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Believe it or not, Lucie Arnaz is celebrating her 40th year in show
business. She began her long career in a recurring role on television
on The Lucy Show, opposite her mother, Lucille Ball. At
age fifteen, she became a series regular on Heres Lucy,
a show which ran for six seasons. She starred in her own series,
The Lucie Arnaz Show and later in the critically acclaimed Sons
& Daughters on CBS.
On the big screen, Lucie has starred opposite Neil Diamond and
Sir Laurence Olivier in THE JAZZ SINGER (for which she
received a Golden Globe nomination), opposite Tom Laughlin
in BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON, alongside Ken Howard
in SECOND THOUGHTS, and opposite Freddie Prinze, Jr. and
Henry Winkler in DOWN TO YOU, a Miramax
film. Most recently Lucie costarred with Richard Roundtree, Robert
Loggia and Bob Forster in WILD SEVEN and in a controversial
new film about second hand smoke from writer/director Alyssa Bennett
entitled,THE PACK set to debut at Sundance this
fall.
She
has starred in many "made for television" films, as well,
including the cult classic, Who Killed The Black Dahlia, Washington
Mistress, The Mating Season opposite Laurence Luckinbill
and Swoosie Kurtz, Who Gets The Friends? with Jill
Clayburg and James Farentino, and Abduction of Innocence
opposite Dirk Benedict.
On
the stage, Lucie got her equity card playing many of the best women's
roles in the theatre- Sally Bowles in CABARET, Daisy Mae in L'IL
ABNER (her first time opposite Dirk Benedict), Princess
Winifred, opposite Kaye Medford, Rudy Vallee, Christine
Andreas and Don Amendolia in ONCE UPON A MATTRESS,
GOODBYE CHARLIE, A PLACE TO STAY, opposite John Ritter.
With Stockard Channing and Sandy Duncan, Lucie created
the role of Kathy in the west coast premiere of Vanities at the
Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She later won the role of Gittle
Mosca in the national company of the Cy Coleman/Dorothy Field's
"love of a musical", Seesaw, opposite John Gavin
and Tommy Tune and directed by Michael Bennett. She spent
a summer at The Jones Beach Theatre in New York, playing Annie
Oakley in Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, with Harve Presnell.
During that summer, Broadway beckoned and she auditioned for and snagged
the coveted role of the unforgettably wacky, Sonia Wolsk, in the Neil
Simon/Marvin Hamlisch/Carole Bayer Sager musical Theyre
Playing Our Song, directed by Robert Moore for which she
received The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Theatre World
and Outer Critic's Circle Awards.
With
her husband, Laurence Luckinbill, Lucie has appeared in the American
premiere of Educating Rita, directed by Mike Ockrent,
sold out tours of I DO, I DO and THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG
and starred in the national companies of Whose Life is it Anyway?
and in the Andrew Bergman comedy Social Security (Carbonelle
Award), directed by Mike Nichols. Reviews for their roles
in the revival of Lunt and Fontane's The Guardsman at The
Papermill Playhouse were outstanding. After that, Lucie went on
to star opposite Tommy Tune in the international company of the
acclaimed Gershwin musical My One and Only (Sarah Siddons
Award). Lucie returned to the Broadway stage where she received
rave reviews for her portrayal of Bella in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony
Award-winning play, Lost In Yonkers, written by Neil Simon
and directed by Gene Saks. Lucie has starred Off Broadway as
Glorie in Grace and Glorie, a two-hander, with Estelle Parsons,
as Maria Callas in Terrence McNallys Tony-Award-winning
tour de force, Master Class, directed by Don Amendolia
who also directed her as Ruth in the revival of Wonderful
Town, prior to it's recent Broadway run, as Lucie was flying
off to London for a year and a half to star in the new Cameron Mackintosh
musical, The
Witches of Eastwick, playing Alexandra opposite Maria Friedman,
Joanna Riding and Ian McShane and directed by Eric
Shaeffer, which opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in
July 2000. She has starred at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in
Eduardo
Machado's Once Removed, A
Picasso, by Jeffrey Hatcher and directed by John Tillinger,
Ann
and Debbie with Elizabeth Ashley and in April 2006, she
opened there in, the now infamous, SONIA
FLEW, costarring with her youngest child, a senior at University
of Miami and a theatre major, Katharine Desiree Luckinbill.
Touring
the U.S. and Europe with her critically acclaimed nightclub act, Lucie
has made stops in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno and New Yorks
elegant Rainbow and Stars, and Feinsteins.
Her album, Just in Time, was released on the Concord
Jazz label.
Arnaz
and her husband, actor/writer Laurence Luckinbill, teamed up
to form ArLuck Entertainment, a film and television production
company, and together produced the EMMY award-winning documentary Lucy
& Desi: A Home Movie, which has aired on NBC, A & E and
Nickelodeon. Another company, Education Through Entertainment,
published two CD-ROMs; Lucy & Desi: The Scrapbooks, Volume I,
and How to Save Your Family History, A 10-Step Guide by Lucie Arnaz.
In 2001 Lucie and her brother, Desi Arnaz, executive-produced the I
Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special which aired on CBS, and received
an EMMY nomination.
Lucie
just completed several months on "The Great White
Way" costarring, on Broadway, with Jonathan Pryce, Norbert
Leo Butz, Rachel York and Gregory Jbara, and then Keith Carradine, Brian D'Arcy James, Sherie Rene Scott and Richard Kind in the rib
tickling Jeffrey Lane/David Yazbek musical Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels, brilliantly directed by Jack O'Brien
and playing to sell-out crowds at the Imperial Theatre where
she made her first Broadway appearance nearly 30 years ago in Theyre
Playing Our Song.
With
her husband, Laurence Luckinbill, Ms. Arnaz is mother to three beautiful
and talented children - Simon, Joseph and Katharine in addition to being
stepmother to his two sons, Nicholas and Benjamin. And it is these
credits of which Lucie is most proud.
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