![]() “It’s way too coincidental,” Carlson said of the timing. It was abruptly withdrawn, and a short time later, the Arnaz family publicly acknowledged Julia’s paternity apparently for the first time – taking steps to end what several people said was her deep alienation from the famed clan. Her best hope was a DNA offer in July by Desi Arnaz Jr.’s out-of-wedlock daughter, Julia Arnaz. ![]() She says her two sons strikingly resemble Desi Sr., and is intent on proving a family connection. My mother would never have given up a child of hers nor would my father have let her.”Ĭarlson hasn’t been dissuaded. “They struggled for 10 years with infertility and miscarriage until I came along in 1951. “In 1947, my parents were married and wanted nothing more than to have a baby together,” Lucie wrote. “I must inform you we’re almost certainly not related,” Lucie Arnaz wrote the Carlsons in a May 25, 2004, reply. In an effort to see if the Arnaz family suffered from the same malady, Carlson’s husband, Dennis, wrote to Lucie Arnaz, who was born in 1951, and suggested Carlson was related to Ball and Arnaz. She said she once asked Dee if it was true, and her mom replied, “It could be, but what does it matter?”īut in 2004, the identity of Carlson’s real grandparents became pressing when she fell ill with what was thought to be a hereditary condition. In Carlson’s mind, that shocking statement cemented what she had long suspected. ![]() But Smith, who has since passed away, warned her that she would never find a record of their parentage. Morton.ĭee – whose troubled adult life included multiple drug and prostitution arrests, several marriages and domestic abuse – died in 2003 when she was hit by a bus in California.Ĭarlson phoned Smith from a funeral home to help locate Dee’s birth records.ĭuring that call, said Carlson, Smith asked, “Are you sitting down?” and told her that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were her mother’s parents. She even remembers at least one visit by Mr. in 1960 and marrying Gary Morton.Ĭarlson remembers the women playing cards or taking her to the playground. Smith, the grandmother, was often present.īall took the name Morton after divorcing Desi Sr. ![]() Morton” coming to visit her at her mother’s house in the mid-1970s. Desi Sr., died in 1986, and Ball died three years later.Ĭolucci cites facts that his client has “accumulated over the years” as the basis for his belief.Ĭarlson said she has vivid, early childhood memories of a brash, red-headed woman called “Mrs. – the couple’s only publicly known children – to “put this to rest” by providing DNA samples to test against Carlson. ![]() “I believe ,” said Vito Colucci, a Stamford, Conn., private detective who has called on Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. Madeline “Linda” Jane Dee, Carlson’s mother, was born four years before the 1951 debut of “I Love Lucy” and immediately given up for adoption to California nurse Ruth Smith.īirth records indicate Helen Elizabeth Barnes as the mother. The Illinois woman nearly had a DNA sample to prove the claims, but the offer from an estranged Arnaz relative was suddenly rescinded under circumstances that have only deepened the mystery. They were America’s favorite couple – charming the country on screen and off – but Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz may have been hiding a secret so scandalous, it would have shattered their public image.Ĭassandria Lucianna Carlson, 38, believes that she is the legendary comic couple’s granddaughter – and that her mother was adopted in 1947 for fear that a baby would derail Ball’s plans for stardom. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |