The "Desilu" logo, used in the 1960s.

Desilu Productions was a Los Angeles, California based company jointly owned by American actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ... Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an iconic American comedienne, film, television, stage and radio actress, glamour girl and star of the landmark sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show and Heres Lucy. ... Desi Arnaz (born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III) (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban American musician, actor and television producer. ...

Desilu Studios was home to I Love Lucy, and additionally, such hit television series as Star Trek, The Andy Griffith Show, Mission: Impossible, The Untouchables, Mannix, The Lucy Show, I Spy and Hogan's Heroes. I Love Lucy is a popular American situation comedy, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley. ... The starship Enterprise as it appeared on Star Trek Star Trek is a culturally significant science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. ... The Andy Griffith Show is an American television series that aired on CBS from October 3rd, 1960 to April 1st, 1968. ... Mission: Impossible is the name of an American television series which aired on the CBS network from September 1966 to September 1973. ... The Untouchables is the name of a television series that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the American Broadcasting Company. ... Mannix was a television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller (who also created Mission: Impossible), the title character, Joe Mannix, is an Armenian-American private investigator. ... This article is about the television series. ... The I-SPY books were spotters guides written for British children, and particularly successful in the 1950s and 60s. ... Hogan’s Heroes was a satirical American television situation comedy that ran from September 17, 1965, to July 4, 1971, on the CBS network for 168 episodes. ...

Its successors were CBS Paramount Television and Lucille Ball Productions. CBS Paramount Television (formerly Desilu Productions, Paramount Television, among other companies) is an American television production/distribution company that was formed on January 17, 2006 by CBS Corporation merging Paramount Television and CBS Productions. ...

History

The company was formed in 1950. The name is a portmanteau of "Desi" and "Lucille", and named after their ranch in Chatsworth, California, located about 25 miles northwest of Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley. Desilu initially produced Ball's CBS radio series My Favorite Husband, while developing a television version that eventually became I Love Lucy.^[1] For the first few years of I Love Lucy, Desilu rented space at General Service Studios (what is now the Hollywood Center Studios), on Santa Monica Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue in the Hollywood section of the City of Los Angeles. A portmanteau (IPA: ) is a word or morpheme that fuses two or more words or word parts to give a combined or loaded meaning. ... // Definition There is no universally agreed definition of ranch. ... Chatsworth is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... ... San Fernando Valley from its southwestern edge. ... My Favorite Husband was a radio program on CBS Radio. ... Hollywood Center Studios is a company based in Los Angeles, California which provides stage facilities to television and movie production companies. ... California State Route 2; the Santa Monica Boulevard segment is highlighted in red, Alvarado Street is highlighted in green, the Glendale Freeway is highlighted in blue, and the Angeles Crest Highway is highlighted in purple. ... Hollywood redirects here. ... Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ...

Desilu soon outgrew their first space and in 1954 bought their own studio: the Motion Picture Center on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood,^[2] at the site of what is now the Ren-Mar rental studio; most of I Love Lucy was filmed there. In late 1957 (taking possession in 1958), the company also bought the RKO Pictures properties, including its main lot in Culver City, with the backlot known as Forty Acres, and another lot on Gower Street in Hollywood. These acquisitions gave the Ball-Arnaz TV empire a total of 33 sound stages — four more than Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and eleven more than Twentieth Century-Fox had in 1957. Greetings from Hollywood Hollywood is a district of the city of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., that extends from Vermont Avenue on the east to just beyond Laurel Canyon Boulevard above Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevards on the west; the north to south boundary east of La Brea Avenue... Ren-Mar Studios is a rental studio located in Hollywood, California, on premises which were formerly the home of Desilu Productions. ... RKO redirects here. ... Motto: The Heart of Screenland Location of Culver City in Los Angeles County, California Coordinates: , Country State County Los Angeles Incorporated (city) 1917-09-07 [2] Government  - City Manager Jerry Fulwood [1] Area  - City  5. ... A 1965 aerial view of the back forty. Other names used were 40 acres and Pathe 40 Acre Ranch. ... For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ... Related articles FOX Television Network Fox Searchlight Pictures Fox Entertainment Group List of Hollywood movie studios List of movies Variant of current 20th Century Fox logo External links 20th Century Fox Movies official site Twentieth Century Fox is also the punning title of a song by The Doors on their...

Much of the studio's early success can be traced to Arnaz's unusual business style in his role as producer of I Love Lucy. For example, lacking formal business training, Arnaz knew nothing of amortization, and often included all the costs incurred by the production into the first episode of a season, rather than spreading them across the projected number of episodes in the year. As a result, by the end of the season, episodes would be nearly entirely paid for, and would come in at preposterously low figures. In addition, Arnaz took the unprecedented step of buying the episodes of I Love Lucy for an astoundingly low cost from CBS, realizing, as the network did not, the potential of the rerun. For other uses of Amortization, see the Amortization disambiguation page. ... This article is about the broadcast network. ... Rerun van Pelt is the name of Linus and Lucys younger brother in the comic strip Peanuts. ...

The studio's initial attempt to become involved in film production was the 1956 film Forever, Darling, Arnaz and Ball's follow-up to their highly successful The Long, Long Trailer (1954), but it failed at the box office. It was produced at Desilu, but under the banner of Zanra Productions, "Arnaz" spelled backward. Most subsequent attempts to bring projects to the big screen were aborted, until Yours, Mine and Ours (with Ball and Henry Fonda) in 1968. This film was a critical and financial success. 1954 ad for New Moon Mobile Home Company, promoting both their trailers and the film The Long, Long Trailer was a novel by Clinton Twiss from the 1950s about a couple who buy a new travel trailer home and spend a year traveling the United States. ... Yours, Mine and Ours is a 1968 film, directed by Melville Shavelson, with Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball and Van Johnson. ... Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was a highly acclaimed Academy Award-winning American film and stage actor, best known for his roles as plain-speaking idealists. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Another Desilu loss was Carol Burnett, who declined to star in a sitcom for the studio in favor of a weekly variety show that ultimately lasted eleven seasons. (Burnett and Ball, however, remained close friends, often guest-starring on one another's series.) Pilots for a comedy with Carol Channing and an adventure series with Rory Calhoun were shot but never sold. Arnaz was determined to create a law drama entitled Without Consent, with Spencer Tracy as a defense attorney, but after several attempts at developing a suitable script failed, the project was scrubbed. Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933 in San Antonio, Texas) is an Emmy Award-winning actress, comedian, singer, dancer, and writer. ... This article is about a genre of comedy. ... A variety show is a show with a variety of acts, often including music and comedy skits, especially on television. ... Carol Elaine Channing (born on January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington) is an American singer and actress. ... Rory Calhoun (born Francis Timothy McCown Durgin on August 8, 1922 – April 28, 1999) was born in Los Angeles, California. ... Spencer Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American film and stage actor who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. ... In most litigation under the common law adversarial system the defendant, perhaps with the assistance of counsel, may allege or present defenses (or defences) in order to avoid liability, civil or criminal. ...

In 1960, Desi Arnaz sold the pre-1960s shows to CBS. Contrary to popular belief, Desi Arnaz did not sell his share of Desilu due to his divorce with Lucille Ball. Since Desilu had already begun producing Ball's follow-up series The Lucy Show by that point, it was decided that Ball should be the one to assume full ownership. In 1962, Arnaz resigned as president and sold his holdings to Ball, who succeeded him as president.^[3] This made her the first woman to head a major studio, and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood at the time. This article is about the television series. ...

For a number of years, Ball served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Desilu, while at the same time starring in her own weekly series. Eventually tiring of the stress, in 1967, Ball sold the company to Gulf+Western, which merged it with its other production company, (and Desilu's next-door neighbor), Paramount Pictures and renamed it Paramount Television, (now called CBS Paramount Television), around December 1967. As a result, Star Trek was no longer a Desilu production but a Paramount production. Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... 2002-2006 Paramount Domestic Television logo Paramount Television (re-incorporated from Desilu Productions) was an American television production/distribution company that was active from December 1967 to May 28, 2006 and was launched under Gulf+Western. ... CBS Paramount Television (formerly Desilu Productions, Paramount Television, among other companies) is an American television production/distribution company that was formed on January 17, 2006 by CBS Corporation merging Paramount Television and CBS Productions. ...

Desilu/Paramount TV's holdings are currently owned by CBS Corporation, incidentally the eventual owner of the pre-1960s shows. Desilu Productions Inc. was reincorporated in Delaware in 1967, and still exists as a legal entity. CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS, NYSE: CBSA) is an American media conglomerate focused on broadcasting, publishing, billboards, and television production, with most of its operations in the United States. ...

After the sale of Desilu, Ball formed Lucille Ball Productions to produce her next show, Here's Lucy, the first season of which was co-produced by Paramount Television. PTV sold its share after the first season and Ball later sold syndication rights to Telepictures, later merged into Warner Bros. Television. TV Guide cover, promoting Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burtons famous appearance on a 1970 episode of Heres Lucy Heres Lucy was Lucille Balls third network television sitcom. ... Telepictures was an American television syndication firm established in 1978 by Michael Garin. ... Warner Bros. ...

References in popular culture

• The name is spoofed in the television show The Simpsons as Krusty The Klown's "Krustylu Studios".
• In the Saturday Night Live spoof "Fear Factor Junior" one of the answers the host tells a little girl is "Desilu Productions".

Simpsons redirects here. ... SNL redirects here. ...

The studio today

People can still see Lucy's old dressing room on the former Desilu Gower property, along with a fish pond she and Desi had built for their children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., by taking the studio tour at Paramount. Lucie Arnaz (born Lucie Desiree Arnaz on July 17, 1951) is an American actress. ... Desi Arnaz, Jr. ...

References

Further reading

• Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, by Coyne Steven Sanders & Tom Gilbert, William Morrow, 1993.