Is Lucie Arnaz Married? Yes - 46 Years
Lucie Arnaz is married to Laurence Luckinbill. The couple wed on June 22, 1980, and have been married for 46 years - one of the longest marriages in show business, and a striking contrast to the tumultuous union of her famous parents.
Arnaz, now 75, was previously married to Philip Vandervort Menegaux from 1971 to 1976 - a five-year first marriage that began on her 20th birthday and ended in divorce. Her marriage to Luckinbill, now in its fifth decade, has been the defining relationship of her adult life.
In a family defined by fame - her mother is the most beloved comedienne in television history, her father the most famous Cuban-American entertainer of his era - Arnaz built something her parents never quite managed: a long, stable, scandal-free marriage.
Who Is Laurence Luckinbill?
Laurence George Luckinbill, born November 21, 1934, is an actor and writer now 91 years old. He is best known to mainstream audiences as Sybok - Spock's half-brother - in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and for his stage work, including the original Broadway production of The Boys in the Band and his one-man shows as Theodore Roosevelt, Clarence Darrow, and Lyndon Johnson.
He and Arnaz actually worked together before they married: they co-starred in the 1982 comedy-drama One More Try. By then they were already husband and wife - a showbiz couple who met through the work and stayed through everything else.
Luckinbill, 17 years Arnaz's senior, brought steadiness to the marriage. Friends describe him as intellectual, literary, and devoted - a writer-performer who was never competing with his wife's fame or her family's legend. He is now 91; she is 75. They live in Palm Springs, California.
The Shadow of Lucy and Desi
To understand Arnaz's marriage, you have to understand her parents. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were the most famous couple in America in the 1950s - I Love Lucy was the biggest show on television, and their interracial marriage (Cuban bandleader, redheaded comedienne) was revolutionary. It was also, behind the scenes, a mess: Desi's infidelities, Lucy's jealousy, and a 1960 divorce that broke America's heart.
Lucie - born Lucie Désirée Arnaz on July 17, 1951 - grew up inside that legend and its wreckage. She was 9 when her parents divorced. Her younger brother, Desi Arnaz Jr. (born 1953), became a teen idol and musician. Both children spent their lives navigating the most famous surname in television.
Arnaz has spoken about learning from her parents' mistakes: the fame, the pressure, the way show business corroded the marriage. Her own 46-year union looks, in that light, like a deliberate correction - proof that the Arnaz name could produce a lasting love story after all.
Three Children: Simon, Joseph, and Katharine
Arnaz and Luckinbill have three children: Simon Luckinbill, Joseph Luckinbill, and Katharine Luckinbill. Raised largely out of the spotlight in an era before social media, all three have lived private lives - a deliberate choice by parents who knew exactly what fame costs.
This privacy is itself a statement. As the grandchildren of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, they could have been tabloid fixtures; instead, they are essentially unknown to the public. Arnaz has guarded her children's anonymity as fiercely as her mother guarded her own privacy - and more successfully.
The family gathers in Palm Springs, where Arnaz and Luckinbill have lived for years. She remains close to her brother Desi Jr., and the extended Arnaz clan - including Lucie herself - has been involved in preserving Lucille Ball's legacy, including the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, Lucy's hometown.
Her Own Career: Beyond Being Lucy's Daughter
Arnaz built a substantial career on her own terms: Here's Lucy (1968-1974) as a teenager opposite her mother; The Lucy Show before that; then a pivot to theater, where she won acclaim - including a Theatre World Award - and toured nationally. Her film work includes The Jazz Singer (1980) opposite Neil Diamond and Laurence Olivier.
She has spent decades as a producer and guardian of the I Love Lucy legacy - involved in documentaries, stage adaptations, and the preservation of her parents' work. The 2021 film Being the Ricardos, about her parents' marriage, brought the family story to a new generation; Arnaz served as a consultant and has spoken about watching her parents' love and dysfunction dramatized.
At 75, she remains active in theater and legacy work - and married, for 46 years, to the man she chose in 1980. Lucille Ball's daughter got the happy ending her mother didn't: not the fame, but the marriage.
46 Years and Counting
Arnaz and Luckinbill - 75 and 91 - are in the golden years of a golden marriage. They live quietly in Palm Springs, surrounded by family, far from the Hollywood machinery that made her parents icons and casualties.
The answer to "is Lucie Arnaz married" is the least dramatic and most admirable in this batch: yes, since 1980, to the same man, for 46 years. In the house that Lucy built, her daughter built something rarer than fame - a marriage that lasted.
Guarding the Lucy Legacy
Arnaz has spent decades as the chief guardian of the I Love Lucy legacy, a role she takes as seriously as any performance. She has been involved in documentaries, museum exhibitions, and stage adaptations of her parents' work, including the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York (Lucille Ball's hometown), where the Ball family's contribution to comedy is enshrined.
The 2021 film Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's drama about her parents' marriage starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, brought the family story to a new generation. Arnaz served as a consultant and spoke movingly about watching her parents' love and dysfunction dramatized: the pride, the pain, and the strange experience of seeing your childhood become prestige television.
She has also kept performing: theater tours, cabaret shows, and concerts that draw on the family songbook. At 75, Lucie Arnaz is both a working actress and a living archive, the daughter who became the keeper of the flame. And through it all, Laurence Luckinbill has been beside her: 46 years of marriage, the stable center of a life built in the shadow of legends.
The Stage Career: Broadway and Beyond
Arnaz's stage career is the equal of her screen work. She made her Broadway debut in They're Playing Our Song (1979), earning a Theatre World Award, and returned for Lost in Yonkers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (opposite John Lithgow), and Pippin. The theater was where she proved herself beyond the family name: eight shows a week, no retakes, no editing.
She won the Sarah Siddons Award for Chicago theater work and has toured extensively in concerts and cabaret, including shows celebrating her parents' music. The voice, warm, brassy, inherited, is the real thing: she is a singer, not a celebrity singing.
At 75, she still performs: the stage is where Lucie Arnaz is most herself, neither Lucille Ball's daughter nor Desi's, but an artist with her own credits. And in the wings, for 46 years, Laurence Luckinbill: the husband who married the actress, not the archive, and stayed for both.
Guarding the Lucy Legacy
Arnaz has spent decades as the chief guardian of the I Love Lucy legacy, a role she takes as seriously as any performance. She has been involved in documentaries, museum exhibitions, and stage adaptations of her parents' work, including the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York (Lucille Ball's hometown), where the Ball family's contribution to comedy is enshrined.
The 2021 film Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's drama about her parents' marriage starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, brought the family story to a new generation. Arnaz served as a consultant and spoke movingly about watching her parents' love and dysfunction dramatized: the pride, the pain, and the strange experience of seeing your childhood become prestige television.
She has also kept performing: theater tours, cabaret shows, and concerts that draw on the family songbook. At 75, Lucie Arnaz is both a working actress and a living archive, the daughter who became the keeper of the flame. And through it all, Laurence Luckinbill has been beside her: 46 years of marriage, the stable center of a life built in the shadow of legends.
The Stage Career: Broadway and Beyond
Arnaz's stage career is the equal of her screen work. She made her Broadway debut in They're Playing Our Song (1979), earning a Theatre World Award, and returned for Lost in Yonkers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (opposite John Lithgow), and Pippin. The theater was where she proved herself beyond the family name: eight shows a week, no retakes, no editing.
She won the Sarah Siddons Award for Chicago theater work and has toured extensively in concerts and cabaret, including shows celebrating her parents' music. The voice, warm, brassy, inherited, is the real thing: she is a singer, not a celebrity singing.
At 75, she still performs: the stage is where Lucie Arnaz is most herself, neither Lucille Ball's daughter nor Desi's, but an artist with her own credits. And in the wings, for 46 years, Laurence Luckinbill: the husband who married the actress, not the archive, and stayed for both.
Guarding the Lucy Legacy
Arnaz has spent decades as the chief guardian of the I Love Lucy legacy, a role she takes as seriously as any performance. She has been involved in documentaries, museum exhibitions, and stage adaptations of her parents' work, including the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York (Lucille Ball's hometown), where the Ball family's contribution to comedy is enshrined.
The 2021 film Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's drama about her parents' marriage starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, brought the family story to a new generation. Arnaz served as a consultant and spoke movingly about watching her parents' love and dysfunction dramatized: the pride, the pain, and the strange experience of seeing your childhood become prestige television.
She has also kept performing: theater tours, cabaret shows, and concerts that draw on the family songbook. At 75, Lucie Arnaz is both a working actress and a living archive, the daughter who became the keeper of the flame. And through it all, Laurence Luckinbill has been beside her: 46 years of marriage, the stable center of a life built in the shadow of legends.
The Stage Career: Broadway and Beyond
Arnaz's stage career is the equal of her screen work. She made her Broadway debut in They're Playing Our Song (1979), earning a Theatre World Award, and returned for Lost in Yonkers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (opposite John Lithgow), and Pippin. The theater was where she proved herself beyond the family name: eight shows a week, no retakes, no editing.
She won the Sarah Siddons Award for Chicago theater work and has toured extensively in concerts and cabaret, including shows celebrating her parents' music. The voice, warm, brassy, inherited, is the real thing: she is a singer, not a celebrity singing.
At 75, she still performs: the stage is where Lucie Arnaz is most herself, neither Lucille Ball's daughter nor Desi's, but an artist with her own credits. And in the wings, for 46 years, Laurence Luckinbill: the husband who married the actress, not the archive, and stayed for both.
Guarding the Lucy Legacy
Arnaz has spent decades as the chief guardian of the I Love Lucy legacy, a role she takes as seriously as any performance. She has been involved in documentaries, museum exhibitions, and stage adaptations of her parents' work, including the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York (Lucille Ball's hometown), where the Ball family's contribution to comedy is enshrined.
The 2021 film Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's drama about her parents' marriage starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, brought the family story to a new generation. Arnaz served as a consultant and spoke movingly about watching her parents' love and dysfunction dramatized: the pride, the pain, and the strange experience of seeing your childhood become prestige television.
She has also kept performing: theater tours, cabaret shows, and concerts that draw on the family songbook. At 75, Lucie Arnaz is both a working actress and a living archive, the daughter who became the keeper of the flame. And through it all, Laurence Luckinbill has been beside her: 46 years of marriage, the stable center of a life built in the shadow of legends.
The Stage Career: Broadway and Beyond
Arnaz's stage career is the equal of her screen work. She made her Broadway debut in They're Playing Our Song (1979), earning a Theatre World Award, and returned for Lost in Yonkers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (opposite John Lithgow), and Pippin. The theater was where she proved herself beyond the family name: eight shows a week, no retakes, no editing.
She won the Sarah Siddons Award for Chicago theater work and has toured extensively in concerts and cabaret, including shows celebrating her parents' music. The voice, warm, brassy, inherited, is the real thing: she is a singer, not a celebrity singing.
At 75, she still performs: the stage is where Lucie Arnaz is most herself, neither Lucille Ball's daughter nor Desi's, but an artist with her own credits. And in the wings, for 46 years, Laurence Luckinbill: the husband who married the actress, not the archive, and stayed for both.
A Showbiz Kid: The Early Years
Arnaz was show business royalty from birth. Born Lucie Desiree Arnaz on July 17, 1951, at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, she is the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and the older sister of actor and musician Desi Arnaz Jr. There was never a version of her childhood that was not in front of a camera or near a stage.
When she was 10, the family lived for a few years in New York City, where she and her brother attended St. Vincent Ferrer School. Back in Los Angeles, she attended the all-girls Roman Catholic Immaculate Heart High School, chosen mainly because of its drama program, the first sign she intended to earn the spotlight rather than inherit it.
The apprenticeship was literal: walk-on roles on her mother's series The Lucy Show, then a major acting debut as Kim Carter on Here's Lucy (1968-1974), playing the daughter of Lucy Carter, played by her own mother. From the mid-1970s she branched out independently, appearing on Captain Kangaroo and building a stage and television career of her own. The marriage to Laurence Luckinbill in 1980 came after she had already proven she was more than Lucy's daughter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Lucie Arnaz married?
Yes. She has been married to actor-writer Laurence Luckinbill since June 22, 1980 - 46 years.
Who is Lucie Arnaz's husband?
Laurence Luckinbill, an actor and writer known for Star Trek V and acclaimed one-man stage shows.
How many children does Lucie Arnaz have?
Three: Simon, Joseph, and Katharine Luckinbill.
Who are Lucie Arnaz's parents?
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz - the stars of I Love Lucy. Her brother is Desi Arnaz Jr.
Was Lucie Arnaz married before?
Yes - to Philip Vandervort Menegaux from 1971 to 1976.
How old is Lucie Arnaz?
She was born July 17, 1951 - 75 years old in 2026.
How old is Laurence Luckinbill?
He was born November 21, 1934 - 91 years old in 2026.
Where does Lucie Arnaz live?
Palm Springs, California, with her husband Laurence Luckinbill.