Peg Lynch | Broadcast pioneer, 98

Peg Lynch, 98, a trailblazer for women in broadcast entertainment who wrote, owned, and starred in one of television's first sitcoms,

Ethel and Albert

, has died.

The writer of more than 11,000 scripts for television and radio, Ms. Lynch died July 24 at her home in Becket, Mass., her daughter, Astrid King, told the Los Angeles Times. Ms. Lynch's health had declined after recent hip surgery, King said.

Decades before Seinfeld became known as the sitcom about nothing, and Tina Fey wrote and starred in 30 Rock, Ms. Lynch's presciently modern sitcom - which aired on radio and all three major networks - celebrated the understated humor of average married life.

Her original characters, Ethel and Albert Arbuckle, were unremarkable, their story lines revolving around toothaches, filing taxes, and hosting dinner parties in the little town of Sandy Harbor.

"I wrote about what I knew," Ms. Lynch told the Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts last year. "I wrote about real life."

Ms. Lynch created Ethel and Albert in the late 1930s at the small radio station KATE in Albert Lea, Minn. They appeared in three-minute filler sketches, according to her website, and the act went on to become a 15-minute feature on a Maryland station, a 15-minute national show, then moved to television on NBC.

The show later moved to CBS and then ABC before going off the air in 1956. All of the shows were written by Ms. Lynch, and most were performed live.

Ms. Lynch's husband, Odd Knut Ronning, died last year. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her son-in-law and grandson. - L.A. Times