Alex Carson
Many may know that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz married during the height of their fame. In fact, their marriage was the real-life inspiration for their most successful television series, I Love Lucy! However, less is known about the stars’ respective spouses after their 1960 divorce. Lucille and Desi both remarried after divorcing, and stayed with their new spouses until death. Join Facts Verse as we explore who Lucy and Desi hooked up with after their divorce.
Many people may have believed that the pairing of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz was a match made in heaven. Although the two came from differing entertainment backgrounds and Desi was six years younger than Lucille. The two became involved a whirlwind romance that lasted for over two decades and saw both stars rise to superstardom after creating the hit television series I Love Lucy together. Sadly, their marriage was nowhere near as perfect as one might imagine given their immense success when it came to their joint business ventures. By the time the couple decided to divorced in 1960, it had been a long time coming.
When Lucille and Desi first hooked up, they shared a passion to get ahead in the industry. They put their heads together and came up with I Love Lucy, which proved the perfect starring vehicle for both of them. Once the show became a success, Desi became bored with his life and sought excitement by indulging in extramarital affairs. It seems that Desi always craved danger, while Lucille always craved stability. Though Desi helped her achieve success and helped her give birth to two beautiful children. He could never provide Lucille the stability that she always wanted.
It was Lucille Ball who finally put her foot down and made the decision to divorce from Desi Arnaz after two decades of marriage. The decision came at the end of their time together on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. The final episode of the show aired in 1960, and Lucille filed for divorce immediately afterwards. Though the actress wasn’t looking to become involved with anyone else romantically for a while after ending her tumultuous marriage of many years. She ended up set up by some friends with a man by the name of Gary Morton.
Less than a year later, Lucille and Gary married, and they stayed married until Lucille’s death in 1989. Gary was nowhere near as successful as Lucille. He was a fellow comedian that had honed his skills for many years in a comedy hotspot called the Catskills Mountains. Ironically, Gary claimed that he had never heard of Lucille due to the fact that he had always been busy on the nights that her programs aired.
Desi Arnaz had been six years younger than Lucille, and Gary was even younger than him. Gary was 13 years younger than Lucille, and stood as further proof that the redheaded comedic actress liked them young! By the event of Lucille’s 1989 death, her and Gary had been married for nearly three decades, which is longer than her and Desi had been. Lucille and Gary’s first date was to a pizza place in New York City. And where Lucille was currently performing on Broadway in a production by the name of Wildcat. Lucille found herself immensely enjoying Gary’s sense of humor, and the two quickly hit it off. They continued dating for nearly a year before eventually deciding to married.
It was Gary Morton that did the proposing, and Lucille took some convincing. Apparently, she jokingly said that she’d only marry Gary if Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was available to officiate the ceremony. As it turns out, he was! For those that don’t known, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was the writer of the best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking. The doctor ended up officiating Lucille and Gary’s marriage at his church in New York City. And the two walked out into the streets being congratulated by hordes of I Love Lucy fans.
Another of Lucille’s conditions before marrying Gary was to make sure that he didn’t mind if the press accidentally called him Mr. Ball, which they surely inevitably did. For their honeymoon, the two simply stayed inside at their home in Beverly Hills. After the crazy rollercoaster of a marriage that Lucille had been through with Desi. She had already had plenty of excitement when it came to her relationships! As well, this honeymoon period proved the first break from work that Lucille had been able to get in quite some time. This, plus her new marriage, made the honeymoon special enough for the iconic actress. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button to show your support! Also, subscribe to the channel if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
The reason that Lucille Ball’s marriage to Gary Morton was so much more successful than her marriage to Desi Arnaz had been was because Gary was able to provide emotional stability for the actress. Lucille no longer had the patience to deal with Desi’s heavy drinking and infidelity. And she instead needed a stable partner with whom to raise her two children. Lucille and Desi had two children during their marriage. And they both still young when Lucille and Gary married. Both of the children were at the ceremony.
Soon after the two married, Lucille Ball put Gary Morton to work at Desilu Productions, which is the name of the production company that Lucille founded with Desi. She gave Gary a job producing various television shows for the company. And the comedian could also seen performing in a few of them. Gary proved reliable in the business, and he also proved reliable at home. While Lucille had been miserable through her marriage to Desi, she was incredibly happy during her marriage to Gary.
Lucille passed away in 1989, and left her estate to Gary and her children. Today, Lucille’s children are the one’s controlling Lucille’s estate, with Gary having passed away in 1999. Gary remarried after Lucille’s passing. And he left much of the wealth that Lucille had left him to his new wife after his death. In addition to money, the inheritance also included some memorabilia. And most of which was specifically related to Lucille and Gary’s relationship. This memorabilia included a good deal of letters. Gary’s wife after Lucille’s death was a professional golfer by the name of Susie McAllister.
She held on to a good deal of the memorabilia passed onto her by Gary until about a decade after his death for sentimental reasons before deciding it was finally time to part with all of it. Most of the buyers of this memorabilia were Lucille Ball fans looking to get their hands on things from the late actress’s personal life, including artwork, the aforementioned letters, and even one of her cars!
When Lucille Ball and Gary Morton married, Lucille was 50 years old. While Gary was only in his 30s, the two still decided that they were a little too old to be having children at this time in their lives. However, Lucille already had two kids to contend with, with those being Lucie and Desi Jr. Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. both ended up becoming figures in the entertainment industry. Though neither achieved quite the prominence that either of their parents had. They played Lucille’s on-screen children on The Lucy Show. And which was a follow-up to I Love Lucy that lacked Desi Arnaz.
While Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz couldn’t make it work after two decades of marriage, they remained friends and continued to respect each other. Desi ended up selling his portions of Desilu Productions to his ex-wife. And making her the first-ever female CEO of a major production company in Hollywood. Lucille and Desi stayed on friendly terms out of concern for their children. But also because they maintained a close bond after all that they had been through together. Although they certainly had irreconcilable differences, it’s hard to deny that they loved each other deep down.
Soon after Lucille Ball married Gary Morton, Desi Arnaz followed in her footsteps and found a new spouse of his own. This new wife was a woman named Edith Hirsch. Like Lucille and Gary, Desi and Edith remained together until death separated them. However, Edith happened to be the first to go in this situation, with Desi dying a year after her. Desi and Edith married in 1963. And they remained together until Edith’s death in 1985. She passed away from cancer. Like Lucille and Gary, Desi and Edith never had any children.
While Lucille Ball continued to perform after marrying Gary Morton, Desi Arnaz decided to pretty much just take it easy after getting married to Edith Hirsch. Desi could be seen sporadically, but was much less active in the years after his second marriage. This is part of why the star didn’t care too much about selling his shares of Desilu Productions to Lucille. A year after Edith passed away, Desi followed suit. Desi passed away in 1986, at the age of 69. The actor died from lung cancer, which was arguably the result of the Cuban star’s lifelong penchant for smoking Cuban cigars.
Although her and Desi Arnaz had been long-since separated, Lucille was still greatly impacted by the death of her ex-husband. Lucille herself died only three years later, with her cause of death being an abdominal aortic aneurysm. At the time of Lucille’s death, she was 77 years old. Gary and her two children survived her, and Desilu Productions still lives on! I Love Lucy fans can look forward to the new biopic Being the Ricardos. And which premieres later this year and will shed new light on Lucille and Desi’s marriage.
Although Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz could never make things work together despite two decades of trying, they both found unlikely success in their follow-up marriages. Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz both entered into successful marriages after getting divorced. Or did you think that they had remained single in the years after their separation? As always, like this video to show your support. And subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
