Mr. and Mrs. North are fictional American amateur detectives. Created by Frances and Richard Lockridge, the couple were featured in a series of 26 Mr. and Mrs. North novels, a Broadway play, a motion picture and several radio and television series.

Mr. and Mrs. North was a radio mystery series that aired on CBS from 1942 to 1954. Alice Frost and Joseph Curtin had the title roles when the series began in 1942. Publisher Jerry North and his wife Pam lived in Greenwich Village at 24 St. Anne's Flat. They were not professional detectives but simply an ordinary couple who stumbled across a murder or two every week for 12 years. The radio program eventually reached nearly 20 million listeners.

Broadway, radio and television

Albert Hackett and Peggy Conklin had the title roles in the Broadway production Mr. and Mrs. North, which ran 163 performances at the Belasco Theatre from January 12, 1941, to May 31, 1941. Alfred De Liagre, Jr. produced and directed the play written by Owen Davis. In that version, the North's apartment is located on Greenwich Place, realized in a scenic design by Jo Mielziner.

The Owen Davis play became a 1942 MGM movie starring Gracie Allen and William Post, Jr. with Millard Mitchell repeating his role of Detective Mullins from the Broadway production. Others in the cast were Paul Kelly, Rose Hobart and Keye Luke.

In 1946, Mr. and Mrs. North received the first Best Radio Drama Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America (in a tie with CBS's Ellery Queen). The CBS Radio program, which was broadcast once in 1941 and continuously fromn 1942 to 1955, featured Carl Eastman (1941), Joseph Curtin (1942-54) and Richard Denning (1954-55) as Jerry North. Pam North was played by Peggy Conklin (1941), Alice Frost (1942-54) and Barbara Britton (1954-55). "The (couple) who passed themselves off as a publisher and his homemaker-spouse continued to make lighthearted wisecracks as they stepped over bodies in dark alleys and were rendered unconscious by unknown assailants dispensing blows to the head almost every week. ... The feminine half of the twosome was at least equal to the husband in solving cases that often baffled law-enforcement officers with years of training and practice -- except in reading clues. No explanation was given, of course, as to why a couple of misfits could be so successful in their preoccupation while the professionals thrashed about ineffectually."

In 1946, producer-director Fred Coe brought the Owen Davis play to television (on New York City's WNBT) with John McQuade and Maxine Stewart in the leads and Don Haggerty, Joan Marlowe and Millard Mitchell repeating their Broadway roles.

Barbara Britton and Richard Denning starred in the TV adaptation seen on CBS from 1952 to 1953 and on NBC in 1954. Francis De Sales starred in twenty-five episodes as police Lieutenant Bill Weigand, only his second screen role. Guest stars included Raymond Burr, Hans Conried, Russ Conway, Mara Corday, Carolyn Jones, Katy Jurado, Jimmy Lydon, Dayton Lummis, Julia Meade, William Schallert, and Gloria Talbott. Sixteen episodes of the TV series have been released in the "Best of TV Detectives" box set.

Mr. and Mrs. North were resurrected in spirit with ABC's Hart to Hart, the 1979-84 crime drama about a wealthy husband (Robert Wagner) and wife (Stefanie Powers) who spent as much time solving murders as romancing each other and pursuing careers as an industrialist and a journalist, played the crime theme with wry wit reminiscent of the Norths in their heyday.