John and Mary Masterson; Creator of ‘People’s Court,’ Wife Die in Crash

John Anthony Masterson, creator and producer of radio and television shows including “The People’s Court,” and his wife, Mary Stuart MacDonald Masterson, have died. He was 83 and she was 72.

The couple died Saturday in an automobile accident on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

A native of Spokane, Wash., the colorful Masterson first worked as a sheriff’s deputy. He and John Reddy, his partner and future co-writer, caught Virgil Toliver, the only man to escape from Alcatraz while it was a military prison.

Masterson’s broadcasting career included the long-running daily radio shows “Bride and Groom” and “Queen for a Day,” which were “reality-based shows” before the phrase was coined.

He took many of his radio productions into the new medium of television, and was particularly proud of a radio program on Eleanor Roosevelt that he created, produced and co-wrote with Reddy.

Bored with retirement, Masterson returned to television to create the syndicated program “The People’s Court,” featuring real litigants arguing their small-claims cases. The show ran for 13 years, with about 2,500 episodes.

He recently produced “The Booth,” a PBS dramatic series with such stars as Dame Judith Anderson and Teri Garr.

Mary Stuart MacDonald married the producer and moved to California in 1957. Before that, she modeled for Marshall Field in Chicago, attended college in Wellesley, Mass., and worked as a Broadway actress. She appeared in such shows as “The Hasty Heart,” “Wall Flower” and “Highland Fling.”