star quotes | Hollywood Yesterday

“He did make me happy, and I really want people to know that.”

Anyone who knows me knows I am completely, utterly, and unapologetically obsessed with Lucille Ball. She’s one of the stars I collect – as in I collect Lucille Ball books, dvds, magazines, dolls, t-shirts…. anything with her on it, in it, or associated with it! She is one of my favorite stars of ALL time and my day is instantly brighter if I have seen a Lucille Ball movie, television episode, or read from one of the many biographies I have about her.

Fortunately, most days include more than one of these bright spots.

There’s something to be said for identifying your sources of happiness and even more to be said for wallowing in them. And so I wallow.

One of my favorite things about Lucille Ball was the depth of love she had for the people who mattered to her – her mom, children, Gary Morton, extended family, friends, and (of course) Desi Arnaz. While she and Desi’s marriage (1940-1961), unfortunately, didn’t last in the long run, their love for one another most certainly did.

Below are some of my favorite quotes each had about the other. What a wonderful love story… better than anything I’ve ever seen in a movie, that’s for sure.

The reason is obvious – the two colorful people involved could never have been created by even the best screenwriter.

Lucille Ball Quotes About Desi Arnaz

(About meeting Desi Arnaz for the first time): “It wasn’t love at first sight. It took a full five minutes.”

“Desi was the great love of my life. I will miss him until the day I die.”

In many ways, marrying Desi was one of the boldest things I ever did. I had always gone with older men. I had also achieved some kind of stability in Hollywood, and Desi with his beautiful girls and good times seemed headed in another direction.

Life with Desi is crazy and exciting, but our love is deep and changeless.

Yet I sensed in Desi a great need. Beneath the dazzling charm was a homeless boy who had no one to care for him, worry about him, love him. And I wanted him and only him as the father of my children.

It’s so hard to believe he is gone. I’m the only one left now. I remember the very last time I spoke with him. It was November 30th, our anniversary and he was in Del Mar with Lucie. He was very weak. Lucie held the phone up to his ear, and we said I love you over and over again to each other. On December 2nd, 1986 I was in the car coming home from taping an episode of Password when I heard Desi died. I could not stop crying. I felt lost, and like my own life had come to some kind of end. Lucie arranged the funeral and Danny Thomas gave the eulogy. It was funny and touching, but so very hard for me to sit through. With Desi’s passing I lost my youth, my great success and the only man I ever wanted to be father of my children. Besides Dede, Fred & Cleo, he was the one person who had been in my life the longest and made the greatest impact. I didn’t want to even consider what my life would’ve been without him.

The best time of my marriage was when I was pregnant. That was the kind of marriage that I’ve always hoped for.

After the short ceremony, we ate our wedding breakfast in front of a bright fire in the club’s lounge. Outside a fresh mantel of snow hung on the pine trees. After all the indecision we’d been through, Desi and I were dazed with happiness. We kissed each other and the marriage certificate again and again. It still has my lipstick marks on it. I’m going to keep this forever and ever. I told Desi. Clutching it to my black wool covered bosom. This marriage had to work. I would do anything, sacrifice anything to make Desi happy.

We had it all, Desi and I, we had it all.

I hate failure. And that divorce was the number one failure in my eyes. It was the worst period of my life. Neither Desi nor I have been the same since physically or mentally.

Desi was singing. His dark eyes were shining, his face radiant, but his hands I noticed were shaking. In Greenwhich, we spent a harried two hours seeing a judge about waving the five day wedding period and getting the necessary health examination. Desi had planned to marry me at the office of Justice of the Peace John J. O’Brien. He had forgotten only one thing, a wedding ring. Desi’s business manager ran into Woolworth’s and bought me a brass one. Although, Desi later gave me a platinum ring, that little discolored brass ring rest among the diamonds and emeralds in my jewel case for years.
There would be no Lucy without Desi.

I had never met a Latin before. In fact, up to this time, I hadn’t had much fun. I’d gone out with lots of guys and it had been in the papers, that I was engaged to this one and that one, but now I think back on it, they all seem pretty ordinary. But this I can say for myself and this is the truth. I never wanted to marry anybody until I met Desi.

If you don’t believe he’s a great producer, I got two little Arnaz’s at home to prove it.

I knew there was nobody in the world for me but Desi. We may have our ups and downs just as many people have. I would rather quarrel and make up with him more than anyone else in the world.

He did make me happy, and I really want people to know that.

Desi Arnaz Quotes About Lucille Ball

I loved her very much and, in my own and perhaps peculiar way, I will always love her.

I Love Lucy was never just a title!

(After Lucille Ball was, outrageously, accused of being a Communist) The only thing red about her is her hair, and that isn’t even real.

She’s not someone I am likely to forget. I love her and will continue loving her till the day I die.

I fell in love with those big beautiful blue eyes when I met her. It was unnatural how I could fall in love so fast.

Lucy had a quality which was rare; you can count the women who have had it on the fingers of one hand. While doing the wild antics of a clown, disheveled, rain-soaked, disregarding how she looked even with mud all over her, could make you laugh, and yet at the same time make you want to go to bed with her.

One of the big reasons for the show’s success is Lucy. She is the greatest.

Lucy, she has no idea how happy she’s made me. She’s wonderful. I adore her with all of my heart. She’s given me everything I could ask for. No pun intended, I Love Lucy.

We had been married for nine years, but when I saw her coming down the aisle with her bouquet and wedding dress and hat, I got as much of a thrill as the first time, perhaps even more.

I love Lucy was never a title. I don’t care what her present husband thinks, I still love Lucy. Yes very much. She knows that I will do anything for her. All she has to do is ask.

Though we are not together anymore, I still love her. I always will. Lucy is my soulmate, my world. I can’t imagine my life without her. I Love Lucy was never just a title.

They were gorgeous. Her eyes very blue. One of the many things I absolutely love about her. She was mine and I was hers. The way it should have been.

She’s a wonderful mother to our daughter, Lucie Desiree. In spite of a busy schedule, she arranges to have three days a week with Lucie.

Twelve years ago, I was enjoying recognition in New York play “Too Many Girls” and RKO studios wanted to film it. They took me along with the deal and I went to Hollywood. Working as the star of that picture was the most beautiful, wonderful, bright, happy person I’d ever met in my life, Lucille Ball. And how you said it. It was love at first sight.

The first time I saw Lucy was in Hollywood studio lunchroom. Lovely, dazzling Lucille Ball was to be one of the stars of Too Many Girls. I was eager to meet her. Then she walked in. She had a black eye, frowzy hair and was wearing a too tight dress with a rip in it. She had been playing a dance hall floozy in a free for all fight scene. I groaned ‘oh no.’ That afternoon when she showed up on the set where I was working, I said ‘Oh yes.’ She had fixed her hair and make up and put on a sweater and skirt. She was a dream. I took one look and fell in love.

She (Lucille Ball) was a very shy girl. She hated when you stared at her. So I did.

The most important thing of all was that, we now had our daughter, our son, and two people couldn’t have been more in love and happier than we were.

I’m convinced that the reason that we survived the constant arguing, fighting and accusations for so many years, was because we had something extra special going for us. We were very much in love with each other, and we were able to be together, our sexual relationship was heavenly. Also, and perhaps even more important. We had a good sense of humor. We are able to laugh at ourselves and at our sometimes absurd and stupid arguments.

When we got married, nobody gave it more than two weeks. There were bets all over the country, with astronomical odds against us.

Barbara Stanwyck – Lady of Burlesque

“I’m a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I’m ninety and they won’t need to paste my face with make-up.”

(Referring to director Frank Capra) “Eyes are the greatest tool in film. Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure, it’s nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting – watch the eyes!”

“Put me in the last fifteen minutes of a picture and I don’t care what happened before. I don’t even care if I was IN the rest of the damned thing – I’ll take it in those fifteen minutes.”

“My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth.”

(About the fact that her fiancé, Robert Taylor, at 28, was four years younger than she was)”The boy’s got a lot to learn and I’ve got a lot to teach.”

“I couldn’t remember my name for weeks. I’d be at the theater and hear them calling, ‘Miss Stanwyck, Miss Stanwyck,’ and I’d think, ‘Where is that dame? Why doesn’t she answer? By crickie, it’s me!'”

“Egotism – usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.”

“The more you kick something that’s dead, the worse it smells.”

(about acting) “Just be truthful – and if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” (apparently advice she gave to Fred MacMurray)

“Attention embarrasses me. I don’t like to be on display.”

“Career is too pompous a word. It was a job and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing.”

(about a boring party) “It was a fete worse than death.”

(on filming Titanic, 1953) “The night we were making the scene of the dying ship in the outdoor tank at Twentieth, it was bitter cold. I was 47 feet up in the air in a lifeboat swinging on the davits. The water below was agitated into a heavy rolling mass and it was thick with other lifeboats full of woman and children. I looked down and thought: If one of these ropes snaps now, it’s good-by for you. Then I looked up at the faces lined along the rail -those left behind to die with the ship. I thought of the men and women who had been through this thing in our time. We were re-creating an actual tragedy and I burst into tears. I shook with great racking sobs and couldn’t stop.”