Desi Jr Arnaz

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Lifestyle

Family

American musician and actor, noted family as the second child and only son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. He played himself on "Here's Lucy" from ages 15-17, formed a teen-age combo of "Dino, Desi and Billy," and did guest shots and movies from 1971 including the film "A Wedding," 1978. He adored his dad whom he said was his best friend and he played the role of Arnaz Sr. in "The Mambo Kings," 1989. His folks divorced when he was seven. He moved into his own house in Beverly Hills at 16, already playing on the fast track with drugs, coke and hallucinogens. He followed his father's pattern of exuberant excesses, then working equally hard to live them down. A devoted lady's man, he set flames with Patty Duke and Liza Minelli before marrying actress Linda Purl for a year, 1979-80. In 1987 he married dance instructor Ann Bargiel, whom he had met in 1978 at the New Life Foundation, a loosely knit organization devoted to self-help through positive thinking. Both have enriched their lives though the teachings of the foundation's guru, Vernon Howard, and they bought a three-bedroom ranch home in Boulder City, NV near the foundation's headquarters. It had taken him 15 years to kick his drug habit and pull his life together. After attempts off and on, he entered rehab successfully at California's Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla in June 1982. Link to Wikipedia biography