I loved Lucille Ball as a kid. I watched her TV sitcom,
Here's Lucy, every Monday night after my dad's favorite show,
Gunsmoke. Her character, Lucy Carter, had two children - Kim and Craig - who were played by her real-life daughter and son, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. And that is when I first became a fan of Ms. Arnaz, who was on the series for its entire six-year run (1968-74). She went on to star in many made-for-television movies, including
Who Is the Black Dahlia? (1975),
Death Scream (1975), and
The Mating Season (opposite her husband, Laurence Luckinbill, whom she married in 1980). Lucie also appeared in two TV series of her own,
The Lucie Arnaz Show (1985) and
Sons and Daughters (1991), as well as the 1980 feature film,
The Jazz Singer (opposite Neil Diamond), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Lucie has also achieved great success on the stage over the years, playing the lead role of Gittel Mosca in the 1974 national tour of the musical,
Seesaw, and creating the role of Kathy in the 1976 West Coast Premiere of the play,
Vanities (opposite Stockard Channing and Sandy Duncan). She later made her Broadway debut in the 1979 musical,
They're Playing Our Song, for which she won a Theatre World Award and earned a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. Her other Broadway credits include
Lost in Yonkers (1992) and
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2006). However, the show that I most would have liked to have seen her in is the 2000 London production of the musical,
The Witches of Eastwick, in which she sang the showstopper, "Another Night at Darryl's" (I highly recommend the cast recording).
And, finally, the talented actress and singer released her second solo CD earlier this year entitled
Latin Roots, in which she celebrates her musical heritage by singing the Latin classics of her father, Desi Arnaz ("El Cumbanchero", which you can watch her perform below, and, of course, "Babalu"), as well as "The Music In Your Heart", a song written with her musician-composer son, Joe Luckinbill, and his godmother, Grammy-winning artist Madeline Stone. I couldn't be more delighted to have the lovely Lucie Arnaz here on the
Dish to discuss her career and answer a few pop culture questions.
