During an interview, the actor spoke about the experience of working with Lucille Ball and how important she was to his career.
While recalling the beginning of his career in Hollywood, Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed that Lucille Ball was one of the people who supported and encouraged him the most to pursue acting.
The star of “The Terminator” spoke fondly of the comedian and remembered how she invited him to audition for a TV movie, “Happy Anniversary and Goodbye”, after seeing him on the talk show “The Merv Griffin Show”.
In a conversation with Andy Cohen on Sirius XM, Schwarzenegger said he was shocked to receive a call from Ball: “I was shocked that she called the gym, Gold’s Gym,” he explained.
According to him, Ball said she had seen him on TV the night before. “I saw you on The Merv Griffin Show, Arnold. I saw you last night… you were very funny. I want you to be part of my special. There’s a role as a masseur, and my husband will be very jealous of that, come…,” Schwarzenegger recalled.
The 78-year-old actor recalled that at the time he was a young man in his early twenties who barely spoke English, but that Ball was very attentive throughout the rehearsal and later when they filmed the scene in front of an audience.
“So I went in there and took off my jacket. And when I took off my jacket, I was wearing a tank top,” he recalled. “I was huge. I weighed 113 kg. So the audience was clapping… everyone clapping, and I looked at the audience, completely shocked that there were people there. Then I saw that whole audience.”
According to Schwarzenegger, Ball noticed how nervous he was and supported him throughout the entire scene and also afterward, throughout his career.
“She was like a mother,” he said. “She wrote me letters, always congratulated me, and always told me how proud she was of me.”
Lucille Ball was an American actress, comedian, and producer, best known for creating and starring in the sitcom “I Love Lucy” (1951–1957), where she immortalized the character Lucy Ricardo. She passed away in 1989 at the age of 77.
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