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films per week and producing them with a quality that rates a capital “Q.” It always comes as a distinct shock to someone who doesn’t al¬ ready know it that this company pro¬ duces not only I Love Lucy but Our Miss Brooks and three other top- rated shows as well. Desilu turns out more footage than MGM. Senor Arnaz, the comedian, is all of a sudden one of the most successful young businessmen in Hollywood. Company Four Years Old Contrary even to general Hollywood belief, Desilu Productions came into being back in the days, four years ago, when Lucy was just another girl’s name instead of a national institution. It was set up then as a corporate en¬ tity to handle Desi’s band “and any other activities which might evolve in the future.” That the “other activities” would include, in so short a period of time, the ranking No. 1 TV show' in the Nation is something not even the most flattering astrologers would have predicted at the time. How, it might be asked, does this Arnaz man manage to co-star in a weekly TV show and still run a big and growing business? Minutes Mean Money Actually, it’s not so difficult as one might think. Desi’s small but tasteful office at Motion Picture Center is lo¬ cated not 50 feet from the I Love Lucy soundstage. And a careful scrutiny of the show reveals that quite a lot of footage doesn’t include Desi. The hard-to-rehearse shenanigans gener¬ ally fall upon Lucy and Vivian Vance, who plays “Ethel Mertz.” “They’ll wait for me for about 10 minutes,” Desi says, “and then the di¬ rector, Bill Asher, will come over and stick his head in the office door and say, ‘I hope you’re making some money in here because you’re sure losing it out on the set.’ ” The metamorphosis of Desi Arnaz How's business? Lucille will be pleased. from lighthearted bandleader to se¬ rious-minded businessman is one of the Eight Wonders of Hollywood. At 33, he was just another Hollywood name, a successful bandleader and not much else. Today, at 37, he is one of the powers of the television industry. At 33 he was being deferential to a routine radio director. At 37 he meets on equal terms with William Paley, chairman of the board at CBS. At 33, he looked upon a sponsor as some¬ thing he was lucky to have. At 37, it is pretty much the other way around. Desi’s native intelligence began to assert itself shortly after f Love Lucy got under way. When he started look¬ ing for his key man who could carry the bulk of the load, he instinctively went to the one man at CBS who, in the long negotiations for the original I Love Lucy deal, had given him the most trouble. “It figured,” Desi says simply. “There was this one guy who kept costing me money and saving it for CBS. I figured I had better get him on my side where he could start sav¬ ing me money for a change.” So Mar¬ tin Leeds, formerly in charge of busi¬ ness affairs for CBS in Hollywood, is now executive vice-president of Desilu Productions. The Arnaz - Leeds combination clicked from the beginning. Each 16