How accurate is 'Being the Ricardos'? We break down what's fact and what's fiction (2024)

Javier Bardem in “Being the Ricardos.”

(Glen Wilson / Amazon Content Services LLC)

The incident that drives the film’s plot is the investigation into Ball’s ties to communism — an accusation that could kill someone’s career. She was called in to testify in front of HUAC on Sept. 4, 1953, in a closed-door session, at the height of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s campaign against Communists in the U.S. Ball admitted to registering as a Communist in 1936, explaining the decision as one meant to appease her aging grandfather, who had been the father figure in her life. It had been his wish that she align herself with the party’s position, but Ball testified that she had not been an active member of the party.

“I am not a Communist now. I never have been. I never wanted to be,” Ball said in her testimony, according to the book “Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.” “Nothing in the world could ever change my mind. At no time in my life have I ever been in sympathy with anything that even faintly resembled it. ... It sounds a little weak and corny now, but at the time, it was very important because we knew we weren’t going to have Daddy [her grandfather] with us very long. ... In those days, it was not a terrible thing to do. It was almost as terrible to be a Republican in those days.” (Sorkin makes use of the final sentiment in Ball’s conversation with CBS executives.)

The committee cleared the actress of any wrongdoing, with the assurance that none of the secret testimony would be made public. But two days later, news of her supposed political affiliations began to spread, as the film relays in its opening moments. Walter Winchell, a prominent radio commentator and syndicated newspaper gossip columnist, suggested in a blind item mentioned during his program that “the most popular of all television stars” was questioned about her membership in the Communist Party.

Ball later described her mental state in that difficult period in her autobiography, “Love, Lucy.” “The smash success of our TV show and the physical strain of combining my last pregnancy with a full work schedule took its toll,” she wrote. “I developed a feeling I couldn’t shake. All our good fortune was suddenly going to vanish. ... I received a call that seemed to realize my anxious apprehension. The call was from A. Wheeler, an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee.”

The film illustrates the lengths Arnaz was willing to go to in order to protect his wife: As depicted in the film, he gathered Desilu officials, along with executives from MGM, CBS and Philip Morris, the show’s sponsor. When they learned Ball had been cleared, Ball recounted, they figured nothing more needed to be done. But in Hollywood, nothing stays secret for long. The news broke.

In a climactic moment in the film, as the show reaches tape night, Arnaz invites members of the press to sit in the audience and gets then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on the phone, putting a mic to the phone receiver, so the audience can hear directly from his mouth that Ball has been cleared. “She’s 100% cleared,” Hoover says to a stunned audience.

In reality, there was no call from Hoover. But Ball’s name was cleared hours before an episode filming — Rep. Donald L. Jackson, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, held a press conference in a Hollywood hotel room and publicly absolved Ball of any wrongdoing. As the film shows, Arnaz did address the studio audience before the filming that night, reading from a speech he typed.

“Lucy has never been a Communist — not now, and never will be,” Arnaz said, as recounted in Ball’s book, to applause.

“I was kicked out of Cuba,” he continued, “because of Communism. We despise everything about it. Lucy is as American as Bernie Baruch and Ike Eisenhower.”

He later introduced his wife for the cast’s bow before showtime: “Now, I want you to meet my favorite wife, my favorite redhead — in fact, that’s the only thing red about her, and even that’s not legitimate — Lucille Ball,” a line Arnaz also detailed in his memoir. Ball walked out with tears in her eyes.

Nevertheless, Hoover continued to have evidence collected on Ball, according to a 1989 Washington Post report.