Lafayette native Keith Thibodeaux’s drum playing took him from TV guest appearances around Louisiana as a toddler to America’s television screens on the hit 1950’s sitcom “I Love Lucy.”
Born in 1950 in Lafayette, Keith Thibodeaux’s family noticed his natural rhythm and talent for music at just shy of one-year-old when the family went to a local parade and the young boy stared with rapt attention at the bass drums of local marching bands, according to a Times-Picayune article from 1956.
Thibodeaux soon took up the art himself by beating on the floor with a knife and fork, then moving to banging on an aluminum wash tub. He received a toy drum for Christmas in December 1951 and swiftly upgraded to a real drum, the news article said.
His drumming skills quickly caught the attention of others, and the youngster made a guest appearance at a benefit performance with the Breaux Bridge High School band and appeared on television in Lake Charles, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
In 1955, he caught the attention of big band leader and media personality Horace Heidt, who was visiting the area on invitation from the Kiwanis Club of Lafayette, the 1956 article said.
Heidt booked Thibodeaux to exclusively appear on his show. After touring around the country, Thibodeaux’s father brought him to a casting call for the role of “Little Ricky,” the fictional son of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo on the popular CBS sitcom “I Love Lucy.”
When the real-life Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz saw Thibodeaux play the drums, they booked him immediately on a seven-year contract, and his stage name became Richard Keith. The young actor spent significant time with Ball, Arnaz and their family outside of work, he said in a 1976 article in the Times-Picayune.
After the show ended in 1957 following Ball and Arnaz’s divorce, Thibodeaux appeared on “The Andry Griffith Show” and other popular television programs before eventually leaving Hollywood and returning to Lafayette as a teenager, where he attended Lafayette High School, a 2001 Advocate article said.
The performer studied briefly at the then-University of Southwestern Louisiana before joining the rock band David and the Giants. He struggled with alcohol and drug use as he went through a rocky adjustment period transitioning into adulthood from childhood stardom, but later got sober and embraced Christianity, he said in the 2001 article.
David and the Giants similarly embraced Christianity down the line, transitioning from rock to contemporary Christian music. The group, no longer full-time, continues to record and tour some today, per the band’s website.
Thibodeaux now lives in Jackson, Mississippi, where he’s served as the executive director of Ballet Magnificat! since 1993, according to the ballet company’s website. Ballet Magnificat! is “an arts organization dedicated to presenting the good news of Jesus Christ to the whole world” that Thibodeaux co-founded with his wife, Kathy, in 1986.
