Pugh became interested in writing while serving as Friday editor of the
Shortridge High School daily newspaper in Indianapolis, Indiana with classmate
Kurt Vonnegut. Pugh and Carroll helped create a
vaudeville act for Lucille Ball and her husband
Desi Arnaz, which became the basis for the pilot episode of
I Love Lucy. Together with Oppenheimer and/or
Bob Schiller and
Bob Weiskopf, who joined the show at the beginning of the fifth year, the team tackled 39 episodes per season for the run of the series. Although they never won, Pugh and Carroll were nominated for three
Emmy Awards for their work on the series. Pugh and Carroll are credited with helping create the 'Lucy' character, which Ball played in one form or another for over 40 years. The pair also wrote episodes for
The Lucy Show, ''
Here's Lucy, The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show (aka The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour'') and Ball's final series,
Life with Lucy (1986). The pair's other writing credits include work on the television series
The Jane Wyman Show,
The Paul Lynde Show,
Dorothy,
Those Whiting Girls,
Kocham Klane (an
I Love Lucy series remake in Poland) and
The Tom Ewell Show. They also worked on the films
Forever, Darling and
Yours, Mine and Ours, starring Ball. They created and wrote the Desi Arnaz Productions series
The Mothers-in-Law (filmed at
Desilu), which starred actresses
Kaye Ballard and
Eve Arden. The two served for seven years as executive producers of the long-running television series
Alice and occasionally contributed scripts, one of which was awarded a
Golden Globe Award. In September 2005, Madelyn Pugh Davis, who lived in California, released her memoirs, titled
Laughing with Lucy, written with Bob Carroll Jr. ==Personal life and death==