Peg Lynch, Writer and Star of Early Situation Comedy, Dies at 98

Margaret Frances “Peg” Lynch (November 25, 1916 – July 24, 2015), was an American writer and actor, and creator of the radio and television sitcom Ethel and Albert. She was one of the first women to star in, own, and write, singlehandedly, her own comedy series. WIKIPEDIA The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert is a 1940s comedy show created by and starring, Peg Lynch ("The Couple Next Door") and Alan Bunce. Also referred to as "The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert" set in the small american town of Sandy Harbor. The Ethel and Albert Arbuckle series first aired on local Minnesota radio in the early 1940s, then picked up by ABC from May 29, 1944 to August 28, 1950. “I base my show on the little things in life,” Ms. Lynch said in an interview in The New York Times in 1950, when the show, then on radio, was known as “The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert.” “I believe that people like to find out that other people have some of the same problems they do.” NYTimes OBIT The show had its first national exposure as a 15-minute, five-day-a-week radio program on the Blue Network (the progenitor of ABC) in 1944, with the actor Richard Widmark playing Albert. Three of the radio scripts were staged for television in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1946 — by then her co-star, who remained with the show for its remaining years, was Alan Bunce — and in 1950 “Ethel and Albert” appeared in sketches on “The Kate Smith Hour,” an afternoon variety show. It became its own weekly series, broadcast on Saturday nights on NBC, in 1953, later moving to CBS and then ABC before going off the air in 1956. Radio historian Gerald Nachman (in Raised on Radio) called the show "insightful and realistic... a real leap forward in domestic comedy—a lighthearted, clever, well-observed, daily 15-minute show about the amiable travails of a recognizable suburban couple" which combined "the domestic comedy of a vaudeville-based era with a keen modern sensibility. Lynch made her comic points without stooping to female stereotypes, insults, running gags, funny voices or goofy plots."

                                 WIKIPEDIA         amazon episodes:

Richard Widmark as FRONT PAGE FARRELL

Richard Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories. In 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the title role of the daytime serial Front Page Farrell, introduced each afternoon as "the exciting, unforgettable radio drama... the story of a crack newspaperman and his wife, the story of David and Sally Farrell." Farrell was a top reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. When the series moved to NBC, Widmark turned the role over Staats Cotsworth. During the 1940s, Widmark was also heard on such network radio programs as Gang Busters, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Molle Mystery Theater, Suspense and Ethel and Albert. In 1952 he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of "Cavalcade of America" titled "Adventure on the Kentucky." He returned to radio drama decades later, performing on CBS Radio Mystery Theater (1974–82), and was also one of the five hosts on Sears Radio Theater (as the Friday "adventure night" host) from 1979-81.

VIDEO: Front Page Farrell - Leslie Plans To Resume Working Front Page Farrell ran from 1941 to 1954 and featured the story of David Farrell, a handsome star reporter for a top New York newspaper, "The Brooklyn Eagle. The Farrells go on reporting assignments and solve cases along the way. The show was originally geared towards a male audience but it appealed to female listeners because it was an unforgettable story of marriage and a newspaper office, the story of a dashing young star reporter on one of New York’s greatest newspapers, and the girl he marries on impulse, to save her from throwing herself away on a rich man twice her age. Richard Widmark stars as a good-looking reporter named David Farrell who works for a prestigious New York newspaper, "The Brooklyn Eagle". Florence Williams played his wife Sally Farrell.