We think of Lucille Ball as the queen of television -after all, she had four TV series with her name in the title. But before I Love Lucy, she was a model, a dancer, and a movie actress. In the 1940s, she had a hit radio show called My Favorite Husband. Television was in its infancy, no one knew for sure whether it would take off. CBS wanted Lucy to try a television series, which she considered to be a step down.
However, Lucy's husband Desi Arnaz was a bandleader who was off on tour most of the time, and was famous for cavorting with women on the road. Theirs was a volatile relationship, and she'd already tried to divorce him once. If she could get Arnaz a role on the TV show, he'd have to quit touring. CBS didn't think much of Arnaz, and they didn't think American viewers would take to her being married to a "foreigner." But the network executives valued Lucy enough to agree to all kinds of demands to get her on the small screen. Read how Lucy got her way at Cracked.
(Image credit: TV Guide)
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