The magazine detailed other trysts, and engaged in what passed in 1955 for sociological analysis: “He comes from a land, Cuba, where the men are torrid and the ladies, allegedly, are glad of it.”
Desi seemed unabashed. “What’s she upset about? I don’t take out other broads,” he reportedly told a friend. “I just take out hookers.”
Lucille hid behind a brave façade. She tried to face down the article with humor, saying on a crowded set: “Christ, I can’t go out and buy that [magazine] myself—somebody go out and get one for me!” Her longtime publicist, Charles Pomerantz, would later tell People: “It was during a rehearsal day, and she went into her dressing room. Everybody was frozen on the set. She finally came out, tossed the magazine to Desi and said, ‘Oh, hell, I could tell them worse than that.’”
But it was hard for her; humiliating. That night, according to Brady, she and Desi were seated at a celebrity event next to the French opera singer Lily Pons and the famous actor and comedian Danny Kaye; Kaye made a point of twisting the blade: “Desi, you made Confidential!” When Pons asked what Confidential was, Kaye said: “It’s a magazine about fucking.”
So now the whole country knew. But no magazine had enough juice to sour tens of millions of fans. The show survived, and thrived—enough for Desi to buy RKO, the studio that had once fired both Arnaz and Ball. But the effect on their relationship was real. The article is said to have drained the joy from their marriage, and they divorced, for good, in 1960.
It’s impossible not to fall in love with Lucille Ball, at least a little, when you write about her. Some icons are so universal they slip from view; how does a storyteller breathe a little new air into a story like hers? Does anyone remember that she battled CBS to broadcast an interracial marriage? That she invented reruns so she could have kids and keep her job? Lucille Ball owned the most studio space—she was “the biggest single filler of television time,” according to Life.
I wrote The Queen of Tuesday because I wanted to remind people of her place in history. And I gave her a romance of her own. She was a strong woman, obviously brilliant, and her husband humiliated her. With this book, I tried to provide her with the closest thing to revenge to be found between hard covers. She earned it.
Darin Strauss is the author, most recently, of the National Book Critics Circle winner “Half a Life.” His book, “The Queen of Tuesday,” comes out on Aug. 18 from Random House.
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