Lucille Ball received a cushion-cut diamond engagement ring from Desi Arnaz after they had already eloped

Lucille Ball didn’t receive her engagement ring from husband Desi Arnaz until after they were married.

Just six months after meeting on the set of the musical comedy Too Many Girls in 1940, the couple eloped on Nov. 30, 1940, in Connecticut. When they said “I do,” Arnaz gave his wife a brass ring from Woolworth’s, per InStyle.

"Eloping with Desi was the most daring thing I ever did in my life. I knew I shouldn't have married him, but that was one of the biggest attractions," Ball said, according to Warren G. Harris' biography, Lucy & Desi: The Legendary Love Story of Television's Most Famous Couple.

The actress later received an upgraded piece of jewlery: a cushion-cut diamond and platinum ring. Her husband and I Love Lucy costar also gave her a second ring which she was frequently seen wearing on her left ring finger: an 40-carat, emerald-cut aquamarine stone.

Here’s everything to know about Lucille Ball’s engagement rings.

Arnaz’s assistant bought Ball's wedding band

In her posthumously published 1996 memoir, Love, Lucy, Ball explained that her husband’s “business manager” purchased her wedding band at a five-and-dime store on the day of their 1940 elopement.

"Desi had planned to marry me at the office of Justice of the Peace John J.O'Brien. He had forgotten only one thing, a wedding ring," she wrote. "Desi's business manager ran into Woolworth's and bought me a brass one."

"Although Desi later gave me a platinum ring, that little discolored brass ring rested among the diamonds and emeralds in my jewel case for years," she added.

Ball's second, aquamarine, ring matched her eyes

It is not clear when exactly Arnaz gave the 40-carat aquamarine to Ball, but she often wore it on her left ring finger.

Aquamarine is Arnaz's birthstone, as he was born on March 2, 1917.

Her aquamarine ring was stolen

Ball’s aquamarine ring, along with other pieces from her collection, were allegedly stolen from a Chicago hotel room in June 1950.

According to a newspaper story from the time, quoted in Michael Karol's Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia, over $6,000 of jewelry (equivalent to approximately $82,000 today) was taken in the reported burglary.

A second aquamarine piece, a 62-carat pendant necklace, was taken, along with a gold chain choker and a pair of gold earrings.

"Detective Martin Barrett said the theft last night was a professional job," the report read. "Evidently a pass key was used to enter the rooms at the Ambassador East hotel, the detective said, and only light, valuable articles were taken.”

In her memoir Ball recalled: “All my jewelry was gone, including the 40-carat aquamarine engagement ring Desi had given me. Within a few minutes our bedroom was swarming with police checking and taking fingerprints.” The robbery was reportedly never solved.

Ball wore her cushion-cut ring after the alleged burglary

Sometime after Ball and Arnaz eloped, he gifted her a cushion-cut diamond engagement ring. After the reported burglary of Ball’s hotel room in 1950, she was photographed wearing the original cushion-cut ring.

Ball was captured wearing it in 1943 and the photo caption read, “the ring chosen by herself as a Hollywood bride to be.”

Nicole Kidman wore a recreation of the aquamarine ring when she portrayed Ball

For her role as Ball in the 2021 biopic Being the Ricardos, Nicole Kidman wore a similar aquamarine sparkler.

Costume designer Susan Lyall detailed to PEOPLE some of the research that went into preparing looks for Kidman and Javier Bardem, who starred opposite the actress as Arnaz.

"I read her autobiography [Love, Lucy] which is now covered with Post-its, because every time there was a mention of something that was related to her clothing or her hair, or her preference in interior design or anything like that, I would flag," Lyall explained.

She also focused on Ball and Arnaz “not just their characters, but who they were as people and as a couple and as a marriage and as professionals and business people and artists, and all of those things that makes for this very, very complex duo."

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