Your career as a percussionist started at the early age of three, and you quickly became a child prodigy when you began performing with the Horace Heidt Orchestra. Looking back, how do you reflect on that early stage of your career before making your big break on television?
I always had a love for the drums and playing—starting out on trash cans in the backyard and graduating to a full set eventually. The famous jazz artist Lionel Hampton was on one of the shows, and he and I played a song together with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco. There's even some film of it.
Did you feel any pressure at that time, or were you just having fun and playing around?
I was on the road touring with the Horace Heidt show, doing one-night stands across the nation, in Canada. So, I missed my mother, of course. I missed my family, and I was around a lot of adults, so that was kind of a bummer for a kid, you know.
I understand that in 1956, during your audition for the role of Little Ricky on the legendary show I Love Lucy, both Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were present. How did things unfold? What led to your inclusion in the cast?
A friend of my father's found out about the interview. They were looking to expand the part of their son, Little Ricky, who was born on the show, and I was invited to an audition at Desilu Studios. The first person I saw was Lucille Ball, and she looked at me and said to my dad, "He's cute, but what does he do?" My dad said, "He plays the drums." She responded, "Well, there's a set of drums over there. You can go over there and start playing." So, I went over and started playing the drums, and eventually, everybody was listening to this little kid playing. Desi Arnaz himself came over, started playing with me, then stood up, laughed, and said, "I think we found Little Ricky."
And, at the time, did you know who these big celebrities were, or were they just like random people to you?
Well, to me, they were random people, but my dad had informed me before the audition. He said, "Keith, this is a really big opportunity, and these are big, big people and a big, big show, and you need to do well." So I knew it was a big deal. The first episode I acted in was Lucy and Bob Hope, and that was a big one with Bob Hope as the guest star. I had a few lines there. And I just remember it was very good and fine at that point; it kind of felt like it was normal.
What were Lucy and Desi like off-camera?
They were very intense. Desi, of course, came from Cuba, so he was very Latin and very passionate. And Lucy came from a storied acting background and had played in a lot of B-movies. They were just very much like stars—that's what they were. But one of the first things Lucy said when I first met her was, "Please don't call me Ms. Ball. You call me Lucy, and you call Desi, Desi. You don't call us Mr. or whatever." So that was kind of interesting, because later on, I heard that when she did her last sitcom, people would call her Lucy, and she completely reversed her earlier personality and said, "No, I'm Ms. Ball. You don't call me Lucy." So there was definitely a change as she got older and whatnot.
Did they treat you with a caring, parental attitude?
They actually took me under their wings, and Lucy treated me like her child. She would tell the technicians on the set, "Absolutely no cussing if Keith is here, or you'll be fired." She was very kind to me and gave me presents on my birthday. Desi, whenever he gave his kids gifts while I was at their home, would give me the same gift. He took us to Los Angeles Rams football games, taught us how to ride horses and fish, and even bought me a personalized bowling ball. It was custom-made and had my name on it. He was just a very generous guy.
Do you still have that bowling ball, or did it get lost?
You know, I had that bowling ball for a while, but I think it's departed from me (laughs). But I still have a drum set that I had on the show. It's a 1957 or 1958 set that was completely restored. It's been to some museums across the country.
What are your memories of Vivian Vance and William Frawley, the other two main cast members of the show?
Well, again, these two—Vivian Vance and William Frawley—were very talented, very seasoned actors who basically didn't have attitudes toward me. They didn't act like they were stars. They were just working for the show, and we were all part of it. And they treated me like I was one of theirs, like a peer.
Which episode from your time on the show is your favorite?
I think I've got a few favorites. The Maurice Chevalier episode was really fun, with the famous French actor, and I got to play the drums. Anytime I played the drums on the show, I had a good time. But I think the Superman episode, with George Reeves, where he came to Little Ricky's birthday party, was probably my favorite as a kid because I really idolized George. I used to watch his show. So, when he came on set, he was like a superhero in real life. But what's interesting is that he didn't get credit as George Reeves, which was his real name; he was just Superman. It was one of the first crossovers they did, where they had a character from one series come onto another series and intermingle.
How do you view your performance now, looking back at your acting from so many years ago? Do you see it with affection, or do you have a more critical perspective?
You know, as I've gotten older, I've become less critical of myself. When I was younger, I was never really pleased with what I did. But looking back at it and watching the episodes again—which, by the way, you can watch on Pluto and other streaming platforms—I think it was quite good. I mean, the show was great, and my role will always be part of that legacy.
You were there during the final years of Lucy and Desi's marriage, which I imagine were quite rocky. Did you ever witness any tense moments between them?
Oh, of course. I mean, being a friend of their children, Lucie and Desi Jr., I spent a lot of weekends at their house. We'd go to their different homes in Del Mar, Palm Springs, and Corona—the ranch. I got to see the Arnazes in their element. Desi had an alcohol problem, and when he was drinking, you didn't want to be around him because it was almost a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of thing. Also, Lucy loved Desi, and Desi loved Lucy, but Desi was a womanizer, and Lucy couldn't accept that. They would fight and throw things at each other. You'd hear all kinds of crazy noises. It scared me and their children. It was not an easy childhood for them, and whenever I was at their home, I never knew what was going to happen.
How did you find out about their divorce?
The first time I found out about it was after the last episode with Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams. That was the last episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. As we were driving back home, my dad said, "Well, you know, Keith, you're out of a job." I said, "Why?" You know, it was the number one show in the country. But dad said that Lucy and Desi were getting a divorce and they couldn't work with one another anymore. So, that was kind of the nail in the coffin for the show. It was a sad, sad situation. But, in a way, it was almost like my own dad and mom getting divorced.
How so?
I didn't know that my father would eventually divorce my mother several years later, having an affair with a woman at one of the studios. So, I was totally sad and just could not believe that my dad could do that to our family. But I saw how Lucy and Desi couldn't get along with one another, and it was just better off that they were separate rather than always fighting.
After Lucy and Desi's divorce, did you ever feel like you had to choose sides?
What happened after they divorced was that their children, Lucie and Desi Jr., would spend time with them separately. Lucy had a life and remarried. Then eventually, Desi remarried Edith Hirsch. And, yeah, it was just a completely different lifestyle with those spouses. So, I didn't really have a favorite, but Desi was probably more of my favorite because he was such a generous guy. He never said any bad words to me, never said anything unkind. He would get mad at other people when he was drunk, but he would never come at me. I think he respected me a lot.
When was the last time you saw both of them?
It was kind of close to the end of their lives. I saw Desi at Desi Jr.'s wedding. I was invited to the wedding in Beverly Hills when he married Linda Purl, and then I saw Lucy there, too. But the last time I saw Lucy was at Desi's funeral in Del Mar.
As you said, in your personal life, you had strong friendships with the couple's children, Lucie and Desi Jr. What are some of your favorite memories from those relationships?
Oh, gosh. I mean, we grew up together. I became fast friends with Desi Jr. I played the drums, and he ended up taking lessons and learning the drums himself. We would always open Here's Lucy, which was after I Love Lucy. Desi and I would do the warm-up with the orchestra at the show for the live audience before the show was filmed. It was fun that we got to do that. Then we had our own little band called Little Ricky's Dixieland Band, and we were featured on The Dinah Shore Show, where we got to play a big segment. We were really good friends. I was close to Lucie Jr. You know, went through all her boyfriends and all that stuff with her. We went to the beach together, just hanging out.
Do you still keep in touch with them today?
Every once in a while, I'll speak with Desi Jr. I might not talk to him for a couple of years, but when I call him, we'll speak for about two hours and just catch up. We have a lot in common. We both married ballet dancers, and his wife has passed away, but we share many similarities in our lives.
Wow, it's really interesting that both of you ended up marrying ballet dancers...
In fact, our wives—my wife Kathy and his wife Amy—actually roomed together in New York City at the Joffrey Ballet Summer Intensive one summer when they were about 16 years old. That was before they even met either one of us. My wife is a silver medalist in the USA International Ballet Competition and was featured in a PBS special. The story goes that Amy and Desi were watching the special because she loved ballet. As she was watching the show, she saw my wife and said, "I think I know that girl. I roomed with her, and that's Kathy Denton." But her name changed to Thibodeaux because of my last name. Desi then said, "Yeah, I think Keith married a ballet dancer." It was so weird that we both had this connection in that way.
In the 60s, you appeared on The Andy Griffith Show as the friend of Opie, played by actor-turned-Oscar-winning director Ron Howard. Did you form a strong bond with him, or were you simply fellow cast members?
He hung out a lot with me. The teacher that I had on I Love Lucy ended up teaching him on The Andy Griffith Show a couple of years later. She had talked to Ron about me. When I came on the show as Johnny Paul, he really looked up to me. I was a couple of years older than he was. He would ask the writers to write in a part for me so he could play with me. We went to the cafeteria together, we would eat a hamburger at the commissary. Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore would be in the next booth having lunch. Then we'd play on the set. It was fun.
What about Andy Griffith?
He was a very nice guy, very professional. He and Don Knotts, who played Barney, were both exceptional individuals. What I liked about the set was that it was southern-based, you know, from the southern U.S., and it was very folksy and very at ease, compared to I Love Lucy. There were a couple of differences between those shows...
Which were those differences?
I Love Lucy was filmed in front of a live audience, like a play, while The Andy Griffith Show was not. It was just one camera shot where they'd shoot, then cut, and do another angle. The Andy Griffith Show was the closest thing that I can think of where the characters really were kind of like that, in a way. I mean, it was such a different vibe on the set. For example, in the makeup department, they would be playing checkers and chess, and Andy would have his guitar, strumming and playing some country or gospel songs. It was just a very laid-back type of set, which is what that show was. I Love Lucy was more high-powered, more show-business-y, and full of energy.
Besides those appearances, you were featured in several popular shows of the time, like The Joey Bishop Show and Route 66. How do you recall doing those guest roles?
In Route 66, I played a Mexican boy, and we did it in New Mexico, so the whole show was filmed on location. On The Joey Bishop Show, I played a sick boy, and I remember I was having trouble getting my lines. This was after I Love Lucy. I just remember Joey Bishop being very, very kind and very patient with me during that process of me forgetting the script and all that.
Do you have any other stories from the TV shows you appeared in?
Well, I did The Bill Dana Show, Shirley Temple's Storybook, Hazel, and The Farmer's Daughter with Inger Stevens. In The Farmer's Daughter, I was in a band and played the drummer. One of the guitar players and the singer was a guy named Davy Jones, who would later play in The Monkees. With this fictional band, we did the song "Gonna Buy Me a Dog," which The Monkees later recorded when they got big. But, interestingly enough, during one of the breaks in the show, he said, "I'm getting ready to do this sitcom that's going to be kind of a take on The Beatles, kind of A Hard Day's Night. And it's called The Monkees." So, come to find out, that was the show that propelled them to stardom.
After the fame faded, you went into a downward spiral with drug use and an interest in the occult. Can you tell us what that difficult time was like?
Well, as I mentioned, my dad and my mom eventually divorced. I went back to Louisiana, which is where I was born. I started playing in garage bands in the late '60s—1967, 1968, that time period. I just began to smoke cigarettes and started drinking, you know, like teenagers did. Back in those days, the hippie and the '60s revolution was going on, so I eventually got into drugs and reached a really bad time in my life when I was very depressed. I would go out with witches and read books on sorcery—just all these weird tools, I guess, that I thought would give me some kind of power over the problems I was having: the hurt from my parents' divorce and the fact that I was not Little Ricky anymore. I kept thinking, "I just want to get as far away from Hollywood as I can."
Which thoughts were running through your head at that moment?
There was this void in me—I was just not a happy guy. I was always very moody and eventually became chronically, clinically depressed and suicidal. I would hear voices in my head, which I guess was because of the drugs and the things I had been doing in my life. My best friend, whom I played with in high school and did drugs with, ended up being committed to a mental institution. Also, I had joined a band called David and the Giants in Mississippi, and this band was kind of my springboard into the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll world. And so, all these things affected me.
I understand that your belief in God was what saved you. What led to that spiritual shift?
I was raised in a Catholic home and went to Catholic schools. I had a belief in God, but I had no relationship with God. I was helpless and hopeless and had no purpose in life. About this time, when I became suicidal, in my mind, I cried out to God one night in Laurel, Mississippi, on a waterbed in the dark of the night. I said, "God, if you're real, save me out of this mess that I made out of my life, and I'll serve you." About two weeks later, my mother invited me to a prayer meeting in Louisiana, and in this prayer meeting, I committed my life to Jesus in a way that I hadn't ever done before. I was born again, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit.
What happened there that made you make that decision?
I was actually taken up into heaven at one point, in one of these prayer meetings, and I had a vision of Jesus Christ, and it completely changed my life. I repented of my sins and changed my outlook on things because I was completely transformed. I mean, I saw the God who created the universe and who died for our sins 2,000 years ago and rose from the dead. I went back to the guys in the band, and I said, "Jesus is real. There's more to the Bible than what we've been led to believe. We need to change our music and start playing music that's uplifting, that has more God-lifting words. You know, we can still play the same kind of music, just change the words to godly lyrics."
How did they react?
They thought that I had really flipped out on a drug. They said, "You'll be okay in a couple of weeks. It's just another thing that you're going through." Even my dad told me, "This is just a phase." But it never left me, and I just kept talking about Jesus. Eventually, to make a long story short, my bandmates gave their lives over to the Lord, and David and the Giants became a Christian rock band.
Can you explain a little bit about what this experience with the vision was like?
Yeah, I'd be happy to. It was the most amazing experience I ever had in my life. It was the atom bomb that I needed to break up the garbage that was in my way and the demonic oppression that I was feeling. I was taken up into heaven, and it was like I was in outer space or something. I was in a prayer meeting, and then I couldn't hear. I heard people's voices and music, but it was all just kind of fading away. Then I was in this blackness, and far off in the distance, I saw a light. This light started coming toward me as I looked at it. As it got closer, it grew larger and larger, becoming brighter than the Sun to me.
What was that light?
Here's the thing: I could see in the vision that there was a man in the light. Inside the light was Jesus of Nazareth, the one who died 2,000 years ago. I began to say, "I'm not worthy, Lord, for you to come to me in this way. It's really you. It's really Jesus." And I began to go over all these sins that I'd committed, all these wretched, ugly things that I'd allowed in my life. It was as if my whole life passed before me—everything I'd done. And with every one of those things, it was as if Jesus took that thing on the cross and died for it. Every ugly thing I did, it was as if he felt it. It was like it was given to him to take on my sin, which he did. There was more love and more power in this light than the entire universe could contain. Because he's the creator. And I said, "Lord, are you really like this?" And he said three words: "Yes, I am."
Did you get to ask him anything else during that vision?
Yes. When I went through all my sins, I asked him, "Well, how could you forgive me for all these things?" And he said, "That's the reason I died. Because you can't take it, only I can." And he took it, died to it, and rose from the dead. And he lives now, and he's coming back soon.
What is your message for the audience?
My message is: take a life like mine that was suicidal, and I was clinically depressed. I never went to a psychologist, never went to a psychiatrist, and was never committed, but I very well could have been. If it were not for the grace of God in my life, I would have probably been like one of those Hollywood child star stories that you hear. You know, it could have been Michael Jackson. It could have been some of these sitcom people, like Rusty Hamer on The Danny Thomas Show. Some of these people—you hear those stories all the time—and it's like, that could have been me. And if it were not for God, I would not be here talking with you.
As you said before, this process was also reflected in the shift of your band, David and the Giants, from secular music to Christian rock. Do you think it made more sense in your life to be part of a group that aligned with your religious beliefs?
Yes, it absolutely did. Because, you know, before there were really a lot of Christian bands and things, David and the Giants was one of the pioneering Christian bands. And so it was something very new for churches to see these rock musician guys who were radically saved and born again, and were talking about Jesus, when they had been in the sex, drugs, and rock and roll world. So the other guys in the band—David, Rayborn, and Clayborn—had their own testimonies. But I was able to give my testimony to one of them, and it did change the course of his life in some way. And so I felt like we had a mutual vision, and that was to tell people about Jesus, that He is real, and that He's a savior.
Do you have any interesting anecdotes about playing with the band?
When we first started playing as a Christian band, we went to Oxford, England, and did an outreach there, in a tent in a park. And all these punk rockers in 1979, early 1980s, heard the music, and that attracted them. But then, when they heard the lyrics to the music, they started cursing, and they would throw rocks and knock microphones down. They got mad. They got very angry that we would be talking about God. And so, as we kept playing this outreach, they kept coming back. They were drawn back. God had drawn them back. And eventually, one of them got saved. And when he got saved, the others began to say, "Hey, there must be something to this." And so, we eventually went, and they wanted to be baptized, and so we baptized them in the Thames River. And when we left to go back to the U.S. and fly back, they had tears in their eyes instead of rocks in their hands.
Were you part of Starbuck, the band that did Moonlight Feels Right in the '70s?
Yes, I was. After my wife and I married, we moved to California for a few months. We were probably there about half a year—seven, eight months, something like that. And I went and visited Six Flags park in L.A., and a group called Starbuck was playing. I knew two of the people in the band because I played in a previous group with them earlier. They got me tickets, and we got in. They talked to me afterwards and said, "Hey, man, we're looking for a drummer. Are you interested in it?" I replied, "Sure, yeah. I'd be interested in that." And they said, "Okay, go to our office in Beverly Hills, and we'll give you some traveling money to get to Atlanta." So, my wife and I moved from California to Atlanta, and I was probably there for about two weeks, rehearsing with the band. One night, one of the guys came to me and said, "Keith, I'm sorry, you're fired. Basically, it's not going to work out."
Just like that?
Yes, I was so angry because I went all the way over there. My wife began to cry; we were newlyweds, and here we are, taking her from one end of the country to the next. But when I gathered myself, I told her, "It's okay, God's got a purpose for this. I don't know what it is, but He's got a reason for it." And I kind of figured that it was because of my Christianity and because of my life that it wasn't going to fit with their lives and their beliefs. So it was like, "Yeah, this guy's not really cool, he's not with us." That was the first time I got fired from a drumming job, but it was fine because God worked it out for good. I would get back with David and the Giants as a Christian band.
What have you been focused on professionally in recent years?
Well, I wrote a book called Life After Lucy, and that's about my life with Lucy and all my show business experience as a drummer when I was younger, and then my life after when God came and busted into my life. My wife and I started a ballet company in 1986. The ballet company is a Christian ballet company, so it's unique. It's called Ballet Magnificat!, which is the ballet that magnifies the Lord. We've been to over 50 countries, toured all over, performed in Singapore, China, and all of Europe. We actually started another company, school, and training program in Brazil, which started in 2017. David and the Giants have just recorded a new album, and we're in the last process of mixing, editing, and mastering that. It should be out maybe in the spring. So, I'm doing a lot of things.
Do you have any personal or professional projects planned for the near future?
I probably want to do an update on my book because I wrote it in 1994. So, there's a lot of things that have happened since then. I want to continue to play and see how God works and oversees the ballet company. The company is scheduled to go to Europe for about five weeks this spring, doing theaters there. Also, our daughter lives in Phoenix, and her son, Bryson, has some acting ability. He was offered an audition for a movie, and we don't know how that's going to turn out, but he's a very talented young boy, and we'll be praying about that as well. I just want to continue to follow what the Lord has for me and walk in His will for my life. I think that's the main thing. If I'm in the will of God, no matter what I'm doing, that's what I want to do.