Lucille Kallen


Lucille Kallen was an American writer, screenwriter, playwright, composer, and lyricist.
She was best known for being the only woman in the most famous TV writers' room, the one that created Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows from 1950-54. She also worked extensively on Broadway, was a long-time writing partner of Mel Tolkin, and published six novels, including a series of mysteries featuring the character C.B. Greenfield. The Mystery Fancier discussed and reviewed her books, and one was quoted in English Historical Syntax and Morphology.
Sid Caesar's writer's room has been fictionally recreated many times. Neil Simon, one of the writers, memorialized it in his play Laughter on the 23rd Floor; it formed the centerpiece of the 1982 film My Favorite Year, and most famously, it was the office in which Rob Petrie worked in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Kallen and Selma Diamond were the only woman writers on Sid Caesar's follow-up show, Caesar's Hour.