Raj Tawney

Freelance writer

Generation after generation, Americans continue to remember Desi Arnaz as Lucille Ball’s lovable Latin bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo in arguably the greatest television show in history, “I Love Lucy.” But he was so much more.

In recent years, popular films, including Being the Ricardos (2021) and Lucy and Desi (2022), as well as a Google Doodle nod, have taken a closer look into the man who loved Lucy. Although the sitcom was merely a fictional portrayal based on their actual lives as a married couple, their geographical origins were truthful: Ball was originally from Jamestown, New York, now home to the National Comedy Center and Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum, and Arnaz was a refugee from Cuba. Though both Ball and Arnaz have stars on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, where they lived and worked for most of their adult lives, there is no other dedication to Arnaz in the United States that celebrates his origins, and little is known about his early years spent in Miami after he arrived in 1934.

That’s finally about to change.

Desi Arnaz Hollywood Walk of Fame star
Both Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz have stars on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. Bookkeeperoftheoccult via Wikipedia under CC BY 4.0

On October 15—the final day of National Hispanic Heritage Month and the anniversary of the first airing of “I Love Lucy”—the City of Miami Beach will erect a marker in Collins Park in honor of Arnaz’s historic performance at the Park Avenue Restaurant that launched his career in 1937 as well as a nationwide conga craze.

The idea for the marker began when Florida writer, lecturer and “I Love Lucy” fan Gary McKechnie became fascinated by Arnaz’s life while researching naturalization ceremonies for his 2009 book USA 101: A Guide to America’s Iconic Places, Events and Festivals. After learning about the entertainer’s complicated plight as a refugee, McKechnie began giving lectures on Arnaz and became engrossed in the Cuban American’s life. “In [my lecture], I show a television clip of Desi, who breaks into tears as he recalls how this nation provided him with opportunities no other country could offer,” he says. “I’d cry each time I saw it. Then, after reading his autobiography, which reminded me of his extraordinary life and legacy, I wondered why there wasn’t a tribute to Desi.”

So, in 2022, McKechnie submitted a proposal to the Florida Historical Marker Council, which has bestowed about 1,200 markers throughout the state, largely recognizing sites or events related to military, political, archeological and architectural history. His proposal was unanimously approved, and he designed and launched the websites ThankYouDesiArnaz.com (in English) and GraciasDesiArnaz.com (in Spanish) to drum up public awareness. He began working with the City of Miami Beach and its Hispanic Affairs Committee, which supported his efforts. The marker will be installed in Collins Park, where the Park Avenue Restaurant once stood and where the Miami City Ballet stands today.

“Honoring Desi Arnaz, a trailblazer in entertainment, with a historic marker in Miami Beach during Hispanic Heritage Month carries immense significance,” says Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner. “This dedication goes beyond a mere tribute—it is a celebration of Arnaz’s transformative impact on the arts, television and Miami Beach itself.” Commissioner and Vice Mayor Alex J. Fernandez adds, “As a Cuban American, this moment holds special meaning for me, as it is a testament to the achievements of our Hispanic community and a reminder of the incredible influence we have had—and continue to have—on American culture.”

Arnaz’s journey from Cuba to Miami to stardom was anything but ordinary. Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III—a.k.a. Desi Arnaz—was born into affluence and nobility in Santiago de Cuba in 1917. The Arnaz family’s political roots dated back generations, and his grandfather was also an executive at Bacardí. When the Cuban Revolution of 1933 began, however, Desi’s comfortable life changed forever. His father, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y Alberni II, mayor of Santiago, was imprisoned, and their home was raided by rioters. Desi and his mother barely escaped and soon found themselves homeless before fleeing to Miami in search of asylum, where they eventually reunited with his father.

While in Miami, Desi cleaned canary cages and helped his dad lay tile in luxury homes along Miami Beach while sleeping on cots in a rat-infested warehouse. A family friend was able to enroll the teenager in a prep school, where he improved his English and developed an interest in music. While playing guitar and singing for a local rumba band, Siboney Septet, including at the Roney Plaza Hotel, he was discovered by popular bandleader Xavier Cugat, who invited him to join his orchestra.

In 1937, after touring the U.S. with Cugat, Arnaz set out on his own and returned to Miami Beach, where he talked his way into a gig at the new Park Avenue Restaurant on Collins Avenue and 23rd Street, where the Miami City Ballet currently stands. He asked Cugat to send him musicians from New York, but when the mostly Jewish and Italian accompanists arrived, they didn’t know how to play any rumba songs. On opening night, December 30, 1937, their first set was a disaster, and the club’s owner, Bobby Kelly, fired them on the spot, but union rules forced the club to commit to a two-week engagement. In between sets, Arnaz, desperate for a new idea, recalled how the rhythmic conga lines back in Santiago were so popular that crowds would drink rum and dance to the Afro-Cuban beat, pouring into the streets, kicking feet and flailing arms till the sun rose.

Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz, 1970 Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

In what he remembered as “My Dance of Desperation” in his 1976 autobiography A Book, Arnaz told his band to follow his lead as he hit his conga drum to the beat “boom-boom-boom-BOOM” while he introduced “la conga” to the unknowing audience, instructing them to gather behind him with a “one … two … three … KICK” body movement. As he jumped up onto the bar, danced and beat his drum, the entire club rose to their feet and followed in rhythm as he led them around. The conga dance craze that would soon sweep the U.S. had arrived. Arnaz kept his job and recalled how he would lead guests out of the side door and into Miami’s streets. Kelly even changed the name of the club to La Conga, and the buzz spread throughout the city, then the country, with Arnaz at the helm.

Arnaz soon attracted the attention of songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, who cast him in their new Broadway musical Too Many Girls, a romantic comedy about a reckless heiress who enrolls in her father’s alma mater in New Mexico, where four charming college football players are hired as bodyguards to protect the wealthy, attractive transfer student. Arnaz played Manuelito Lynch, one of the hunks who also happened to sing and beat the conga drum. Stage success in New York led to a movie adaptation by RKO Pictures where director George Abbott dramatically recreated the stage version of the conga craze Arnaz originally started. In a New York Times review upon its release, critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “Mr. Arnaz is a noisy, black-haired Latin whose face, unfortunately, lacks expression and whose performance is devoid of grace.” The film was a commercial and critical flop, but perhaps more importantly, it introduced Arnaz to his co-star Lucille Ball. Even before filming began, the two quickly fell in love, despite both actors being in relationships with other people at the time. The couple would elope in 1940. Eleven years later, “I Love Lucy” premiered on CBS, and they would become one of pop culture’s most iconic couples for decades to follow.

And to think, the whole thing almost didn’t happen. Following the success of the CBS radio program “My Favorite Husband,” of which Ball was the star, from 1948 to 1951, there was an opportunity to adapt it to the budding medium of television. However, instead of her radio husband Richard Denning, Ball requested Arnaz play her TV husband. After all, they’d been married for a decade. Since movie roles dried up for both, Arnaz was on the road with his Desi Arnaz Orchestra while Ball jumped from B-movies to radio. She saw working together once again as an opportunity to save their marriage. The network initially rejected the idea, as they thought Americans wouldn’t believe a white woman was married to a Cuban man. The idea of an interracial marriage was taboo at the time and illegal in some states. To prove them wrong, Ball and Arnaz took a live demonstration on the road to various cities to test out material, using the show’s head writers, Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. Audiences adored the couple. Executives were convinced. Arnaz was in.

Having sold the concept of “I Love Lucy” without knowing anything about creating television, Arnaz enthusiastically took the reins of the newly formed Desilu Productions and courageously made decisions that would shape the industry for years to come, including inventing the three-camera setup for sitcoms that is still used today. Arnaz asked to shoot using 35-millimeter film, rather than the lesser-quality kinescope. When CBS refused, Arnaz and Ball took pay cuts in exchange for owning the show’s master tapes. Thanks to this bold move, Arnaz was able to introduce the remunerative concept of syndication, and “I Love Lucy” reruns look pristine even today.

Desilu would go on to buy out RKO Pictures—where Arnaz and Ball were former contract players—in 1957 for $6 million and produce legendary hit series, including “Star Trek,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Untouchables.” The company also gave unknown actors and writers opportunities to hone their talent through the “Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse” television program, which Arnaz hosted for a time. Rod Serling wrote “The Time Element” episode, for instance, which spawned “The Twilight Zone” on CBS the following year.

Today, Arnaz is mainly remembered as a conga-playing Cuban with an often-mocked accent who was scrutinized for his infidelity and alcohol problem, which led to his divorce from Ball in 1960. Our culture sometimes disregards him as a punchline and an antique of the midcentury “Latin lover” fad, satirized in films like 1994’s The Mask, starring Jim Carrey, who exaggeratedly dressed up and sang like Arnaz. In reality, however, Arnaz was anything but a joke.

In the early ’90s, I gathered with my parents and grandma each evening to watch reruns of “I Love Lucy” on Nick at Nite. Though the show was 40 years old at that point, and all four stars had died, we laughed as if the episodes were brand new. During commercials, my grandma Elsie shared stories of seeing the show when it first aired in the ’50s, as she and her friends gathered in one neighbor’s tiny apartment (the only one who owned a TV set) in their South Bronx apartment building and roared with laughter. She also confided in me how Ball and Arnaz’s union wasn’t too different from her marriage to my grandpa Anthony. Although she was of Puerto Rican descent and he was Italian American, they crossed cultural boundaries for the sake of love, marrying in 1957. I wrote about those conversations with my grandma in my memoir Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience so I’d never forget those moments in front of the TV that meant so much to me.

Little Ricky and Little Raj
Little Ricky (left) and Little Raj (right) Courtesy of Raj Tawney

The character of Ricky Ricardo also helped me appreciate my own father, who is Indian American, as both men had a thick accent and weren’t shy about being humorous and loud. As a boy, I’d sometimes don a bow tie while the show was playing and pretend I was Little Ricky. In my family, “I Love Lucy” was never just a TV show—it was an heirloom passed down to me.

Like many viewers, including McKechnie, I still enjoy escaping into the black-and-white world Lucy and Ricky inhabited, visiting with them like old friends, and feeling connected to the past. Watching the season four episode “Ricky’s Movie Offer,” I still get giddy at the thought of Ricky being considered for Hollywood stardom—and I love how the ensuing episodes allow us to come along for the ride, from New York to California, and peek in on the glamour (and calamity) of it all.

I walked past Collins Park recently on a break from my Writer’s Room residency at the Betsy Hotel in South Beach—a literary treasure of which I feel honored to be a guest. There’s no resemblance to Arnaz’s time, but this new historic marker will remind current and new generations just how special Arnaz was to Miamians, as well as all Americans, and how his journey may continue to inspire us. It may sound ridiculous, but I wouldn’t be who I am if not for Desi Arnaz, for many reasons.

“I hope in some small way this effort on my part returns the favor for his contributions to the nation,” says McKechnie. “That in him young people discover an inspirational role model and that his story reminds everyone that America was, and remains, a land of opportunity for people around the world.”

The dedication ceremony will be held in Collins Park on October 15 beginning at 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public. Details will be available soon at MiamiBeachFL.gov.

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Raj Tawney

Raj Tawney is a writer and journalist whose work largely reflects his multiracial American upbringing. Born to an Indian, Puerto Rican and Italian American family, Tawney has explored his identity and family history through personal essays published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine, USA Today and other outlets throughout the country. His debut memoir, Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience, received critical acclaim. His middle grade novel All Mixed Up is due on October 28, 2024, National Immigrants Day.