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“We came to this country, and we didn’t have a cent in our pockets. From cleaning canary cages to this night here in New York is a long ways. And I don’t think there’s any other country in the world that could give you that opportunity. I want to say thank you. Thank you, America. Thank you.”
Finally, it was Arnaz whose name came first in Desilu, the production company that he and Ball founded, which became the largest producer of television content in the world in the late 1950s; provided the studio space where many other shows, including those of Danny Thomas and Dick Van Dyke, were staged; and eventually spawned the global entertainment juggernauts Mission: Impossible and Star Trek.
Desi’s best friend and basketball teammate was a stocky young boy named Al Capone Jr., the son of the infamous Chicago mobster who was serving a federal prison sentence for tax evasion in Alcatraz.
Noting that Broadway journalists had built Arnaz up “as a Cuban composite of Romeo, Casanova and Rhett Butler,” Robb wrote that she “expected something considerably older, more sinister and devastating than Arnaz turned out to be.”
Desi became the first Latino to costar in a national English-language prime-time network show (and to this day, one of the few).
Desi flexed that muscle whenever he needed to. In doing so, he effectively became not only the first Latino television star, but the first Latino television executive.
