With the blessings of the estates of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, comedian Amy Poehler is on track to direct a documentary about the legendary comedy duo.
Deadline first reported the news today. Imagine Documentaries and White Horse Pictures will support Poehler on Lucy & Desi, which will mark her first feature as a director. “I am so excited to work with Imagine Docs to help present the incredible life and work of the brave and hilarious Lucille Ball, and her husband Desi,” Poehler said.
Ball and Arnaz can lay claim to many firsts in television, from onscreen portrayals of marriage crossing cultures to an on-air pregnancy and birth, to behind-the-scenes revolutions including multi-camera production, series syndication, and their Desilu Productions, which Ball and Arnaz co-founded (and which Ball herself ran after buying him out in 1962) and brought many other TV shows to broadcast; among them, notably, Star Trek.
Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, NY, has a Lucy-Desi Museum — which later prompted Jamestown to build the National Comedy Center a few blocks away.