Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III, the future husband of Lucille Ball and executive of Desilu Productions, was born in 1917 to a family of wealthy Cuban landowners. That changed when Batista took over in 1933, and Desi and his father fled to Miami.

Desi started working with the Xavier Cugat band in 1937 and later put together his own rumba band. In 1940, he appeared in both the stage and movie versions of "Too Many Girls." On the movie set, he and Lucille Ball hit it off, and they were married in November 1940. The marriage was subject to the conflicting requirements of Desi's bandleader career-which had him on the road most of the time-and to Lucy's movie career. When the couple came up with the idea for a TV series, they fought to do it together to save their marriage.

Network executives didn't think the pan-American shtick would work, so in the summer of 1950 Lucy and Desi went on tour, performing for live audiences to prove that Desi was believable as Lucy's husband. Early in 1951 the couple produced a film pilot with their total savings of $5,000. The rest, of course, is television history.

Desi parlayed the five grand into millions in just four years. He convinced the show's sponsor, Philip Morris, that Lucy having a baby on the air would be a publicity bonanza, and he was right: the filmed birth of Little Ricky in 1953 drew 44 million viewers, and the story made headlines from coast to coast. While a successful executive at Desilu Productions, Desi also produced "December Bride," "Make Room for Daddy," "Our Miss Brooks," "The Untouchables," and other shows. Fashion-wise, Desi brought back smoking jackets, adult denims, and matching he-and-she pajamas.

After Lucy and Desi divorced in 1960, Desi continued in show business, producing several shows and making cameo appearances on TV. Desi also wrote an autobiography, owned a successful horse breeding farm, was a professor at San Diego State University, and was appointed ambassador to Latin America under President Nixon. He died in 1986.