This week, Ira spoke with Lucie Arnaz.
Lucie Arnaz, who is headlining in Cabaret Jazz at the Smith Center January 15-16 with “Latin Roots,” began her long career in a recurring role on the television program, “The Lucy Show.”
At age 15, she became a series regular on “Here’s Lucy,” a show that ran for six seasons. She later starred in her own series, “The Lucie Arnaz Show” and later in the critically acclaimed “Sons & Daughters” on CBS.
Arnaz has co-starred in “The Jazz Singer” with Neil Diamond and Sir Laurence Olivier, as well as starring in several made-for-television movies.
On the stage, she first created the role of Kathy in the west coast premiere of “Vanities” at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Arnaz then hit Broadway starring as Gittel Mosca in the national company of the musical “Seesaw.” She went on to star as the unforgettably wacky Sonia Wolsk in the Neil Simon/Marvin Hamlisch musical, “They’re Playing Our Song.”
Arnaz received rave reviews for her portrayal, on Broadway, of Bella in the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play, “Lost in Yonkers,” written by Neil Simon. In 1995, she starred off Broadway in “Grace and Glorie,” a two-woman play, with Estelle Parsons.
In 2006, she returned to Broadway in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” She toured the country in the First National Tour of the Tony Award winning musical, “Pippin,” playing Pippin’s fabulously sexy grandmother, Berthe.
Touring the U.S. and Europe with her critically acclaimed nightclub act, Lucie has made stops in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno and Feinstein’s At The Regency in New York. Her debut album, Just in Time, was released on the Concord label and “Lucie Arnaz: Latin Roots,” debuted in 2010.
Arnaz and her husband, actor/writer Laurence Luckinbill, teamed up to form ArLuck Entertainment, a film and television production company, and together produced the documentary “Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie,” which aired on NBC and was honored with an EMMY. Another company, Education through Entertainment, published two CD-ROMs – “Lucy & Desi: The Scrapbooks, Volume 1” and “How to Save Your Family History, A 10-Step Guide” by Lucie Arnaz.
