View From the Phlipside - RIP Madelyn Pugh Davis

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Let’s be honest, here in her hometown there isn’t much discussion of the genius that was Lucille Ball.  Lucy and Desi are just a part of who we are as Jamestown.  Their museum is here and they are just part of the fabric of the city.  The discussion of Lucy’s comic genius ended a generation ago, recognition of Desi’s contribution not only as a top rank straight man but as the business brains behind the DesiLu studios took a while longer but is generally accepted.

But it still overlooks one more vital contribution to the legend of I Love Lucy.  Every one of those classic episode began with a script.  Lucy and Desi had great writers.  Among the very best was Madelyn Pugh Davis.  Her passing last week might pass without a word in many places but here perhaps especially we need to spend a moment remembering.

Just as Lucy broke new ground in television so did the then Madelyn Pugh.  With her writing partner Bob Carroll Jr they helped to create the show that took Lucy and Desi to a new kind of stardom.  She began writing for Lucy on the radio show “My Favorite Husband”.  In her writing career she was usually the only female writer on the staff.  With I Love Lucy she would become a pivotal part of the creative team.  The show would become known for the outrageous stunts that Lucy would perform.  Madelyn Pugh would have done them first, including the stunt that required stuffing several dozen eggs down her blouse.  When Lucy did it before a live audience it got the longest recorded live audience laugh in television history.  Davis and Carroll were the steady presence on the writing staff for the entirety of the run of the show.  Astoundingly while they were nominated for several Emmys they never won.  Lucy trusted them enough that were also writers on all the other Lucy shows that followed.  During her partnership with Carroll they wrote over 400 TV scripts plus that many more radio scripts.  They created shows and were long time producers of the TV show Alice in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Madelyn Pugh Davis was a pioneer, leading the way for women to be taken seriously as a key writer for a hit TV show.  In an age where women still continue to be taken seriously at many levels of the business world she’s worthy of a moment’s remembrance.

Madelyn Pugh Davis was 90.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011