Desiree Anzalone, the only great-granddaughter of the legendary comedic greats Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, has passed away after a battle with breast cancer. She was only 31 years-old.
Anzalone’s family confirmed to People Magazine this week that she died at Smilow Cancer Center in Connecticut on September 27. She was born in 1989 to parents Julia Arnaz and Mario Anzalone, and her maternal grandfather was Desi Arnaz Jr., the son of the iconic “I Love Lucy” stars.
Julia, 51, said that though her daughter died “peacefully,” she added that “watching her slip away was just, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. No mother should have to watch that.”
“She was so special. All our children are special, but this little girl was something else,” she adds. “We were [best friends]. We are still,” Julia said of her only child, who she referred to as “my mini me.”
“She was so beautiful, just so so beautiful inside and out,” she added. “She really, really reminded me a lot of my grandmother, more so than I.”
Anzalone was only 25 years-old when she was first diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer six years ago. She went into remission for some time after getting chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, but two years ago, she learned that her cancer had returned as stage 4 and had spread to her liver, lungs and bones.
“She probably would have been with us for a few more years — it was starting to spread a lot more, and the tumors were getting bigger — but we expected her to stay at least through the holidays,” Julia explained. “What went wrong is she kept getting fluid around her heart and then they kept doing surgeries and it would come back like two weeks later. And this time, they did the surgery and came back 12 hours later and [said], ‘You’ve got days, if hours.’ So that was really tough. I was there before that happened. It was unimaginable.”
Julia went on to say that her daughter wanted “to give awareness for young girls her age because this does happen. It’s rare, but it does happen. And Desiree wanted to put awareness out for if you feel anything, just because you’re a certain age doesn’t mean that it can’t happen to somebody.”
She added that though Anzalone “was a rare case,” it “does happen.”
“It’s just not talked about a lot. It’s usually people in their late 30s, 40s, 50s — not somebody at this age,” Julia said. “So that was something that she really wanted — to help other women like her. A preventative, really.”
The grieving mother said that the “first time” Anzalone was diagnosed with cancer was “right after her birthday, right before breast cancer awareness month. And second time around, stage 4, found out again three years later, right after her birthday, right before breast cancer awareness month. And then now, her final — going into God’s kingdom — right after her birthday, right before breast cancer awareness month. So it’s just odd how it happened every three years or so.”
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Julia and Anzalone did not get to spend as much time together in her final weeks as they would have liked.
“The COVID-19 kept us apart, so I wasn’t able to see her as much as I usually do because she was compromised and I didn’t want her getting sick in any kind of way,” Julia explained. “So I wasn’t able to spend as much time with her as I normally do because of the COVID since March. I mean, I saw her, but not as much; we’d hang out every day practically she was here. Plus, she lived with me for a while.”
This comes eight years after Julia’s late husband died in a tragic accident.
“I lost my husband, my late husband, in a swimming accident, so I’ve had my endurance with tragedy,” she said. “And now my only child. My late husband, my sweet Tim, which was Desiree’s first step-father, died in a swimming accident in 2012. I’ve had a husband die and now my daughter. I’ve definitely had my tragedies.”
When asked what she would tell her daughter, Anzalone said, “I hope she comes to visit me from time to time. Now she can travel all those places she wanted to see, but just come see me from time to time. She wanted to see so many places and so many things. And she wasn’t able to do that.”
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