Richard visits his daughter to celebrate his eightieth birthday with her, but she answers the door in tears and sends him away. Richard suspects trouble and realizes he’s right after peeking through her front windows.Richard tapped his fingers nervously against the steering wheel as he drove. Deidre used to drive down every Thanksgiving, but that stopped after his wife’s funeral four years ago. Now, there were only weekly calls. Richard spread his arms wide as Deidre appeared in the doorway. “Surprise!” he yelled. “Dad? What are you doing here?” she asked, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I came to celebrate my birthday with you…it’s the big eight-o!” Richard replied, but the joy in his voice trailed off quickly. “What’s wrong, honey? Why are you crying?””It’s nothing; everything’s fine,” Deidre quickly wiped her tears and smiled a little. “I just…I wasn’t expecting you, and this isn’t really a good time. Sorry, Dad, but I, uh, need to focus. On my work. Look, I’ll call you. We’ll have dinner later, okay? Sorry.”Deidre shut the door, leaving Richard hurt and confused. Something was terribly wrong. Was Deidre in trouble? Richard stepped back from the front door but didn’t leave. He stepped over the short, flowering shrubs lining the path and snuck up to peek through the windows. Two rough-looking men were in the sitting room with Deidre. “Who was that?” One of them asked in a rough voice. “Nobody,” Deidre lied in a shaky voice. “Just a neighbor’s kid…pulling a doorbell prank and running away.” “Back to business then,” the second man said. “You’re now six months behind on your loan repayments, Deidre. Mr. Marco’s getting impatient.””I just need more time. Business is sure to pick up again in the winter,” she pleaded. “Time is one thing you haven’t got, sweetie,” the man replied, pulling out his gun. “People who owe Mr. Marco money don’t have a great life expectancy and end up feeding the fishes in the lake…” He pointed the weapon at her. Terror froze Richard in place. But soon, the man stepped back with a look of disgust and tucked the gun away in the waistband of his trousers. “Look around this dump and see if there’s anything valuable we can take to Mr. Marco, Danny,” he ordered. “She’s a businesswoman, so there must be a computer or some kind of equipment around here.” ”But I need those things!” she cried. “I can’t make money without my equipment!” The man patted the butt of his gun. ”Boo-Hoo. I can still change my mind, you know. Don’t be ungrateful, now.”The men ransacked her home before they stormed out, leaving Deidre curled up sobbing on the floor. Nothing made sense to Richard because Deidre’s business was doing well. At least that’s what she had told him. But now, Richard could sense something was amiss. Deidre needed his help. The men loaded several appliances from Deidre’s home in their vehicle. When they finally drove away, Richard followed them. The men stopped at a two-storeyed brick building downtown that looked like a bar. While it was closed, the door was unlocked. No one on the staff stopped Richard as he entered the building. The men had joined a large table where several other rough-looking men were seated. One of them stood and swaggered toward him. “The club’s closed,” he growled. “Come back later.” “I’m here to discuss Deidre’s debt,” Richard announced.”Oh?” The man seated at the head of the table rose and stared at Richard. He looked like a gentleman except for a nasty scar above his left eye. Richard guessed he was Mr. Marco. ”How much does she owe you?” Richard asked. Mr. Marco smirked. “A good samaritan, huh? Deidre took out a business loan of $80,000 from me. She was supposed to pay me back from her monthly profits, only she never made any.” ”I have around $20,000 in my savings,” Richard gulped fearfully, shaken Deidre had borrowed such a big sum. ”That’s only a quarter of what she owes us.” Mr. Marco sighed. “But there’s something you can do to make up the difference.” Richard didn’t like the sound of that, but he had to do whatever it took to save his daughter from the mess she’d gotten herself into. ”What do you want me to do?” he asked.Mr. Marco grinned at Richard and beckoned him closer to the table. ”My partner and I recently started a small business importing cars to Canada, but some of the paperwork has been delayed, so we’re having difficulties getting the…’merchandise’…across the border. A kind, innocent-looking Grandpa like you should have no trouble crossing the border in one of our cars.” Richard had no choice but to agree. Later that night, he pulled into a gas station near the border town to use the bathroom and parked beside a patrol. “Jesus!” he gasped as the German Shepherd in the back of the police cruiser began barking at him and pawing at the window. Service dogs were trained not to bark at random people unless…Oh, man. He quickly climbed back in the car, a Valiant, and started reversing as the police dog went crazy. Two cops hurried out of the gas station store and yelled at him to stop as they glanced at him. The GPS app voiced directions, but Richard shoved it in his pocket to silence the darn thing. He pushed the Valiant to its limits as he wove through traffic, leaving a trail of outraged drivers and narrowly avoided collisions in his wake. The sirens blared behind him.Richard soon spotted a narrow, unmarked dirt road veering into the forest ahead. He sharply turned, leaving the road behind him as he raced into the forest. The muddy trails were awful to navigate, but Richard pushed on. He turned down a narrow track leading downhill. Then, he turned up a slight rise and instantly regretted it. The car was now stuck in a precarious position, balanced on a narrow rise above a wide river. Richard tried to reverse back the way he came, but the tires spun without getting traction. In fact, the car was sliding closer to the water. “No!” Richard desperately pulled up the parking brake, but it didn’t work.The car’s nose hit the river with a loud splash, sending a wave of dark water flooding over the bonnet. Richard shoved the car door open, desperate to escape the sinking vehicle. The pressure from the water started to push the car door shut against Richard’s legs. Richard splashed around in panic as the river filled the interior.As the water level crept up his face, he tipped his head back, took one last breath, and pulled himself underwater. Richard squeezed himself out of the opening and pushed himself up toward the surface. He took in a lungful of air and swam toward the river bank. Reaching land made Richard realize how close he was to death. He was thankfully breathing. But he still needed to do something about the $80,000. So Richard hitchhiked home.”I need to mortgage my house,” he told the bank assistant. ”And I need the cash in my bank account fast.” Richard waited impatiently as the bank employee processed the paperwork. He jumped in fright when Deidre called him. “Some thugs from a local gang were just here asking about you, Dad…what is happening?” “Tell them I’ll be there soon. I arranged to pay off your debt for you. I don’t understand why you didn’t come to me first, Deidre, but this isn’t the time to discuss that.”Richard ended the call and signed the paperwork. He didn’t want to give up the home where he had created memories with his family, but it was the only way to help Deidre.A few hours later, he pulled into the club’s parking lot in a rented car and headed toward the entrance. ”Dad, wait!” Richard looked back as Deidre ran toward him. ”I won’t let you face those thugs alone,” she said. ”I still don’t understand how you found out about this mess or how you got the money to repay them, but the least I can do is stand by you while you save me.” Richard studied the determined look in Deidre’s eyes and knew he couldn’t convince her to leave. As they entered the club, the thugs herded him and Deidre toward the table. Richard placed his duffel bag, which contained the cash he’d withdrawn after the mortgage went through, and put it on the table. ”Here’s the $80,000 Deidre owed you plus another $15,000 to cover the cost of your car. I, uh, got into some trouble, and the car ended up in a river.”Mr. Marco’s mouth twisted angrily, and he thumped his fist against the table. “You have the audacity to offer me a measly $15,000? After you come in here and tell me you sank the $100,000 shipment hidden in that car?
That doesn’t even BEGIN to cover what you now owe me.” The gangster grabbed the duffel bag and threw it to one of his thugs. ”You know, Deidre, I really believed in you, but sometimes, in business, you’ve got to know when to cut your losses.” He removed a gun from his suit jacket and pointed it straight at Deidre’s forehead. Richard pulled Deidre behind him. “No, please! This is all my fault! Don’t punish her!” ”Well, you made a good point.” The gangster shrugged, and the next moment, Richard was staring down the gun barrel.But suddenly, they heard police sirens outside. Mr. Marco turned and ran toward the back of the club as loud gunfire boomed and shook the place. Father and daughter crawled under the table. There was chaos in the club, and as Richard looked into his daughter’s fear-filled eyes, he knew he had to get her to safety, no matter what. Richard and Deidre pulled one of the tables over and barricaded themselves in a corner. They hid there until the police escorted them to safety. Thankfully, Mr. Marco was apprehended. ”Are you certain you don’t have any heart-related health issues?” Richard shook his head at the paramedic while in the ambulance. Richard swallowed hard when the police detective approached the ambulance.”Sir, what were you and your daughter doing in this club today?” the detective asked sternly. Richard explained about Deidre’s loan and how they’d come to the club that day to repay it. He hoped he might get away with not mentioning the car he sank in the river. The detective glanced at Deidre. “If we hadn’t found a car full of contraband in the river, we wouldn’t have been here to rescue you. You shouldn’t be taking loans from such disreputable people, miss.” “A car in the river?” Richard asked nervously. “It was registered to Mr. Marco’s cousin, which was exactly the lede we needed to take this gang down,” replied the officer.Richard sighed in relief. He was in the clear. The cops let him and Deidre go once they provided their statements. ”I owe you a huge apology, Dad. I dragged you into this whole mess,” Deidre apologized as they walked to the front, where Richard’s car was parked. Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know how to tell you. How does anyone tell their father that they’re a huge failure?” “You are not a failure!” Richard put his hands on Deidre’s shoulders. ”Maybe your business idea didn’t work out as well as you’d hoped, but you tried, Deidre. I wish you’d felt comfortable enough to tell me what was really going on in your life. Heck, I just wish you felt you could be as close with me as you were with your mother,” he continued. ”I don’t think you’ve been ‘fine’ for quite a while now.” Deidre burst into tears, and Richard put an arm around her. “It’s okay, honey,” he whispered soothingly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”Tell us what you think about this story, and share it with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.
Lucie Arnaz is proud of her ‘15,695 days’ marriage and ‘5 kids’ – she survived famous parents’ horrible divorce
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are perhaps one of the most famous couples in television history. Their romance continued off-screen as well. Their marriage was famously tumultuous, and no one knows that better than their daughter Lucie Arnaz.
Keep reading to know more about their daughter and how her life turned out over the years.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were perhaps the most beloved couple on American television at one time. Their show I Love Lucy depicted them as the Ricardos, a middle-class couple that were the ideal nuclear family.
The show had six seasons and ran from 1951 to 1957. It followed Lucille as Lucy Ricardo, a housewife who always gets into hilarious situations. While the couple seemed perfect in their on-screen depiction, in real life, their relationship was quite volatile.
The former Broadway star and the Cuban bandleader met while filming Too Many Girls. Their whirlwind six-month romance led to an elopement and marriage in November 1940.
After over a decade of their marriage, the couple became parents to daughter Lucie Arnaz, born on July 17, 1951. Two years after that, on January 19, 1953, they became parents to their second child, their son Desi Arnaz Jr.
The two children joined their parents in the family business of acting. They starred alongside their mother in the spin-off shows for I Love Lucy. Then in May 1961, after nearly two decades together, the couple filed for divorce.
It took years for Lucie Arnaz to open up about the reality of her parents’ marriage and their subsequent divorce. She revealed in a 2018 interview how “They were fighting all the time when we were growing up. There was a lot of anger and screaming.”
She lamented at her childhood where she had to deal with so many issues, she said, “Their divorce was horrible. And then there was the alcoholism. I had preferred those things had never been there. We didn’t have any abuse, but we did go through some pretty hard stuff, and that’s why my parents didn’t stay together. “
Lucille felt the split even more than perhaps her husband because she felt she had shattered the perception the American public had of her. She remarried soon after to comedian Gary Morton.
In her early twenties in 1971, Lucie Arnaz tied the knot to “The Doctors” actor Philip Vandervort Menegaux. The marriage ended in divorce five years later
But the younger Arnaz’s second try at marriage was much more lasting. She met and married actor and writer Laurence Luckinbill. Now the couple has been together for over four decades.
On June 22, 2023, Lucie celebrated her 43rd wedding anniversary with Luckinbill. She took to Instagram to remember the day many decades ago that she was last single on an apple farm in the coastal city of Kingston, New York.
Their friends and family arrived at the venue in a “big yellow school bus.” She was wearing a “lovely cream crocheted gown” as her father walked her down the aisle. She continued in her post, “…[I] vowed to love Laurence Luckinbill till death us do part. 15,695 days, 5 kids, and three grandchildren later, I am proud to still say,’‘ I do.’”
The Murder, She Wrote actress is still very much in love with her husband. She dedicated a sweet post to him on his 88th birthday late last year in November 2022. She posted a picture of him and wrote how he was “kind, talented, adorable, wise, [and] sexy.”
Luckinbill had two children from a previous marriage; Nicholas Luckinbill and Benjamin Luckinbill. And him and Lucie had three more children together; two sons and a daughter.
Their first child together Simon Thomas Luckinbill was born in December 1980, Joseph Henry Luckinbill was born on New Year’s Eve 1982, and their daughter Katharine Desirée Luckinbill was born on January 11, 1985.
Lucie Arnaz and her husband live in Palm Springs, and their family lives nearby. These days the actress wears her hair in a short pixie cut and spends her time with her beloved grandchildren.
On Grandparents Day in 2019, Arnaz joked about hitting the “jackpot” when the couple welcomed their first two grandchildren just four weeks apart from one another. Since then, they have welcomed many more grandchildren to their brood.
Lucie has been a second-generation actor. She was only 11 years old when she starred alongside her mother in The Lucy Show at 11 opposite her mother, which they then followed up with Here’s Lucy.
She also played the main character in the television movie Who Is the Black Dahlia? and also led in the short-lived comedy The Lucie Arnaz Show in 1985 as psychologist Dr. Jane Lucas.
She has played other roles in guest starring parts in shows such as, Marcus Welby, M.D., Murder, She Wrote, Fantasy Island, Law & Order, and the reboot of Will & Grace.
She has also been credited as a producer in three stories related to her parents. Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie, I Love Lucy’s 50th Anniversary Special, and Being the Ricardos. She also produced the 2003 documentary The Desilu Story.
In June 2023 she revealed that she will be doing an encore of her cabaret act titled I Got The Job! Songs From My Musical Past, at 54 Below in New York City. She had performed the show before the pandemic to a sold-out crowd.
While Lucie is very public about her life, her little brother Desi Arnaz Jr. is quite private about his. When Lucille Ball was pregnant with Arnaz Jr, her pregnancy was written into the show. And as fate would have it, she gave birth to him the same day the episode aired in which her character gave birth to ‘Little Ricky.’
Leave a Reply