A new biography is revealing fresh details about the complicated romance between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz - including how they both left other relationships to be together and once divorced so briefly that a judge invalidated the breakup.
Todd S. Purdum describes the couple’s unconventional courtship in his book Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television. Ball and Arnaz met while filming the musical comedy Too Many Girls, but both were already in relationships at the time.
Ball was engaged to director Al Hall. Arnaz was dating dancer Renee De Marco.
Their first night out together was “chaste,” according to Purdum’s book. The reason? Arnaz’s girlfriend was arriving in town that same night.
But everything changed at a weekend party in Malibu.
“That weekend, Desi took Freckles to Eddie Bracken’s rented beach house in Malibu, where he spotted Lucille. She patted the sand beside her and asked him to sit down. ‘I sat down and never went back to Freckles,’ Desi recalled.”
Ball and Arnaz spent that night together at her apartment. The next day, both ended their previous relationships.
“Lucille called Al Hall to tell him she would have someone collect her belongings from his house, and Desi called De Marco to confess that he couldn’t explain it but had fallen in love with Lucille,” Purdum writes.
The couple married in 1940. But their relationship was turbulent from the start, with frequent fights and Arnaz’s affairs causing problems.
By summer 1944, Ball had enough. She filed for divorce after four years of marriage and left their shared ranch in Chatsworth, California.
An Unlikely Living Arrangement
Ball then made a surprising choice about where to stay during the divorce proceedings.
“After filing for the divorce, Lucy escaped from the loneliness of the ranch for a time. Incredible as it may seem, she went to live with Desi’s old girlfriend, Renee De Marco,” Purdum writes.
De Marco had remarried dancer Jody Hutchinson by then. She was living in Hollywood and had become Ball’s friend.
The divorce was set to be finalized in November 1944. Just one day before Ball was supposed to appear in court, Arnaz called her. He invited her to a farewell dinner in Beverly Hills.
The evening went well. The two “wound up in bed,” according to Purdum.
A Morning Rush to Court
The next morning brought chaos. Ball woke up in a panic.
“Oh, my God, I’m late,” she told her estranged husband.
“Where are you going?” Arnaz asked.
“I told you, I’m divorcing you this morning,” Ball replied. She said she had to “go through with it” because the press had gathered at the courthouse.
What happened next was almost comical.
Ball went to court as planned. She got the divorce decree from the judge. Then she came right back and joined Arnaz in bed again.
This sequence of events invalidated their breakup under California law. The state had a one-year period banning cohabitation after a provisional decree.
“Cuddled together, they read the afternoon papers announcing their split,” Purdum writes. “After that, they went back to their Desilu ranch - and Desi started coming home on the weekends.”
The couple would go on to create the groundbreaking TV show I Love Lucy and form the production company Desilu Productions. They had two children together before eventually divorcing for real in 1960.
Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television is now available from Simon & Schuster.
