Lucille Ball had another name in mind for her daughter, Lucie Arnaz.
According to a new memoir by Todd S. Purdum, Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television, Ball had picked out two names for the couple’s future children: "Susan and Desi Jr.," per letters the comedienne reportedly wrote and signed to her then-husband, Desi Arnaz.
Ball experienced multiple miscarriages early in her marriage, and doctors later discovered a fallopian tube had been accidentally closed during treatment. After correcting the issue, she became pregnant in 1950, and welcomed the couple's first child via cesarean section on July 17, 1951. But when their daughter arrived, there was a different penned on the birth certificate—unbeknownst to Ball.
"Thrilled to be a mother at last, Lucy asked to see the newborn the moment her anesthesia wore off. 'I want to see Susan!' she told the nurse, using the name she believed that she and Desi had agreed on if the baby was a girl, after Lucy’s good friend, the young actress Susan Peters, who had been paralyzed from the waist down in a duck-shooting accident," wrote Purdum. "'You mean Lucie?' the nurse replied. Without consulting her, Desi had already written Lucie Desiree on the birth certificate, naming the little girl for her mother and maternal grandmother. Lucy was surprised but didn't make a fuss. The name was, after all, a compliment she could hardly resist."
Ball would later give birth to their son in January 1953, using the name Ball had chosen in her letters, Desi Jr.
Desi Jr.'s birth was the most notable of the two, with his arrival made part of I Love Lucy in perhaps some of the most memorable episodes of the show.
Both Lucie, 73, and Desi Jr., 72, spoke to Purdum for his book and offered insight into their parents' often toxic relationship.
While many knew them as the beloved TV couple who made them laugh week in and week out, what went on when the cameras went down was hardly comical.
"It wasn't good for anyone," Desi Jr. recalled of his parents' dynamic, with the stars going on to divorce in 1960 after 20 years of marriage. "And we'll always remember when they sat us down and said, 'Look, you know, things aren't working.' I mean, I remember word for word."
Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television is available now.
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