Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television

Journalist Purdum follows up Something Wonderful with a scintillating biography of I Love Lucy costar Desi Arnaz (1917–1986). The future TV impresario grew up in Santiago, Cuba, where his father served as mayor before being exiled from the country over his connections to ousted president Gerardo Machado in the mid 1930s. Arnaz joined his father in Miami soon after and worked menial jobs before trying his hand as a bandleader, kick-starting a conga craze in Miami and New York clubs. He parlayed that success into a role in the 1940 film Too Many Girls, where he met his future wife and creative partner, Lucille Ball. Offering a heartbreaking account of their collaboration on I Love Lucy, Purdum explains that the show was conceived as a way to salvage their faltering marriage, which had been beset by Arnaz’s workaholism and infidelity, but succeeded only in exacerbating both problems; the pair divorced in 1960. Purdum celebrates Arnaz’s considerable achievements—which include pioneering the three-camera setup for sitcoms, filming in front of studio audiences, and syndicated reruns—without shortchanging his personal flaws. (In 1962, Arnaz’s debt and alcohol problems grew so severe he was effectively pushed out of the production studio he founded with Ball.) A vividly rendered tale of a TV tycoon’s spectacular rise and ignominious fall, this impresses. (June)