Biografi
Bob Carroll Jr. was born on August 12, 1918, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. When he was three, his family relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida. His passion for writing began as a teenager when he won first prize in a radio contest by submitting a script he wrote while recovering from a hip ailment.
In his early twenties, Carroll moved to Los Angeles and secured a job as an usher at CBS radio affiliate KNX. After working in the mailroom, he was promoted to the writing staff.
In the late 1940s, Carroll teamed up with Madelyn Pugh Davis, his writing partner for over 60 years. While working on comedian Steve Allen's radio show, they learned Lucille Ball was seeking writers for her radio program "My Favorite Husband." After convincing Allen to write his own show for a week, Carroll and Davis submitted a script to Ball, who loved it. They became the first permanent writers for "My Favorite Husband."
When the show transitioned to television in 1951, Ball brought her writers along, renaming the program "I Love Lucy" and adding her husband Desi Arnaz to the cast.
Carroll and Pugh wrote every episode of the iconic series, as well as numerous episodes of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour," "The Lucy Show," "Here's Lucy," and "Life With Lucy." The latter was Ball’s final show, ending in 1986, three years before her death. Carroll and Davis crafted the "Lucy formula," which defined all her series and earned Ball a lasting fan base. Each show featured Lucy concocting an unusual plan to achieve her goals, which inevitably resulted in comedic disasters, though her good intentions usually earned forgiveness.
Beyond their work with Ball, Carroll and Davis collaborated on other projects, including the 1968 film "Yours, Mine and Ours" and the short-lived sitcom "The Mothers-In-Law," produced by Desi Arnaz.
Carroll also wrote and produced the 1977 TV special "Lucy Calls the President," rarely seen since its original broadcast but highly regarded by fans. The special featured Ball as a concerned mother who contacts President Jimmy Carter about a federal housing project threatening a children's camp. It served as a mini-reunion with longtime co-stars Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon and included a star-studded supporting cast. This special marked the final on-screen appearance for both Vance and Ball.
Outside of his work with Lucille Ball, Carroll was a producer and occasional writer for the successful sitcom "Alice," starring Linda Lavin, and the short-lived but Golden Globe-nominated "The Paul Lynde Show."
Bob Carroll passed away from natural causes on January 27, 2007, at 88 years old. He was married and divorced twice and is survived by a daughter.
