Desilu

Desilu Productions, Inc.
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryTelevision production
Founded1950; 74 years ago (1950)
FoundersDesi Arnaz
Lucille Ball
DefunctDecember 29, 1967; 56 years ago (1967-12-29)
FatePurchased by Gulf+Western and amalgamated into Paramount Television
Successors
Headquarters
Los Angeles, California
,
United States
ParentDesilu Corporation

Desilu Productions, Inc. (/ˈdɛsiluː/) was an American television production company founded and co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The company is best known for shows such as I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Mannix, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. Until 1962, Desilu was the second-largest independent television production company in the United States, behind MCA's Revue Studios, until MCA bought Universal Pictures and Desilu became and remained the number-one independent production company, until Ball sold it to Gulf and Western Industries (then the parent company of Paramount Pictures) in 1968.[1][2]

Ball and Arnaz jointly owned the majority stake in Desilu from its inception until 1962, when Ball bought out Arnaz and ran the company by herself for several years. Ball had succeeded in making Desilu profitable again by 1968, when she sold her shares of Desilu to Gulf+Western for $17 million (valued at $155 million in 2023).[3] Gulf+Western then transformed Desilu into the television production arm of Paramount Pictures, rebranding the company as the original Paramount Television.

Desilu's entire library is owned by Paramount Global through two of its subsidiaries. The CBS unit owns all Desilu properties that were produced and concluded before 1960, which were sold to CBS by Desilu itself. Its CBS Studios unit owns the rights to everything Desilu produced after 1960 as successor in interest to Paramount Television.

There is a street named after Desilu in San Antonio, Texas.[4]

  1. ^ "Acquisitions: Into New Territory". Time. February 24, 1967. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  2. ^ "CBS faces trademark lawsuit over Desilu name". Reuters. April 10, 2018. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  3. ^ "RADICALS & VISIONARIES Desi Arnaz & Lucille Ball". Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  4. ^ Brown, Merrisa (September 30, 2014). "San Antonio street names and groupings". mysanantonio.com.