Lucy and Ricky Ricardo

Lucy Ricardo (née Lucille Esmeralda McGillicuddy) and Ricky Ricardo (who gives his full name in the episode "Hollywood Anniversary" as Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha, although when Lucy later calls him by his full name in the episode "Lucy Raises Tulips", she gives "Enrique" as his first name and appends "III" to the end: Enrique Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha III^[6]) are fictional characters from the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, portrayed respectively by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Ricky is a character very similar to Arnaz himself, a Cuban-American bandleader whose trademark song is "Babalu". Red-haired Lucy is his wife, who always gets into trouble and is usually caught at it by Ricky. Lucy's full name is given in the episodes "The Marriage License," "Fred and Ethel Fight," and "The Passports". Ricky's is given in "Lucy Raises Tulips" (1957). They have a son Ricky Ricardo, Jr., also called "Little Ricky", portrayed by child actor Richard Keith, whose stage name on the series is his character's name, Little Ricky. The Ricardos appear, as well, in The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.

I Love Lucy

Early life

Much like Lucille Ball herself, Lucy McGillicuddy was born and raised in Jamestown, New York (or West Jamestown per episode #138), to an American family of Scottish descent. In one episode in which she was asked her birthday has her giving it as August 6th, though in typical fashion for her she refused to give the year, but in another where she's forced to tell the truth has her saying she was 33 years old-the episode aired during the third season in 1953, indicating she was born in 1920. Her parents are never referred to by name, and only her mother (portrayed by Kathryn Card) is seen over the course of the series. No other family is even mentioned, except for a passing reference to her grandmother being Swedish. In grammar school, she played a petunia in a recital. In high school, she was involved in the drama program, wherein she studied with Miss Hanna and played Juliet Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. She also played the saxophone in high school (as did the real Lucy), though every song she played sounded like "The Glow-Worm." Lucy also knows how to play the ukulele. She is seen playing a ukulele in episodes "Ricky Loses His Voice", "Don Juan is Shelved", and "Little Ricky Gets Stage Fright".

A reference to Lucille's attendance at an unnamed junior college is made in the episode "Fan Magazine Interview" (1954); Jamestown Community College, the nearest junior college to Lucy's hometown, did not exist until 1950, although a business college and nursing school did exist in the city at the time.

Marriage

When she was 22, Lucy was set up on a blind date by her friend Marion Strong. Her blind date turned out to be a Cuban conga drummer, Ricky Ricardo. The two fell in love and eventually got married at the Byram River Beagle Club in Connecticut. An alternate scenario given to guest star Hedda Hopper in the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episode "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana," with Lucy and friend Susie McNamara (Ann Sothern), is that Lucy met Ricky while vacationing in Cuba in 1940.

In the early 1940s, Lucy and Ricky moved into an old reconverted brownstone apartment at 623 East 68th Street in New York City (references made during the series date the move to 1940 or 1943). The apartment rented for $105 per month. Their landlords (soon to be best friends) were Fred and Ethel Mertz.

Lucy and Ethel quickly became best friends, even though Ethel was many years older than Lucy. Upon moving to the city, Ricky ended up getting a job headlining the Club Tropicana where they were held over indefinitely. To Lucy, Ricky's career and days seemed so much more exciting than her days of cooking and cleaning. She desperately wanted to be a star and constantly tried to get into Ricky's act. Ricky wanted his wife to stay home and complete her homemaking duties. However, in spite of Ricky's reluctance and usual refusal to give her a part, Lucy usually found a way into the show.

Birth of Little Ricky

In 1952, after going to the doctor complaining of feeling "dauncey" (a word her grandmother made up; Lucy's definition of feeling "dauncey" is when you're not really sick but just feel lousy) and gaining weight, she learns that she is pregnant. It is actually Ethel who first suggests to Lucy she may be expecting, even before Lucy heads out to the doctor. Lucy is very excited to tell her husband the exciting news. The Mertzes learn the news first and are sworn to secrecy. When she was younger, Lucy had envisioned how she would tell her husband they were going to have a baby. She decides to tell Ricky when he comes home for lunch that afternoon. However, with repeated interruptions from the telephone and the Mertzes, she is unable. She tries to tell him down at his club during rehearsals, but is uncomfortable telling him such a personal thing in front of his band, so she runs out crying. Finally, that evening, while Ricky is performing, Lucy pens a note and passes it to the maître d'hotel. He gives the note to Ricky. Ricky reads the note, which alludes to a wife's needing to tell her husband they were having a baby, during one of his songs. Ricky, unaware that the "husband" mentioned in the note is he, wants to bring the expectant couple up on stage to congratulate them. He goes from couple to couple trying to find them. Ricky notices Lucy in the audience, and it occurs to him that Lucy may be the one who is expecting. Lucy nods yes, and Ricky is overcome with emotion. They fight happy tears and sing, "We're Having a Baby".

During her pregnancy, Lucy experiences the normal pregnancy woes. She becomes depressed when everyone seems to focus their attention on the impending child and not on Lucy. She cannot decide on a name for the child and is nervous that she won't be a good mother. However, she wants the best for her child and enrolls herself, Ricky, and the Mertzes in elocution lessons to make sure her child learns how to speak properly. Finally, she takes up sculpting so she and Ricky can enrich their child's life with art and music.

Lucy's show business aspirations never wane however. She manages to break into Ricky's [barbershop quartet] number by firing the man who has the part she wants.

Finally, on January 19, 1953 (the same day she had her real-life son and actor (Desi Arnaz, Jr.)while husband Ricky is performing a voodoo act at his nightclub, Lucy gives birth to Ricky Ricardo, Jr. The Mertzes are named Little Ricky's godparents. Little Ricky grows on a season-by-season basis, and by the sixth season (1957) he has started school and learned to play the drums and speak fluently.

Hollywood

In 1954, Lucy's husband is given a role in an upcoming MGM film based on the life of Don Juan. Lucy and the Mertzes followed Ricky on his journey to Hollywood stardom. While in Hollywood, Lucy meets many famous celebrities, including William Holden, Hedda Hopper, Rock Hudson, Cornel Wilde, Harpo Marx, Richard Widmark, Van Johnson, and John Wayne. She reports having spotted 99 celebrities while in Hollywood and finally procures an even 100 when she meets Wilde. Lucy is incredibly starstruck and saves anything that had even come in contact with a celebrity, such as a can smashed by Cary Grant's left rear wheel. However, she doesn't merely hob nob with celebrities; she also gets a few chances to break into show business herself.

Ricky gets her a small role in a film as a showgirl. Lucy's role requires her to wear a large headdress; she also gets a death scene. However, the headdress proves cumbersome, and her part is downgraded. She eventually ends up as a showgirl who is already dead on a stretcher when the scene begins. Lucy's second foray into show business is when she replaces Van Johnson's sick redheaded partner in his act at the hotel. She wants to impress her friend Carolyn Appleby and successfully coaxes Johnson give her the job through flattery. She does an excellent job and impresses the crowd. Finally, she has her third shot at stardom when she appears with a Ricky Ricardo dummy at a luncheon for movie executives. Ricky was asked to perform, but he declined in favor of a fishing trip he had planned. Lucy accepted on his behalf and schemed to build the dummy and then pretend that he's ill, and she finishes the show herself. Her plan doesn't go as well as she had hoped, but she's still a smash success and is offered a contract. She declines however, when she realizes that it would take her away from her husband and son.

Europe

Very soon after returning home from Hollywood, Ricky's band is given a chance to tour around Europe. Lucy and the Mertzes again tag along on the trip and get a once in a lifetime opportunity. They sail on a cruise ship across the Atlantic, where Lucy wins a ping pong trophy. She also manages to get stuck in a porthole.

After landing in England, Lucy gets the chance to perform for and meet Queen Elizabeth. She also participates in a fox hunt and gets to stay at a real English estate.

In Paris, she meets Charles Boyer and is temporarily detained in a French jail after inadvertently trying to use counterfeit money. Also, she stomps on grapes in Turo, a winemaking town in Italy, and wrestles (and is nearly drowned by) her professional grape-stomping partner in a grape vat.

Moving to Connecticut

In 1956, Lucy and her husband Ricky decide to move to Connecticut after a making trip there, and Lucy falls in love with the area. Before they move in, though, she tries (unsuccessfully) to get out of the deal. Soon the Ricardos decide to raise chickens. Their best friends, Fred Mertz and Ethel Mertz, move into their guest house. (Fred was raised on a farm.) Lucy and Ricky also make close friends while in Connecticut, Betty and Ralph Ramsey (the Ricardos' next door neighbors). After the chicken venture proves unsuccessful, the Ricardos decide to shut their business down.

After I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour concluded in the aftermath of Arnaz and Ball's real-life divorce in 1960 (an incident that was not written into the script, given the taboo of discussing divorce on-air at the time). Both characters remained married to each other at the end of the series' run.

Lucille Ball would go on to perform Lucy Ricardo-inspired characters on her ensuing sitcoms: The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, and the short-lived Life with Lucy. In each series, the character Ball portrayed (each one named Lucy) was a widow or divorceé. In the mid-1960s, she was involved in a lawsuit against Jess Oppenheimer, the co-creator of I Love Lucy, over the similarities among the separate Lucy characters. The dispute was later settled out of court.

Arnaz only portrayed a similar Ricky Ricardo character once after The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour ended its run: in a recurring role on The Mothers-in-Law, Arnaz portrayed matador Raphael Delgado, with the same accent and personality as Ricky (as a Desilu production, The Mothers-in-Law used many of the same writers and executive staff as the Lucy shows).

Other television series, especially those created by Desilu (the production company Arnaz and Ball co-founded) sought to copy the Lucy Ricardo theme. Even Janis Paige, in her short-lived Desilu-produced CBS sitcom It's Always Jan, wore her hair like Lucy's, and Cara Williams followed the Lucy Ricardo format in Pete and Gladys, which lasted only two seasons on CBS.

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