same moment, to capture the spontaneity.

EC: In the book you explain that Desi never wanted to speak about what happened to him in Cuba, which seems to me similar to the Holocaust victims?

TSP: He was like a person who survived the Holocaust with a very dramatic experience or those who were in war or combat. He saw his whole world burn down in front of his eyes. He felt real men did not share their feelings with strangers. It was bottled up and he had to find relief somewhere, maybe with his sexual compulsions and some in drinking. The one way he found a constructive outlet was his willingness to risk everything. Having experienced the worst, he became a risk taker. He looked at things and said why or why not. He had resolve to find ways around, never giving up.

EC: How would you describe him?

TSP: Charming, warm, and self-destructive. He had streaks of genius with a lot of forthright. He gave a quote that someday people will have a TV as big as the wall on their house. He was persistent and resourceful.

EC: What about the relationship between Lucy and Desi?

TSP: With the show he let Lucy be the star and shine. He was careful to give her the credit. But at home he was the dominant figure. They were opposites attracted to each other. They must have bonded in that both had struggles in their early life. They also had to support the care and feeding for their mothers. There was a spark between this dark exotic guy and this All-American girl. She had put up with his infidelity for ten years. I don’t think it was ever easy for her, and she never liked it, but she knew about it and put up with it. What crushed her was for it to be so public and it appeared like he was rubbing her face in it. But I think they truly loved each other very deeply from the very beginning. I do not think they ever stopped loving each other. He sent her flowers every year on her birthday. After they got divorced and a lot of tension passed, they had a very affectionate relationship.

EC: What do you want readers to get out of the book?

TSP: Talent comes in all shapes and sizes. There might be some future talent with people in our midst that we not aware of.