Lucie Arnaz read the missing opening voiceover when the I Love Lucy pilot aired in 1990.
The unaired pilot had been kinescoped in 1951 and was considered lost for many years. After a surviving copy was located, CBS presented it during a 60-minute special broadcast on April 30, 1990, nearly four decades after the pilot was made.
The recovered footage was incomplete: the opening titles and initial voiceover had been damaged or were missing. Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, supplied the beginning lines of the narration. Her reading then transitioned into the surviving pilot footage.
This is different from saying that Lucie Arnaz appeared as a character in the original pilot. She served as the 1990 special’s host and narrator, while the pilot itself starred her parents. The special’s discovery and broadcast became a major television event and helped preserve an early version of the series’ concept before the familiar weekly format was established.