Journalist Todd S. Purdum (Something Wonderful) makes a compelling case that the United States' most influential Latino Hollywood executive was also its first, the "I" in I Love Lucy, in Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television.
Those who recall anything about Desi Arnaz beyond having his role as Ricky Ricardo tend to know him as the creator of the three-camera standard for television comedy. A closer look indicates that acknowledging this innovation only begins to hint at the heights to which he ascended as one-half of the founders of Desilu, which was at one point the largest producer of television in the world and, later, the company behind Star Trek. Mining Arnaz's own memoir and making skilled use of family scrapbooks, oral histories, and interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, Purdum gives readers an intimate and unvarnished depiction of a man who was described as harder to reach than the president but who never overcame his own tendencies to drink and philander.
A book about Desi Arnaz is, by necessity, also a book about one of Hollywood's notable power couples. Purdum sensitively conveys both the stormy nature of their relationship--Lucille Ball first filed for divorce in 1944--and the affection that endured long after their marriage ended. Arnaz sometimes said that his greatest skill was picking people, and Purdum leaves readers with new admiration for how well Arnaz used that talent and fresh compassion for his struggles, including the self-inflicted ones. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library