October 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Before Hollywood, there was a ratty Miami warehouse, a $15-a-week canary-cage job, and a teenage Cuban exile who refused to quit. In this episode, Wilmer Valderrama tracks how Desi Arnaz hustled from cleaning bird poop to playing rumba at the Roney Plaza, navigated U.S. immigration by leaving and re-entering for his green card, and caught the eye of bandleader Xavier Cugat—opening the door to New York’s Waldorf Astoria. When a chaotic first gig nearly gets him fired, Desi invents a show-saving spectacle: “La Conga.” One drum, one beat, one line—and a star is born.
Featuring: Wilmer Valderrama (That ’70s Show, NCIS, Encanto)
Topics: Desi Arnaz, Miami exile, Xavier Cugat, Roney Plaza, green card/asylum, rumba music, conga line origin, immigrant hustle, 1930s Latin music, Desilu origins, Hollywood history, Latinx representation.
Starring: Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama is produced by WV Sound in partnership with iHeart’s My Cultura Podcast Network.
Starring: Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama is written by Erick Galindo and narrated by Wilmer Valderrama. It is produced by Sophie Spencer-Zavos and Leo Klemm, with special help from Angel Lopez Galindo.
Executive producers are Wilmer Valderrama and Erick Galindo.
This episode was edited and engineered by Sean Tracy and features original music by Halo Boy and Madison Davenport. Cover art illustration by Lindsey Mound. Voice acting by Eddie Mujica and Andy Vargas.
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's full of nineteen ninety six. It's Los Angeles and
rolling from addition to audition in between joggling schoolwork, struggling
to get any kind of acting gigs. The auditions are far.
Sometimes I'm taking the bus. Sometimes, well, I would say
most of the time, my dad was driving me in between,
(00:32):
trying to find steady work of his own. It's a
grind for me for my family. Even then, I realized
how lucky I was to have my family support me
as I follow my dreams. I mean, that's part of
why my parents came to the US in the first place,
so our family can chase that American dream. Winter comes
(01:01):
and I'm still facing a lot of rejection until I
finally land a role in a Japanese commercial. It was
for Sony, but it was for Japan. He doesn't have
any lines, but hey, money in the bank. Unfortunately for
my family, it's too little, it's too late. All this
audition in is costing my dad gas money. Then January
(01:25):
comes and we're laid on rent. It's scary, it's stressful,
but Dad puzzles a few more gigs and we are
able to make rent a few days later than usual.
Thank God. A little more time to keep going after
the dream. My agent sends me another audition, and I'm
hopeful that this one will be. Oh, okay, I'm very funny,
(01:49):
I'm very good. Wow, he's very unique. But you don't
like my accent? Okay, well, thank you and bye. The
rejection is hard for all of us. For me, I'm
wondering if this acting dream is worth adding to my
family's struggle. This time for my father, he's wondering how
(02:12):
he's going to pay the rent with whatever low paying
gigs he's coupled together. This month, it's a hard winter.
What spring is coming? Right? And we'll be better soon,
we all hope. Then one dark March evening, that gets
(02:35):
home from work exhausted and flops down on the couch
to watch TV. I sit next to him, trying to watch,
but running lines in my head for an audition that
was coming up. Then we hear a knock. Dad looks
at the door, then at me. I assume it's a
(02:55):
sign to go see who is at the door. But
Dad shakes his head and says, mihole, this evening, we
are not home. It turns out that wasn't breaking even,
he explained quietly that we still hadn't paid February's rent.
We were actually two months behind. Mom came into the
(03:18):
room and took Dad's hand. I could see the desperation
in my parents' eyes. We had no idea what to do.
That was rock bottom for me and my family. It
was the darkest season. I wonder if me becoming an
actor was just one of those wild goose chase things,
as they say, to be honest, I've never used that
(03:39):
expression before. If I was hurt in my family by
running after it, well, in that moment, it was hard
to see that by chasing this acting thing, I was
actually going to help bring my family out of the
bottom all the way to the pinnacle of the American dream.
(04:01):
Looking back at that moment now, it's hard not to
think of young Desi or Ness cleaning the poop from
canary cages for fifteen dollars a week to help his family.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Here, little bird, Bertie, Bertie, Bertie, Hey, Polly want a cracker?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Oh you're such a cute little bird.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Deisi and his dad lived in a rat infested warehouse
and both did a bunch of odd jobs like my
dad to try and make the rent and feed the
family that had to be the rock bottom for the
great Arnaz family that was related to royalty and one
of the most respected families in Cuban history before the
nineteen thirty three of evolution took everything, and yet Dessi
(04:43):
had a great attitude about it. Here's an excerpt from
Desi's memoir.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Those were great days in Miami Beach. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
On weekends, a bunch of us, maybe six or seven
guys would put up a buck or so a piece
and buy hot dogs, bonds, soda and beer, and our
dates would bring cakes and pies, blankets and pillows from
their homes and we would be in business.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
By in business, Desi means the business of having a
good time on the beach in Miami. He and his
friends were set up in the secluded spot near the
ocean between two hotels, the du Belle and the Rodney Plaza.
Ronney Plaza is considered to be the first of the
Great Miami Beach resorts. It opened its massive Art Deco
(05:30):
estate in nineteen twenty six, with a massive garden, fifty
two shops and eateries, three hundred and fifty rooms in
a massive elegant dining room that could hold us up
to six hundred guests. Is now a bunch of condominiums,
but at the time it was a beautiful backdrop to
Desi's adolescence.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Between the two hotels was nothing but miles of gorgeous
empty beach with beautiful white sand and tall coconut trees.
We would set up a camp, was swimming, build a fire,
have a drink, cook the hot dogs.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And it was here where Dessi found his first American audience.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. I had finally managed to buy
a five dollars guitar in a hawk shop.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It was the corniest guitar I had ever seen.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
On the front of the guitar box, someone had painted
a whole panorama of palm trees and girls and hula skirts.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Ridiculous, but it played well enough.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I can die no yoa o God die no yoah.
(07:05):
I'll never forget those gorgeous nights on the beach with
the moon over Miami. We ate and drank, sang and
played and made love. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Dessi was living his best American teenage life. This is
instinct for a good time is what ultimately drove him
to all his success and also may have been its downfall.
I'm Wilmer Valdorama and you're listening to starring Dessie Arness
and Wilmer val Durama, the real life story of the
Latin immigrant who basically invented the modern Hollywood system. But
(07:41):
first he had to deal with an immigration officer, go
back to Cuba and tried to sing his way out
of a huge lie. Like I said before this, his
(08:08):
drive to help his family and his ambitions to make
money were at times fueled and sometimes it turred by
his desire to have a good time. We saw that
as far back as his youth when he almost failed
school because well, he got so busy partying in dating.
But it is fundamentally what got him from cleaning canary
cages to revolutionizing the whole landscape of television. Hey, everyone's
(08:32):
got to start somewhere.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
My career as a canary cage cleaner ended when mister
Whitehouse sold the canaries, and my next job turned out
to be my very first experience in the show business.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
This his road into show business would be as a musician.
All he had to do to go on that path
was convince his father that being a musician was a respectable.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Job by.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Okay, let's back up. Well this his dad lost everything.
He still had some friends who helped Dessi get into
an elite Catholic boarding school in the US, and another
friend who had advised that was also helpful to Desi.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Alberto Barreras, the former president of the Cuban Senate, was
also in exile, but he was in much better financial
shape than that was. He got a lot of his
wealth out of Cuba, but he had this one habit.
Senator Barreras loved to play the numbers, and that is
why I got my first job in show business.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Okay, Playing the numbers is a form of gambling. It's
kind of like a hood lottery run by an organized
crime syndicate. Here's how it works. You took a public
set of numbers, like the closing prices of a stock
market on the last day of the months. Now, that's
what's going to determine the winning numbers. Now, our guy,
(10:01):
a numbers runner, will go around the neighborhood with a
little notebook, asking people what they think the winning numbers
will be. That money goes back to the local mob boss,
who takes a cut and plays the rest to the
player that guesses the right numbers, got it great, back
to Senator Barretez, who loved, as Desi said, to play
(10:24):
the numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
The guy who used to sell the numbers to him
also had a little roomba band at the Rooney Plaza.
One day, he asked the Senator if he knew any
Cuban who could play the guitar and sing.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
This.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
He had learned how to play the guitar and a
bunch of other instruments as a young boy in Cuba.
He could also sing pretty well, but he never imagined
it would be his career.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
In those days, a musician came through the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
In Cuba in nineteen thirties, a musician was seen as
part of the working class staff who entertained the rich.
But Deessi wasn't rich anymore. The Senator told him. The
gig paid thirty nine dollars a week. That's the equivalent
of just under nine hundred dollars a week in today's money.
(11:13):
Now bad, especially when you consider his previous job was
cleaning bird doodo for fifteen bucks a week. Senator Barreraz
sent Dessie over to the band leader's house to audition.
Tess talks about this moment in his memoir We Recreated It.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So I went over and sang him a couple of songs.
That's great, you're hired, he said. I then went to that, Hey, dad,
we're in business. I got a job which pays thirty
nine dollars a week.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
What business?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I got a job with a band.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Oh no, my son is not going to be a
goddamn musician today. I cannot imagine a cooler job than
being a musician. I mean, is there any one cooler
than my brother Lenny Kravitz. But when Desi was growing
up in Cuba, cultural perceptions of musicians, particularly among the
(12:15):
Cuban elite, was very different. Musicians were often seen as bohemians,
people without stable careers, far removed from the more prestigious
or noble professions. Those are the circles Deasi's dad ran in.
But that was in Cuba. Now they were in America,
(12:36):
and DESSI had a chance at working for some real money.
This idea was not convinced it was worth it.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Hey, come on, dad, this is the United States of America.
And besides, it can't be worse than cleaning bird cages.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Daisy had a chance at working for some real money.
Even though they were living hand to mouth and a
rat infested warehouse. This Adio was not convinced his pride
was worth it. Dessi pleaded with his father, painting a
(13:18):
picture of how working as a musician could actually be
a ticket out of poverty. After all, music was everywhere
in Miami, the nightlife scene was bursting with Cuban influence.
To Dessi, this wasn't just a job. He was a calling,
a way to rise above their hardships and stay connected
(13:39):
to his Cuban roots. But to his father, he felt
more like a distraction, a detour from the stability they
desperately needed. The Sardio had used his connections to get
Desi had great education and wanted him to go to
Notre Dame. But I was still the plan in the
Sardio's mind. That was how they were going to get
(14:01):
out of poverty by working the system. This His dad
was from a different generation, one of the priest respectable
work law, politics and business in Cuba. He had been
a leader, a man of influence, but the revolution shattered that.
Now he worried that his son one would become another
(14:25):
pennyless performer in a world that often chewed up dreamers
and spit them out. Yeah, Dessi wouldn't give up. He
was relentless, and eventually he convinced Senator Barreras to talk
to his father.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Finally, the old senator talked to my father and told
him that he was being a little ridiculous. The old
man knew we were broke, but he had a good
friend who sympathized with my father's meed fortune. After all,
he said, the kid can make some money, buy new clothes,
and what's wrong with that?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
He seems pretty good. People are going to like him.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
The old Cuban senator was right, and Dessi's dad knew it.
The saudio finally caved and Dessie took the job. He
didn't just change his life and eventually led to restoring
the Arnessa's family fortune. He changed America, and that is
after the break in nineteen thirty six. Dessi began his
(15:40):
career in show business at nineteen years old, playing guitar
for a tiny rumba band in the Ronnie Plaza hotel,
the one he and his friends used to party out
next to on the weekends. It wasn't the flashiest gig
in Miami, but he was a start there. He played
(16:03):
his five dollars guitar with pride, strumming and singing for
tourists and locals alike. He might not have had the
polished suits and the high profile reputation he and his
father had a hope for him, but he had talent
and he knew how to put on a show. Meanwhile,
(16:29):
his dad, des Audio, was running a struggling towel wholesale
business and they were still living in the warehouse, but
Dessi's new income helped a lot. Just as things were
starting to turn for the better, an immigration official showed
up to tell the Arnas boys they were breaking the
law by working without green cards. Here's how Dessie remembers
(16:50):
the incident in his memoir.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Dad asked the man, what are we supposed to do?
He said, Look, doctor.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Rnest, we know all you and all you went through
during the revolution of nineteen thirty three, so here's.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
What we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I won't go around the Runey Plaza for three months,
and I'll see that nobody from our department goes by
there either. But three months from now, I want you
and your son to have your papers in order. I
guess that shows you there's still some nice people in
this world.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
To claim asylum and get their green cards, they had
to leave the country and re enter. He wasn't safe
for this audio to go back to Cuba, so he
went to Puerto Rico and got his paperwork done through there,
Dessi went to Havana and got his green card back
then it was not easy.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
When I returned, I went back to work at the
Roney Plaza. It had only taken us four weeks to
get everything done, and shortly after that we sent for mother.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Not only did this give the Arnest family a chance
to reunite, the four weeks made desi friends back home
miss him. On his first night back in the Roomba band,
they packed the Ronnie Plaza.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
As soon as our little group started. They all began dancing.
When I sang, they stopped, stood in front of the
bandstand looking up at me, and as I finished, they
all yelled in a plot. It made a good impression
on the number seller and on somebody else who was
standing right alongside the kids. I thought I had seen
him someplace before.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
If DESSI hadn't got caught by immigration and forced to
leave the country for a month, his friends would have
never helped Desi impress Javier Cugat.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Of course, I'd seen his facing pictures before Cugat was
the King of the Mamba.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Cou God offered Dessi a job playing for his world
famous roomba band at the world famous Walder of Astoria
Hotel in New York. You just never know who's standing
in the audience. It was a stroke of luck, yes,
but Desi had to be good too, and he got
him his first trip to New York City.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I decided that six months in New York was enough learning,
and I did learn a lot from Cougd. He's a
brilliant showman, but not only that, he's a very shrewd businessman.
He never fooled around trying to introduce something that hadn't
been proven unless he was sure it was very commercial.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
This.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
He took what he learned from Cougd and decided it
was time to start his own room by band back
in Miami. The problem is he didn't have a band
and he didn't have any connections, but he convinced cou
God to partner with him.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Okay, he said, I'll tell you what I'll do to
get you I started. You can build yourself as Desi
Arness and his Javier Cugat orchestra direct from the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in New York City.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Cou God also agreed to send him a band for
his first show. In exchange, Dessi would pay cou God
a cut of the business. Dessi would also take with
him one of God's guys, Nick, who would be Dessie's manager.
Nick and Dessey found out that a restaurant tour named
Bobby Kelly was opening a new club in Miami Beach
(20:24):
with the Latin motif. The club was probably going to
need a Latin band. Nick and Dessy didn't want to
come off as desperate for the gig, which they were,
but they decided to go eat at one of Bobby
Kelly's restaurants.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
The plan was for Nick to play the part of
Cogd's band manager and say that I D'sie our Nest
featured vocalists with Javier Cougd was here on vacation. He
had been working very hard and very successfully at the
Waldorf Astoria and in theaters throughout the country, so mister
cou God had given him a leave of absence to
(21:01):
come down here to get the sun and arrest before
joining him in January at the Waldor's Starlight Room. He
had assigned his band manager, mister Nicoletty to look after
his precious treasure. Me I was the precious treasure.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The boys laid the farce on thick, ordering a bottle
of champagne they could barely afford, and sold themselves to
Bobby as the only typical Cuban band in town. They
talked their way into a twelve week residency for six
hundred and fifty bucks a week. In today's money, that's
just over one hundred and sixty grand. For the twelve
(21:41):
week engagement. They would have to use that money to
pay and transport the Cuban band, A Cuban band that
didn't exist, no problem. Dessi and Nick called up Kugat.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Coogie was really having trouble getting these musicians. Finally, he
called the day before we were to open and said
the guys were on the train. So I asked him, okay,
who were you sending? And he said five guys, A bass,
a drummer, a pianist, a saxophone and a violin. I said,
what the hell kind of a lotin band is that?
(22:13):
A saxophone and a violin, No trumpet, no accordion. Where's
the bungos? He said, that are the only ones I
could get.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
The so called only typical Cuban band in Miami would
have to be Desi, two Italians, two Jewish kids, and
a Spaniard. Thankfully for Desi, his mom, Delortees, was a
killer seamstress. She sold some authentic roomba shirts for the
band members. They gonna look like a colorful pirate shirts,
(22:43):
which was kind of perfect for his band of beswits.
Here's how Dessi described their first show.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
At ten pm on the dock, December thirty, nineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I gave the down beat to my first band, and
we look good.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
All the fellows wore the rumba shirts with the ex
first Lady of Santiago have been sewing on for the
past week. I wore black tuxedo pants, patent leather shoes,
white satin and a red handkerchief carelessly peeking out of
my pocket. So after our first set, we got out
(23:31):
of that hole in the wall and went down behind
the bar Bobby Kelly was waiting for me and said, hey,
you're fired. Well, I guess looks alone or not enough,
you know. He said, that is the worst thing I've
ever heard in my life. I said, you can fire us.
We got a six week engagement. He said, I don't
care what the hell you got. This ain't a Latin band.
(23:54):
This is ridiculous. You've got two Jewish people, two Italians,
and I don't know what the hell the guy on
the drummers does.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
He explained to Bobby that the musicians in his band
weren't bad, they just never played Latin music before and
they didn't have any time to rehearse. It was a disaster,
but Bobby agreed to let him finish the show. He
explained that there was a radio DJ in the crowd
who was going to record and add with the band
the following night to promote the club and get some
(24:24):
Land music on the air, but that was now in jeopardy,
as he thought, for a second.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I had a Conga drum with me, because they're good
to back up the drummer and all Latin rhythms. But
you have to have a drummer that can play Latin rhythms.
You can't do it all just with the conga drum.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Except.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And my mind, all of a sudden did a flashback
to those yearly carnivals in Santiago, you know, where thousands
of people in the streets form a conga line and
they go all over the town, singing and dan thing
for three days and nights to the beat of African
conga drums.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
It's a simple beat.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
If you've never been in a conga line, where you're
missing out. A conga line is a fun rhythmic dance
where people form a line, blazing their hands on the
shoulders or waist of the person in front of them
and moved together to the beat.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The conga had never been done in the United States.
I went to the bartender and said, hey, get me
a bottle of Bacardie. Then I went backstage where the
boys were Okay, guys, you better have a few drinks
because we're going to play a thing that I'm going
to teach you right here and now.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The conga was simple enough. With the right leader and
DESI was out for the task.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I hung the conga drums large leather strap around my
right shoulder and started bom bom bom boom boom bum
bum bom bom boom boom bum. The bands started to
join me. The people in the club didn't know what
the hell was going on. I told them, Hey, this
is a dance people call la conga. It's very simple.
One two three kick, one two three kick.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Pretty soon there's his manager. Nick jumped up and hiped
up the crowd to form the conga line.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
In a few minutes, several couples got behind him. So
I jumped from the hole in the wall to the
top of the bar. It was a long bar about
thirty feet so I did the dance bump bom bom
bom boom boom bum bum bum bum bum bum. I
beat that drum from one side to the other. Hey,
bum bum bum bum bum Hey. And then I jump
onto the dance floor and pretty soon you have all
(26:40):
the people in the club dancing the conga.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
And that's how it all began.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
The conga was an instinct hit in Miami, and so
was Dessi. He woire crowds with his ambition, his charm
and well he's on deniable energy. Being a bandleader meant
the party was on and he was at the center
of it. He didn't quite know it, but his journey
to Hollywood stardom had begun, and it would pass through
(27:15):
a lot of strange places, including a brothel, some clubs
in Miami where he lied his way into a residency
New York, New York, and a chance encounter with a
pair of Broadway legends. That's on the next episode of
starring starring Desi RNAs and Wilmer Valdorama, is produced by
(27:38):
WV Sound in partnership with Iheartmichael Duda podcast Network, Starring
Desi Rnass and Wilmer val Durama is written by Eric
Galindo and narrated by me Wilmer Valdorama. It is produced
by Sophie Spencer Savos and Leo Klem, with special help
from Anhel Lopez Galindo. Our executive producers are myself Feneric Galindo.
(28:01):
This episode was edited and engineered by Sean Tracy and
features original music by Halo Boy and Madison Devenport. Our
cover art illustration is by Lindsey Mount. For more podcasts
from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite podcasts.
It's full of nineteen ninety six. It's Los Angeles and
rolling from addition to audition in between joggling schoolwork, struggling
to get any kind of acting gigs. The auditions are far.
Sometimes I'm taking the bus. Sometimes, well, I would say
most of the time, my dad was driving me in between,
(00:32):
trying to find steady work of his own. It's a
grind for me for my family. Even then, I realized
how lucky I was to have my family support me
as I follow my dreams. I mean, that's part of
why my parents came to the US in the first place,
so our family can chase that American dream. Winter comes
(01:01):
and I'm still facing a lot of rejection until I
finally land a role in a Japanese commercial. It was
for Sony, but it was for Japan. He doesn't have
any lines, but hey, money in the bank. Unfortunately for
my family, it's too little, it's too late. All this
audition in is costing my dad gas money. Then January
(01:25):
comes and we're laid on rent. It's scary, it's stressful,
but Dad puzzles a few more gigs and we are
able to make rent a few days later than usual.
Thank God. A little more time to keep going after
the dream. My agent sends me another audition, and I'm
hopeful that this one will be. Oh, okay, I'm very funny,
(01:49):
I'm very good. Wow, he's very unique. But you don't
like my accent? Okay, well, thank you and bye. The
rejection is hard for all of us. For me, I'm
wondering if this acting dream is worth adding to my
family's struggle. This time for my father, he's wondering how
(02:12):
he's going to pay the rent with whatever low paying
gigs he's coupled together. This month, it's a hard winter.
What spring is coming? Right? And we'll be better soon,
we all hope. Then one dark March evening, that gets
(02:35):
home from work exhausted and flops down on the couch
to watch TV. I sit next to him, trying to watch,
but running lines in my head for an audition that
was coming up. Then we hear a knock. Dad looks
at the door, then at me. I assume it's a
(02:55):
sign to go see who is at the door. But
Dad shakes his head and says, mihole, this evening, we
are not home. It turns out that wasn't breaking even,
he explained quietly that we still hadn't paid February's rent.
We were actually two months behind. Mom came into the
(03:18):
room and took Dad's hand. I could see the desperation
in my parents' eyes. We had no idea what to do.
That was rock bottom for me and my family. It
was the darkest season. I wonder if me becoming an
actor was just one of those wild goose chase things,
as they say, to be honest, I've never used that
(03:39):
expression before. If I was hurt in my family by
running after it, well, in that moment, it was hard
to see that by chasing this acting thing, I was
actually going to help bring my family out of the
bottom all the way to the pinnacle of the American dream.
(04:01):
Looking back at that moment now, it's hard not to
think of young Desi or Ness cleaning the poop from
canary cages for fifteen dollars a week to help his family.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Here, little bird, Bertie, Bertie, Bertie, Hey, Polly want a cracker?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Oh you're such a cute little bird.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Deisi and his dad lived in a rat infested warehouse
and both did a bunch of odd jobs like my
dad to try and make the rent and feed the
family that had to be the rock bottom for the
great Arnaz family that was related to royalty and one
of the most respected families in Cuban history before the
nineteen thirty three of evolution took everything, and yet Dessi
(04:43):
had a great attitude about it. Here's an excerpt from
Desi's memoir.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Those were great days in Miami Beach. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
On weekends, a bunch of us, maybe six or seven
guys would put up a buck or so a piece
and buy hot dogs, bonds, soda and beer, and our
dates would bring cakes and pies, blankets and pillows from
their homes and we would be in business.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
By in business, Desi means the business of having a
good time on the beach in Miami. He and his
friends were set up in the secluded spot near the
ocean between two hotels, the du Belle and the Rodney Plaza.
Ronney Plaza is considered to be the first of the
Great Miami Beach resorts. It opened its massive Art Deco
(05:30):
estate in nineteen twenty six, with a massive garden, fifty
two shops and eateries, three hundred and fifty rooms in
a massive elegant dining room that could hold us up
to six hundred guests. Is now a bunch of condominiums,
but at the time it was a beautiful backdrop to
Desi's adolescence.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Between the two hotels was nothing but miles of gorgeous
empty beach with beautiful white sand and tall coconut trees.
We would set up a camp, was swimming, build a fire,
have a drink, cook the hot dogs.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And it was here where Dessi found his first American audience.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. I had finally managed to buy
a five dollars guitar in a hawk shop.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It was the corniest guitar I had ever seen.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
On the front of the guitar box, someone had painted
a whole panorama of palm trees and girls and hula skirts.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Ridiculous, but it played well enough.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I can die no yoa o God die no yoah.
(07:05):
I'll never forget those gorgeous nights on the beach with
the moon over Miami. We ate and drank, sang and
played and made love. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Dessi was living his best American teenage life. This is
instinct for a good time is what ultimately drove him
to all his success and also may have been its downfall.
I'm Wilmer Valdorama and you're listening to starring Dessie Arness
and Wilmer val Durama, the real life story of the
Latin immigrant who basically invented the modern Hollywood system. But
(07:41):
first he had to deal with an immigration officer, go
back to Cuba and tried to sing his way out
of a huge lie. Like I said before this, his
(08:08):
drive to help his family and his ambitions to make
money were at times fueled and sometimes it turred by
his desire to have a good time. We saw that
as far back as his youth when he almost failed
school because well, he got so busy partying in dating.
But it is fundamentally what got him from cleaning canary
cages to revolutionizing the whole landscape of television. Hey, everyone's
(08:32):
got to start somewhere.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
My career as a canary cage cleaner ended when mister
Whitehouse sold the canaries, and my next job turned out
to be my very first experience in the show business.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
This his road into show business would be as a musician.
All he had to do to go on that path
was convince his father that being a musician was a respectable.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Job by.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Okay, let's back up. Well this his dad lost everything.
He still had some friends who helped Dessi get into
an elite Catholic boarding school in the US, and another
friend who had advised that was also helpful to Desi.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Alberto Barreras, the former president of the Cuban Senate, was
also in exile, but he was in much better financial
shape than that was. He got a lot of his
wealth out of Cuba, but he had this one habit.
Senator Barreras loved to play the numbers, and that is
why I got my first job in show business.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Okay, Playing the numbers is a form of gambling. It's
kind of like a hood lottery run by an organized
crime syndicate. Here's how it works. You took a public
set of numbers, like the closing prices of a stock
market on the last day of the months. Now, that's
what's going to determine the winning numbers. Now, our guy,
(10:01):
a numbers runner, will go around the neighborhood with a
little notebook, asking people what they think the winning numbers
will be. That money goes back to the local mob boss,
who takes a cut and plays the rest to the
player that guesses the right numbers, got it great, back
to Senator Barretez, who loved, as Desi said, to play
(10:24):
the numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
The guy who used to sell the numbers to him
also had a little roomba band at the Rooney Plaza.
One day, he asked the Senator if he knew any
Cuban who could play the guitar and sing.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
This.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
He had learned how to play the guitar and a
bunch of other instruments as a young boy in Cuba.
He could also sing pretty well, but he never imagined
it would be his career.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
In those days, a musician came through the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
In Cuba in nineteen thirties, a musician was seen as
part of the working class staff who entertained the rich.
But Deessi wasn't rich anymore. The Senator told him. The
gig paid thirty nine dollars a week. That's the equivalent
of just under nine hundred dollars a week in today's money.
(11:13):
Now bad, especially when you consider his previous job was
cleaning bird doodo for fifteen bucks a week. Senator Barreraz
sent Dessie over to the band leader's house to audition.
Tess talks about this moment in his memoir We Recreated It.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So I went over and sang him a couple of songs.
That's great, you're hired, he said. I then went to that, Hey, dad,
we're in business. I got a job which pays thirty
nine dollars a week.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
What business?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I got a job with a band.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Oh no, my son is not going to be a
goddamn musician today. I cannot imagine a cooler job than
being a musician. I mean, is there any one cooler
than my brother Lenny Kravitz. But when Desi was growing
up in Cuba, cultural perceptions of musicians, particularly among the
(12:15):
Cuban elite, was very different. Musicians were often seen as bohemians,
people without stable careers, far removed from the more prestigious
or noble professions. Those are the circles Deasi's dad ran in.
But that was in Cuba. Now they were in America,
(12:36):
and DESSI had a chance at working for some real money.
This idea was not convinced it was worth it.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Hey, come on, dad, this is the United States of America.
And besides, it can't be worse than cleaning bird cages.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Daisy had a chance at working for some real money.
Even though they were living hand to mouth and a
rat infested warehouse. This Adio was not convinced his pride
was worth it. Dessi pleaded with his father, painting a
(13:18):
picture of how working as a musician could actually be
a ticket out of poverty. After all, music was everywhere
in Miami, the nightlife scene was bursting with Cuban influence.
To Dessi, this wasn't just a job. He was a calling,
a way to rise above their hardships and stay connected
(13:39):
to his Cuban roots. But to his father, he felt
more like a distraction, a detour from the stability they
desperately needed. The Sardio had used his connections to get
Desi had great education and wanted him to go to
Notre Dame. But I was still the plan in the
Sardio's mind. That was how they were going to get
(14:01):
out of poverty by working the system. This His dad
was from a different generation, one of the priest respectable
work law, politics and business in Cuba. He had been
a leader, a man of influence, but the revolution shattered that.
Now he worried that his son one would become another
(14:25):
pennyless performer in a world that often chewed up dreamers
and spit them out. Yeah, Dessi wouldn't give up. He
was relentless, and eventually he convinced Senator Barreras to talk
to his father.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Finally, the old senator talked to my father and told
him that he was being a little ridiculous. The old
man knew we were broke, but he had a good
friend who sympathized with my father's meed fortune. After all,
he said, the kid can make some money, buy new clothes,
and what's wrong with that?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
He seems pretty good. People are going to like him.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
The old Cuban senator was right, and Dessi's dad knew it.
The saudio finally caved and Dessie took the job. He
didn't just change his life and eventually led to restoring
the Arnessa's family fortune. He changed America, and that is
after the break in nineteen thirty six. Dessi began his
(15:40):
career in show business at nineteen years old, playing guitar
for a tiny rumba band in the Ronnie Plaza hotel,
the one he and his friends used to party out
next to on the weekends. It wasn't the flashiest gig
in Miami, but he was a start there. He played
(16:03):
his five dollars guitar with pride, strumming and singing for
tourists and locals alike. He might not have had the
polished suits and the high profile reputation he and his
father had a hope for him, but he had talent
and he knew how to put on a show. Meanwhile,
(16:29):
his dad, des Audio, was running a struggling towel wholesale
business and they were still living in the warehouse, but
Dessi's new income helped a lot. Just as things were
starting to turn for the better, an immigration official showed
up to tell the Arnas boys they were breaking the
law by working without green cards. Here's how Dessie remembers
(16:50):
the incident in his memoir.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Dad asked the man, what are we supposed to do?
He said, Look, doctor.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Rnest, we know all you and all you went through
during the revolution of nineteen thirty three, so here's.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
What we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I won't go around the Runey Plaza for three months,
and I'll see that nobody from our department goes by
there either. But three months from now, I want you
and your son to have your papers in order. I
guess that shows you there's still some nice people in
this world.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
To claim asylum and get their green cards, they had
to leave the country and re enter. He wasn't safe
for this audio to go back to Cuba, so he
went to Puerto Rico and got his paperwork done through there,
Dessi went to Havana and got his green card back
then it was not easy.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
When I returned, I went back to work at the
Roney Plaza. It had only taken us four weeks to
get everything done, and shortly after that we sent for mother.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Not only did this give the Arnest family a chance
to reunite, the four weeks made desi friends back home
miss him. On his first night back in the Roomba band,
they packed the Ronnie Plaza.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
As soon as our little group started. They all began dancing.
When I sang, they stopped, stood in front of the
bandstand looking up at me, and as I finished, they
all yelled in a plot. It made a good impression
on the number seller and on somebody else who was
standing right alongside the kids. I thought I had seen
him someplace before.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
If DESSI hadn't got caught by immigration and forced to
leave the country for a month, his friends would have
never helped Desi impress Javier Cugat.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Of course, I'd seen his facing pictures before Cugat was
the King of the Mamba.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Cou God offered Dessi a job playing for his world
famous roomba band at the world famous Walder of Astoria
Hotel in New York. You just never know who's standing
in the audience. It was a stroke of luck, yes,
but Desi had to be good too, and he got
him his first trip to New York City.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I decided that six months in New York was enough learning,
and I did learn a lot from Cougd. He's a
brilliant showman, but not only that, he's a very shrewd businessman.
He never fooled around trying to introduce something that hadn't
been proven unless he was sure it was very commercial.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
This.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
He took what he learned from Cougd and decided it
was time to start his own room by band back
in Miami. The problem is he didn't have a band
and he didn't have any connections, but he convinced cou
God to partner with him.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Okay, he said, I'll tell you what I'll do to
get you I started. You can build yourself as Desi
Arness and his Javier Cugat orchestra direct from the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in New York City.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Cou God also agreed to send him a band for
his first show. In exchange, Dessi would pay cou God
a cut of the business. Dessi would also take with
him one of God's guys, Nick, who would be Dessie's manager.
Nick and Dessey found out that a restaurant tour named
Bobby Kelly was opening a new club in Miami Beach
(20:24):
with the Latin motif. The club was probably going to
need a Latin band. Nick and Dessy didn't want to
come off as desperate for the gig, which they were,
but they decided to go eat at one of Bobby
Kelly's restaurants.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
The plan was for Nick to play the part of
Cogd's band manager and say that I D'sie our Nest
featured vocalists with Javier Cougd was here on vacation. He
had been working very hard and very successfully at the
Waldorf Astoria and in theaters throughout the country, so mister
cou God had given him a leave of absence to
(21:01):
come down here to get the sun and arrest before
joining him in January at the Waldor's Starlight Room. He
had assigned his band manager, mister Nicoletty to look after
his precious treasure. Me I was the precious treasure.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The boys laid the farce on thick, ordering a bottle
of champagne they could barely afford, and sold themselves to
Bobby as the only typical Cuban band in town. They
talked their way into a twelve week residency for six
hundred and fifty bucks a week. In today's money, that's
just over one hundred and sixty grand. For the twelve
(21:41):
week engagement. They would have to use that money to
pay and transport the Cuban band, A Cuban band that
didn't exist, no problem. Dessi and Nick called up Kugat.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Coogie was really having trouble getting these musicians. Finally, he
called the day before we were to open and said
the guys were on the train. So I asked him, okay,
who were you sending? And he said five guys, A bass,
a drummer, a pianist, a saxophone and a violin. I said,
what the hell kind of a lotin band is that?
(22:13):
A saxophone and a violin, No trumpet, no accordion. Where's
the bungos? He said, that are the only ones I
could get.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
The so called only typical Cuban band in Miami would
have to be Desi, two Italians, two Jewish kids, and
a Spaniard. Thankfully for Desi, his mom, Delortees, was a
killer seamstress. She sold some authentic roomba shirts for the
band members. They gonna look like a colorful pirate shirts,
(22:43):
which was kind of perfect for his band of beswits.
Here's how Dessi described their first show.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
At ten pm on the dock, December thirty, nineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I gave the down beat to my first band, and
we look good.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
All the fellows wore the rumba shirts with the ex
first Lady of Santiago have been sewing on for the
past week. I wore black tuxedo pants, patent leather shoes,
white satin and a red handkerchief carelessly peeking out of
my pocket. So after our first set, we got out
(23:31):
of that hole in the wall and went down behind
the bar Bobby Kelly was waiting for me and said, hey,
you're fired. Well, I guess looks alone or not enough,
you know. He said, that is the worst thing I've
ever heard in my life. I said, you can fire us.
We got a six week engagement. He said, I don't
care what the hell you got. This ain't a Latin band.
(23:54):
This is ridiculous. You've got two Jewish people, two Italians,
and I don't know what the hell the guy on
the drummers does.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
He explained to Bobby that the musicians in his band
weren't bad, they just never played Latin music before and
they didn't have any time to rehearse. It was a disaster,
but Bobby agreed to let him finish the show. He
explained that there was a radio DJ in the crowd
who was going to record and add with the band
the following night to promote the club and get some
(24:24):
Land music on the air, but that was now in jeopardy,
as he thought, for a second.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I had a Conga drum with me, because they're good
to back up the drummer and all Latin rhythms. But
you have to have a drummer that can play Latin rhythms.
You can't do it all just with the conga drum.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Except.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And my mind, all of a sudden did a flashback
to those yearly carnivals in Santiago, you know, where thousands
of people in the streets form a conga line and
they go all over the town, singing and dan thing
for three days and nights to the beat of African
conga drums.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
It's a simple beat.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
If you've never been in a conga line, where you're
missing out. A conga line is a fun rhythmic dance
where people form a line, blazing their hands on the
shoulders or waist of the person in front of them
and moved together to the beat.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The conga had never been done in the United States.
I went to the bartender and said, hey, get me
a bottle of Bacardie. Then I went backstage where the
boys were Okay, guys, you better have a few drinks
because we're going to play a thing that I'm going
to teach you right here and now.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The conga was simple enough. With the right leader and
DESI was out for the task.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I hung the conga drums large leather strap around my
right shoulder and started bom bom bom boom boom bum
bum bom bom boom boom bum. The bands started to
join me. The people in the club didn't know what
the hell was going on. I told them, Hey, this
is a dance people call la conga. It's very simple.
One two three kick, one two three kick.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Pretty soon there's his manager. Nick jumped up and hiped
up the crowd to form the conga line.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
In a few minutes, several couples got behind him. So
I jumped from the hole in the wall to the
top of the bar. It was a long bar about
thirty feet so I did the dance bump bom bom
bom boom boom bum bum bum bum bum bum. I
beat that drum from one side to the other. Hey,
bum bum bum bum bum Hey. And then I jump
onto the dance floor and pretty soon you have all
(26:40):
the people in the club dancing the conga.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
And that's how it all began.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
The conga was an instinct hit in Miami, and so
was Dessi. He woire crowds with his ambition, his charm
and well he's on deniable energy. Being a bandleader meant
the party was on and he was at the center
of it. He didn't quite know it, but his journey
to Hollywood stardom had begun, and it would pass through
(27:15):
a lot of strange places, including a brothel, some clubs
in Miami where he lied his way into a residency
New York, New York, and a chance encounter with a
pair of Broadway legends. That's on the next episode of
starring starring Desi RNAs and Wilmer Valdorama, is produced by
(27:38):
WV Sound in partnership with Iheartmichael Duda podcast Network, Starring
Desi Rnass and Wilmer val Durama is written by Eric
Galindo and narrated by me Wilmer Valdorama. It is produced
by Sophie Spencer Savos and Leo Klem, with special help
from Anhel Lopez Galindo. Our executive producers are myself Feneric Galindo.
(28:01):
This episode was edited and engineered by Sean Tracy and
features original music by Halo Boy and Madison Devenport. Our
cover art illustration is by Lindsey Mount. For more podcasts
from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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