Kim Morgan: Happy Birthday Desi Arnaz

Next to the cinematic milestone of watching Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra and promptly falling in love with him (at age seven) my other girlhood crush was Desi Arnaz -- Cuban bandleader extraordinaire and husband to the luckiest redhead in New York City. Other than The Adam's Family , no other TV domestic situation seemed as attractive and as liberating as Desi's Ricky Ricardo and Lucille Ball's Lucy. Already sour on the idea of marriage at a young age, I figured that the Ricky Lucy dynamic was not only the real way a marriage could work but tremendously sexy. (I had yet to learn of the real life couple's eventual divorce, and that their fights gave George and Martha a run for their money). But back to fantasyland. Let's see...living in a cool apartment directly in the city, falling into mischief with best pal and ex-vaudevillian Ethel, adorning various disguises to trick your hot Latin husband, working in a candy factory for a day, and getting into furniture smashing arguments ... (link)