I have uploaded on Youtube the portion the 1986 broadcast of "The Kennedy Center Honors" in which Lucille Ball is honored. The links are below and should all be available within a few hours. In one segment, Robert Stack reads a touching statement that Desi Arnaz had written for this occasion. But please be forewarned that it may be a little hard to watch as this show was taped on December 7, 1986, just five days after Desi lost his battle with cancer and one week after Lucy spoke to him for the last time. So her emotions are a bit raw and she is clearly struggling to keep her composure.

At this point, Lucy was the last surviving member of four stars of "I Love Lucy." So between that fact and the cancellation of "Life with Lucy" that occurred just weeks earlier, this is a very bittersweet occasion for Lucille Ball.

PART 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGRzk6Cn4k

PART 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_2UEOlt_tk

PART 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox_A4eOtRlw

Thank you for sharing this, I've been wanting to see this for years!

Two quick observations:
1) The look on her face when everyone stood up and gave her a standing ovation. It looks like she really could not believe that everyone was applauding her!
2) It makes you wonder what exactly was going through her mind when she watched the clips with Desi, and then hearing his own words, just days after his death. They always loved one another, they just couldn't be married.

Thank you again for sharing!!!

Thank you for sharing this, I've been wanting to see this for years!

Two quick observations:
1) The look on her face when everyone stood up and gave her a standing ovation. It looks like she really could not believe that everyone was applauding her!
2) It makes you wonder what exactly was going through her mind when she watched the clips with Desi, and then hearing his own words, just days after his death. They always loved one another, they just couldn't be married.

Thank you again for sharing!!!

You're welcome. And I've been wanting to share this for years. Thank goodness for Youtube! I, too, wonder the same thing about what she was thinking when she was hearing those words being read to her. But I think you can pretty much guess from the look on her face, her trembling hand, and the tears in her eyes. I've seen this clip dozens of times and it never fails to get me a little choked up every time I watch.

It's not a totally uncommon thing for two people to be so completely in love but just can't figure out how to live with one another. It's a tragic dilemma. And in Lucy and Desi's case, something neither of them ever got over. I think they both felt a loss after their divorce that stayed with them the rest of their lives. Desi dealt with it by drinking more. Lucy drank some too, but really used her work, and her smoking habit, to cope. Her deepening voice is, perhaps, a physical result of what was going on with her emotionally.

Did you ever hear Lucie Arnaz's story about her mother's final phone call to her father? Desi was laying on his death bed and Lucie was staying with him, keeping watch. One day the phone rang and it was Lucy Sr. She asked Lucie to put the phone down next to her father so she could speak to him (Desi at this point was too weak to talk or even hold the phone). Lucie heard her mother repeating into the phone the words "I love you," over and over again, with different intonations: *I* love you, I LOVE you, I love YOU . . . " That was the last time Lucy ever spoke to Desi; he died two days later. Lucy made that phone call on November 30, 1986, which would have been the 46th anniversary of their marriage. One week later at the Kennedy Center Honors, Lucy heard Robert Stack read Desi's final words to Lucy: "I love Lucy was never just a title."

I've heard the story about the final phone conversation, but I've also heard that Desi who was too weak to talk to hold the phone out of nowhere got the strength and said, "I love you, too, honey." I think the Lucy and Desi's story is one of the great 20th Century love stories, and one of the most tragic one, too.

I'm sure you have heard about when Lucy went to visit Desi and he didn't want her to see him without his hair, to remember him how he was. She wanted to see him, and he finally relented and let her in. Or the story about when Lucille went to visit him and Lucie grabbed some videos of the old shows and put them in thinking it was the dumbest thing to do, and instead it was the best.

I've always thought that to be the children of Lucy and Desi had to be difficult growing up, living in the shadow of your parents. But what about Lucy and Desi themselves, having to live in the shadow of themselves? To go through life "married" to someone yet not being married anymore, having a generation after generation of fans growing up knowing you're married, yet not knowing that in real life you're no longer married.

I think if Lucy and Desi were still with us, 20 years after their passing, they would be thrilled, shocked, happy, surprised, everything knowing that they're still as much loved -- and probably even more than ever before -- as they were in the prime of their careers.

I've heard the story about the final phone conversation, but I've also heard that Desi who was too weak to talk to hold the phone out of nowhere got the strength and said, "I love you, too, honey." I think the Lucy and Desi's story is one of the great 20th Century love stories, and one of the most tragic one, too.

I hadn't heard that part. No doubt he meant it, and so did she.

I'm sure you have heard about when Lucy went to visit Desi and he didn't want her to see him without his hair, to remember him how he was. She wanted to see him, and he finally relented and let her in. Or the story about when Lucille went to visit him and Lucie grabbed some videos of the old shows and put them in thinking it was the dumbest thing to do, and instead it was the best.

Yes, I had heard both of those stories but had forgotten about them. I remember Lucie Arnaz recounting those visits.

I've always thought that to be the children of Lucy and Desi had to be difficult growing up, living in the shadow of your parents. But what about Lucy and Desi themselves, having to live in the shadow of themselves? To go through life "married" to someone yet not being married anymore, having a generation after generation of fans growing up knowing you're married, yet not knowing that in real life you're no longer married.

Honestly, I don't think they minded that the public continued to think of them as married. I remember years ago reading an interview Lucy gave. She was asked what her biggest regret was. She answered that it was having to divorce Desi because she had let her fans down.

I think if Lucy and Desi were still with us, 20 years after their passing, they would be thrilled, shocked, happy, surprised, everything knowing that they're still as much loved -- and probably even more than ever before -- as they were in the prime of their careers.

I agree they would have felt all of those things. I've noticed whenever Lucy appeared on a TV show, she would always get a standing ovation. And every time she reacted as if she were surprised. And I think that reaction was genuine. In spite of her talent and fame, she was a pretty insecure person and I don't think she ever really realized the magnitude of her popularity. She was of the mindset that to have really arrived as an actress required winning an Oscar. She felt inferior to Oscar-winning actresses like Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis. It just didn't connect with her that, as well loved as stars like Hepburn and Davis were, she was even more well loved. If you remember all the news coverage when Lucille Ball died, it was overwhelming. I don't remember any celebrity death ever getting so much coverage, even Elvis. But I do think that in those very last days in April 1989 when she was in the hospital, she did finally get a sense of how beloved she was. During her stay at Cedars Sinai Hospital (known as the hospital of the stars), she broke all records and received more get well cards, letters and flowers than any celebrity who had ever been in that hospital. I'll never forget the news clip that ran that week, showing Lucy in the hospital sitting in a wheelchair and completely surrounded by flowers and bags and bags of mail. In spite of her situation, she had a look on her face that expressed pure joy, like she finally got it. People really loved her.

Back to the Kennedy Center Honors clip, Lucy had always given Desi a heavy dose of credit (more than she gave herself) for her success and for the success of "I Love Lucy." When Robert Stack is reading Desi's statement and gets to the part where Desi says that 90 percent of the credit for the success of "I Love Lucy" goes to Lucy, notice Lucy's reaction. That comment definitely tugged at her heartstrings.

Related to this topic, someone has posted this excellent clip from MSNBC's "Headliners and Legends" series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0_p7duIm9A

Thanks for sharing the link for this! Yes it does go along with the discussion!

By the way, have you seen the SNL DVD release with Desi's episode in it? I don't want to spend $50 for just one show, but at the same time that was when the show was good so maybe it's worth it!

Thank you so much for posting this. I've always "loved Lucy" for years. First show I ever remember watching on television, actually, ironically thanks to Nick@Nite. Sigh. That was an amazing tribute and I don't get emotional at many things but I was in tears watching that. Wow.

Thanks for sharing the link for this! Yes it does go along with the discussion!

By the way, have you seen the SNL DVD release with Desi's episode in it? I don't want to spend $50 for just one show, but at the same time that was when the show was good so maybe it's worth it!

Yes, I do have the SNL DVD, but in all honesty, the first season was not when the show was good, as I have been finding out. I got this set as a Christmas gift and started watching shortly afterwards. I got about halfway through and stopped. These first season shows are NOT what you remember and are rarely funny (there are occasional exceptions to this, like John Belushi doing his Joe Cocker impression). Like a lot of shows (including, IMO, "I Love Lucy"), I think SNL took awhile to find its groove. The actors had not yet developed many of those memorable characters, like the Samurai Chef and Roseanne Roseannadanna, and the "two wild and crazy guys," which you don't see on these first season episodes. And they didn't even seem to have a feel for what the format of the show should be. In fact, one episode was almost entirely a Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel concert with no skits at all except for the news segment. But speaking of Simon and Garfunkel, the one thing I have enjoyed watching are the musical guests, like those two and Janis Ian, who sang her incredibly beautiful but poignant and heartbreaking autobiographical song, "Seventeen" (which I've played over and over again).

But like I said above, I stopped watching after about half the episodes. I didn't even make it to the Desi Sr. and Jr. episode, though I did get a chance to see that one a couple years ago. A friend of mine had it and let me borrow it. Unfortunately, that episode is as boring as the other first season episodes I've seen. I think everything probably started to come together and gel for SNL in the second season, and that's when it turned into the classic we remember, so I'm looking forward to that release.

Thank you so much for posting this. I've always "loved Lucy" for years. First show I ever remember watching on television, actually, ironically thanks to Nick@Nite. Sigh. That was an amazing tribute and I don't get emotional at many things but I was in tears watching that. Wow.

The first television show you ever watched was on Nick@Nite? Oh, you make me feel old. :) When I first started watching television, there was no such thing as N@N. Nor cable TV, for that matter. Which tribute is making you emotional, the Kennedy Center Honors? The segment with Robert Stack reading Desi's statement I have watched many, many times. But no matter how many times I see it, I still get a tear in my eyes. It's hard not to knowing the backdrop of Desi having just died days earlier, and seeing Lucy trying to hold back tears.