Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986), better known as Desi Arnaz or Desi Arnaz, Sr., was a Cuban-born American male actor, musician, and television producer. He is best remembered for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American television series sitcom I Love Lucy. He co-starred on that show with dramatic and comedic actress Lucille Ball (1911-1989), to whom he was married at the time. He and Ball are generally credited as the inventors of the syndicated rerun, which they pioneered with the I Love Lucy series.Arnaz and Lucille Ball co-founded and ran the television production company Desilu Productions, originally to market I Love Lucy to television networks. After I Love Lucy ended, Arnaz went on to produce several other television series, at first with Desilu Productions, and later independently; examples of which included The Ann Sothern Show and The Untouchables. He was also renowned for leading his Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra.
Bedřich Smetana (Czech pronunciation: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] (About this soundlisten); 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Homeland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native country and contains the famous symphonic poem "The Moldau".Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of 6. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.
