Lucille Ball was "like a mother" to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The actor, 78, recalled how comedienne Lucille - who died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in April 1989 aged 77 - phoned his gym the day after the Hollywood icon saw Arnold on The Merv Griffin Show and asked him to audition for a masseur in her 1974 TV film, Happy Anniversary and Goodbye.
During an interview with Andy Cohen, 57, on Sirius XM, Arnold, 78, remembered: "I was shocked that she would call the gym, Gold's Gym.
"[She said,] 'I saw you on The Merv Griffin Show, Arnold. I saw you last night ... you were so funny. I want you to be part of my special. There is a character that is a masseur, and he's going to massage me, and my husband is getting really jealous about it. Come on in and read.'"
Arnold had limited English at this point and made a few misunderstandings, such as thinking that "come on in and read" meant to read the script instead of acting out his part.
However, the I Love Lucy legend helped the bodybuilder through his audition.
Arnold added: "What she was really doing was kind of like, she wanted me so badly on the show that even though I didn't know how to read the lines, because she wanted me to act out what I read, but I did not know that's what you do, right? I was not experienced.
"So, anyway, she got me in there. She said, 'You're so good improvising. You're hired. We start it next week on Monday with the rehearsals.'
"And then she says, 'Remember, you have to really project because it's done live. There's a live audience.'
"So, of course, I had no idea what that means. I'd been in America just a few years. So I didn't know what a live audience means and shooting means.
"That's filming, but they were saying 'shooting in front of a live audience.' It went right over my head."
On the day of filming, Arnold remembered: "The green light lights up outside the door at the stage, and I'm ringing the doorbell.
"She opens up, she says, 'Yeah,' and I said, 'I'm the masseur. I'm here to massage you.' And she says, 'Come on in.'
"So I go in there, and I take off my jacket. And as I go to take off my jacket, I have a tank top on. Of course, this was literally a month before the Mr Olympia competition, so I was pumped up. I was huge. I weighed 250 lbs.
"So the audience, now, is applauding, everybody's applauding, and I look out there, totally in shock that there were people around.
"So now I see this whole audience."
Arnold then noted that Lucille was "very good" and that she "saw right away that I got stuck".
After the former Governor of California said how the actress guided him through his scene, Andy said: "It sounds like she really took care of you."
To which Arnold replied: "She was like a mother. Every movie I did... I remember the following year, I did a movie called Stay Hungry with Jeff Bridges and Sally Fields. I won the Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut.
"[Ball] wrote me a long, two-page letter, handwritten, saying, 'Arnold, I'm so proud of you. You are a sweet enough guy; you deserve it. You're a great performer. You're going to have a great career,' all this kind of stuff.
"I mean, Lucille Ball. And then, every single time, until Conan, and then she passed away ... she wrote me letters and always congratulated me and told me, always, how proud she was of me.
"That was really fantastic."
