When Lucille Ball met Desi Arnaz, she was wearing a torn gold dress and a head bandage while sporting a black eye.
But it was love at first sight.
"They each had their own careers, they were engaged to other people … but their connection was that powerful," Sarah Royal told Fox News Digital.
"It’s part of the reason they’re so compelling as a couple because they [didn’t] ignore the red flags. They did talk about them. They had conversations before getting married and being together … especially Lucy."
"Lucy was the level-headed one, and Desi was the romantic," she shared. "[But] there was this electric hold and connection between the two of them where [they] were just madly in love immediately."
Royal has written a new book on the late actress, "A.K.A Lucy: The Dynamic and Determined Life of Lucille Ball." It spotlights the many facets of the TV icon's life and career.
Amy Poehler, who directed the 2022 documentary "Lucy and Desi," wrote the foreword. Ball died in 1989 at age 77.
"Something that I learned … was how vulnerable she was," Royal explained about the "I Love Lucy" star.
"I think that is an incredibly human quality that we don’t often imagine and think of a megastar as having, a certain degree of humility," Royal shared. "But, also, just self-doubt and vulnerability to bad press, to troublesome relationships, to just struggling to find your place in the world."
It was 1940 when the "Queen of the B’s" met the dashing Cuban performer with jet-black hair and a megawatt smile. They were at the RKO Pictures commissary, and Ball had just finished filming a fight scene for "Dance, Girl, Dance." Ball was hungry and didn’t bother to change out of her costume.
But after laying eyes on the actor, she quickly developed an appetite for something else.
"What surprised me about them is that they did have this hot steamy romance, this sexual chemistry," said Royal. "But there was also a lot of arguing and a lot of heartache."
After two dates, the pair broke up with their long-term partners. Six months later, they were married.
But the whirlwind romance was plagued with problems. A persistent press declared that the union was a publicity stunt for their film "Too Many Girls." Ball claimed their long-distance phone calls while they were apart cost a whopping $29,000, and the conversations mainly consisted of shouting "what?" over bad connections.
According to the book, they each had "ferocious feelings of jealousy," convinced that the other was fooling around.
Friends warned Ball that Arnaz "had a trail of broken hearts behind him." There was a six-year age difference, as well as different religions, upbringings and languages spoken. But their romantic and sexual chemistry was described as "off the charts."
"There’s a funny story of Lucy giving an interview to somebody," said Royal. "And the interviewer says something like, ‘When are you going to get married?’ And she’s like, ‘No, I’m just going to be a bachelor girl.’ And then literally, after that interview, Desi’s like, ‘So we’re going to get married.’"
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"Part of it is that Lucy went against a lot of judgment in terms of her own," Royal continued. "’We have to do things the smart way, and I’m going to be very calm, cool and collected about this.’ But in a lot of ways, she was also just powerless against this force that was between her and Desi. … She felt understood by him in a way that I think no one else did.
"I don’t think that there ever was an actual dissolution of love between them until the day that each of them died."
According to the book, Ball "decided she wanted nothing more than to please Desi and take care of him, and that she would sacrifice anything to make that happen. After all the distressing back-and-forth about whether they should be together, she was blissfully, deliriously happy."
As for Arnaz, he "passionately worshiped the ground she walked on."
Still, Ball was worried over Arnaz’s womanizing as she sat at home "wishing she was expecting their child." In 1944, she filed for divorce. Arnaz amped up his charm and asked her out for dinner on the night before the court hearing.
The hearing went on, and afterward, she "came right back and joined him in bed." In less than 24 hours, they negated the divorce. In 1949, they married again.
But their union was quickly tested by Hollywood once more. Arnaz found himself losing film opportunities over his thick accent, and he was sometimes referred to as "Mr. Ball."
Being out-earned and out-starred was hurtful. Still, Ball pushed back against the studio, eager to find work for her beau so he wouldn’t have to go out on tour with his band.
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"There was a certain sense of hurt pride on Desi’s part," said Royal. "Lucy was always the bigger star than he was. … Part of the reason they started working together was because Lucy said, ‘If he can only make money on the road by playing in his band … how am I supposed to get pregnant?
"You can’t get pregnant through the mail. How are we supposed to have a family? How are we supposed to keep this marriage together if we can’t be in the same spot? So, she pushed for them to work together, honestly, just so that they could be together, be around each other physically.
"It wasn’t until ‘I Love Lucy’ that … Desi found his space and his role as [a] producer behind the scenes," Royal continued. "He, of course, starred in the show … [and] knew Lucy was the bigger star. But he had the power behind the scenes. He helped pioneer sitcoms. He helped pioneer the three-camera set-up [for] live audiences. He helped pioneer reruns. I go through this in the book, but he deserves so much credit. And he unfortunately doesn’t get as much credit because of the outsized persona of Lucy."
With determination and a drive to stay together, their show "I Love Lucy" premiered in 1951, the same year they welcomed their first child, a daughter named Lucie Arnaz. By 1953, they had the No. 1 show in the country, the same year their son Desi Arnaz Jr. was born.
Life seemed picture perfect, but fate had other plans.
"To his credit, Desi admitted that he was raised observing and believing in a double standard where women must remain sexually loyal, but men were free to wander," the book noted.
"Everyone’s like, ‘Desi was a womanizer and ruined the whole thing.’ That’s part of the story," Royal explained. "He had a certain way of thinking about sexual escapades outside his marriage that had nothing to do with the emotional dedication and loyalty he had to his wife. Lucy felt differently. She felt that these sexual escapades outside the marriage were not part of what she wanted from a husband."
"She got hurt very badly, and Desi got hurt very badly," she shared. "There were [also] a lot of qualities about her that were also tough to get along with. … At this point in their success, he said, ‘Can we stop and just enjoy the family that we’ve created and enjoy our success?’ And she wanted to keep going. I think that was another pain point, too. … I think it was surprising to me just how powerful they were together, even though there were so different and there were so many red flags. … Eventually, they came to that conclusion where the pressure was too much."
Despite their numerous attempts, Ball filed for divorce after the couple filmed the last episode of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" in 1960. This time, it was for good.
"At first, there was a lot of sorrow and a lot of rockiness," Royal explained. "But they shared children. They created this incredible TV studio and machine together. … And they had this chemistry that nobody else had. … The pain softened and, in a lot of ways, they did have a more comfortable relationship. They actually were in each other’s lives a lot.
"Not only for their grandchildren, but they knew each other’s spouses. Lucy even hung out with Desi’s second wife a couple of times. They would play cards.
"They recognized that it would be impossible to split," she shared. "And there still always was a love. He would still send her flowers on their anniversary even though they weren’t married anymore. … They set an example that there’s all different kinds of love."
In 2022, Lucie told People magazine the last time her parents spoke was on Nov. 30, 1986, their wedding anniversary. Their final words to each other were "I love you." Arnaz died Dec. 2 that year at age 69.
"I think they made great decisions to decouple their marriage but not their relationship with each other," said Royal. "And I think they both supported each other through the end of both of their lives."
