Peg Lynch

Peg Lynch
Lynch with Alan Bunce as Ethel and Albert, 1954.
Born	Margaret Frances Lynch November 25, 1916 Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.
Died	July 24, 2015(2015-07-24) (aged 98) Becket, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, writer
Website	PegLynch.com

Margaret Frances “Peg” Lynch (November 25, 1916 – July 24, 2015), was an American writer, actress, and creator of the radio and television sitcom Ethel and Albert. She was one of the first women to star in, own, and write, single-handedly, her own comedy series. In total, Lynch wrote nearly 11,000 scripts for radio and television.

Lynch was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her father died of the Spanish flu when she was 2 years old, after which she and her mother moved back to Kasson, Minnesota, 15 miles west of Rochester, where her mother resumed her job as an orthopedic nurse at the Mayo Clinic. Lynch graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1937, majoring in English with an emphasis on writing and dramatics.

Lynch’s start in radio began at age 15 when, working part-time as a receptionist at the Mayo Clinic, she agreed to help out at KROC in Rochester, a radio station belonging to a classmate’s father, by writing copy and interviewing celebrities who were in town (usually to visit the Clinic) including Lou Gehrig, Jeanette MacDonald, Knute Rockne and Ernest Hemingway. Soon after she graduated from college, she landed a job at KATE in Albert Lea, Minnesota, about 40 miles southwest of Rochester. She earned $65 per month, in theory as a copywriter, but she also wrote commercials, a daily half-hour woman’s show, a weekly half-hour theatre show, a weekly farm news program, and three 10-minute plays and two five-minute sketches per week.

It was at KATE that Lynch first introduced the husband and wife characters of Ethel and Albert, born as a three-minute “filler” sketch in her woman’s show. She soon discovered that a husband-wife format could be adopted to sell a variety of products. Lynch played Ethel and a station announcer played Albert.

After four months at KATE, Lynch moved down to WCHV in Charlottesville, Virginia, and then on to WTBO in Cumberland, Maryland in 1941, continuing to develop Ethel and Albert as she went, and expanding it at WTBO into a five-times-per-week, 15-minute evening feature. Willis Conover played Albert. In February 1944, with $500 in her pocket, Lynch moved to New York City. Within a month she received an offer from NBC radio to air her show. Lynch refused the offer, however, on the grounds that Ethel and Albert was the only thing she owned and didn’t want to part with it. Shortly thereafter NBC sold the Blue Network (later to become ABC Television network) to Edward John Noble, who owned the Life Savers candy company. Noble was looking for a daytime comedy show that was not a soap opera and had a storyline that would wrap-up each day.