“Forgotten Hollywood”- The Woman Behind I Love Lucy…
Manny P. here…
One of the talented co-writers of the iconic I Love Lucy has died. Madelyn Pugh was part of Lucille Ball’s creative team throughout her radio and television career. Together with her partner, Bob Carroll, Jr., they spent 50 years collaborating on shows including My Favorite Husband, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy, and Life With Lucy. They also received writing credit on films starring Ball; most notably – Forever Darling and Yours, Mine, and Ours.
However, Pugh will be best remembered as the creator of the Lucy character. Head writer Jess Oppenheimer supervised the project while they worked closely with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. As part of an unprecedented strategy, Pugh and Carroll created a live vaudeville act for the acting couple, which became the basis for the pilot episode of I Love Lucy. Pugh later authored Laughing with Lucy: My Life with America’s Leading Lady of Comedy.
Pugh and Carroll also wrote for other television programs. Among them, The Steve Allen Show, The Paul Lynde Show, and The Mothers-In-Law. On Alice, the two collaborators served as Executive Producers. They received a Golden Globe for their work as Writers in a Comedy Series.
Madelyn Pugh died peacefully on Wednesday in Santa Monica at the age of 90.
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Friday, April 22nd, 2011 at 2:01 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
