Madelyn Pugh

March 15, 1921 – April 20, 2011

Pugh was co-writer of the following Lucille Ball television shows: 

• 180 episodes of “I Love Lucy” (1951-57)
• 5 episodes of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” (1957-58)
• 58 episodes of “The Lucy Show” (which she helped create; 1961-64)
• 29 episodes of “Here’s Lucy” (1968-74)
• 5 episodes of “Life With Lucy” (which she helped create; 1986)
• “The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse: K.O. Kitty” (1958)
• “Lucy Calls the President” (1977)

Madelyn Pugh was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1921. Although the character of Fred Mertz (one Pugh helped create) is generally thought to be from Steubenville, Ohio, in one episode of “I Love Lucy” Ethel says her mother-in-law “comes all the way from Indiana once a year just to look under her rug for dirt!

Pugh became interested in writing while serving as co-editor of the Shortridge High School newspaper in Indianapolis, Indiana with classmate Kurt Vonnegut. 

In “Lucy Becomes A Reporter” (TLS S1;E17) Pugh used Shortridge as Vivian Bagley’s alma mater. Pugh even loaned the show her high school yearbook as a prop. 

Pugh graduated from the Indiana University School of Journalism in 1942. Her first professional writing job was writing short radio spots for WIRE, an Indianapolis radio station.

When her family moved to California, she got work as a radio writer, first for NBC and then for CBS, where she met Bob Carroll J. Early in her career, she was frequently the only female writer on staff.

At CBS Radio, Pugh forged a partnership with Carroll which lasted more than 50 years. Together they wrote some 400 television programs and roughly 500 radio shows. When Pugh first proposed a writing partnership, Carroll said, “I don’t want to get tied down. I’ll give it a year.”

While the team was writing for “The Steve Allen Show,” they became interested in writing for Lucille Ball’s new radio show, “My Favorite Husband.” They got hired and under the supervision of head writer Jess Oppenheimer, the pair wrote Ball’s radio program for its 2½ years on the air. 

Pugh and Carroll helped create a vaudeville act for Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, which became the basis for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy.” The pilot was not publicly aired until 1990, but helped helped convince sponsor Philip-Morris to get behind the new show. 

"Madelyn always said she’s more expendable than Lucy, but not for me she wasn’t. So we’d wrap Madelyn in rugs and strap her into swivel chairs and hang her out of windows, and she came through nicely. So I said, ‘If it works for Madelyn, it will work for Lucy.’” ~ Bob Carroll Jr. 

Together with Oppenheimer and/or Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf, who joined the show at the beginning of the fifth year, the team tackled 39 episodes per season for the run of the series. Although they never won, Pugh and Carroll were nominated for three Emmy Awards for their work on the series.

“Lucy was willing to do anything if it was funny. She’d black out her teeth, wear funny wigs. She never said, ‘What do you mean setting fire to my nose?’ And she didn’t care how dangerous it was. It was very freeing to write anything in the world and know she had the nerve to do it.” ~ Madelyn Pugh, 2001

When Lucy Ricardo is considering names for her unborn baby, the names Robert and Madelyn were mentioned to honor writers Carroll and Pugh. 

Although she never craved the limelight, Pugh can be glimpsed in the Paris Cafe where Lucy dines on snails but ends up under arrest.  Her table mate is a goateed Bob Carroll, who got far more screen time on the series. 

On Christmas Eve, 1955, Pugh married TV producer Quinn Martin, which ended in divorce. In 1964 she married Richard Davis. Each time, Pugh adapted her screen credit to reflect her marriage making her Madelyn Martin or Madelyn Pugh Davis or Madelyn Davis in various shows. 

Pugh and Carroll’s first TV credit was an episode of “Hollywood Theatre Time” (featuring Elvia Allman) that aired a month before the October 15, 1951 premiere of “I Love Lucy.” 

Pugh and Carroll even helped create “Kocham Klane” (an “I Love Lucy” remake in Poland). They worked on the films Forever, Darling and Yours, Mine and Ours, starring Ball. They created and wrote the Desi Arnaz Productions series “The Mothers-in-Law” (filmed at Desilu).

In September 2005, Madelyn Pugh Davis, who lived in California, released her memoirs, titled Laughing with Lucy, written with Bob Carroll, Jr.  

In 1992, Carroll and Davis received the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for achievement in television writing from the Writers Guild of America. And in 2001, the UCLA Film School honored them for lifetime achievement in television writing.

“Madelyn was such a class act. She was a very private person, very soft-spoken, genteel, feminine — all those lovely words you associate with great ladies. And yet she had the ability to write this wacky, insane comedy for my mother.” ~ Lucie Arnaz

Pugh died on April 20, 2011 at age 90. In addition to a son, Davis was survived by four stepchildren; nine grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.