Robert Gordon Carroll Jr. (August 12, 1918 – January 27, 2007) was an American television writer notable for his creative role in the series I Love Lucy, the first four seasons of which he wrote with his professional partner Madelyn Pugh, and collaborator Jess Oppenheimer.
Biography
Early life and career
Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania,
Hollywood years
Concerned that he might never work, due to his injury, Carroll felt very fortunate when his brother-in-law helped him get a job as the front desk clerk for CBS Radio in Hollywood, California. There, Carroll got a kick out of making celebrities sign in. He eventually worked his way up into the publicity department and moved from there to assignments as a junior and eventually senior writer.
Carroll and Pugh helped develop and create a vaudeville act for Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, which became the basis for the pilot episode of the I Love Lucy series. Together the team tackled 39 episodes per season for the run of the show. Pugh and Carroll were nominated for three Emmys for their work on it; that total would likely have been considerably higher, but the academy did not award Emmys to writers until 1954. The pair also wrote episodes of Ball's subsequent series, The Lucy Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, and, in 1986, her final sitcom, Life With Lucy.
Later career
The duo's non-Lucy credits include work on the television series The Tom Ewell Show, The Paul Lynde Show, Dorothy, Those Whiting Girls and Kocham Klane. They created and wrote the successful Desilu series The Mothers-in-Law, which starred Lucille Ball's longtime MGM pals Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard. Carroll and Pugh served as executive producers and did some writing for the hit television series Alice, starring Linda Lavin, for which the duo won a Golden Globe Award. They also wrote the story basis for the film Yours, Mine and Ours (1968).
In a 2005 interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Carroll discussed the fact that he and his writing partner Pugh did not receive any compensation for the I Love Lucy re-runs, as would be standard for writers today. He did, however, keep his sense of humor over the situation telling a reporter: "Do you think I'd be sitting here if I'd had residuals? I'd have flown you down to Cuba for this interview if I had."