Paddy Chayefsky

Paddy Chayefsky (born January 29, 1923, New York, New York, U.S.—died August 1, 1981, New York City) was an American playwright and screenwriter whose work was part of the flowering of television drama in the 1950s. He also wrote several critically acclaimed films.

Chayefsky graduated from City College of New York in 1943 and served during World War II in the U.S. Army. On his return to New York City, he worked as a printer’s apprentice, then began writing radio adaptations for Theatre Guild on the Air (1951–52) and mystery dramas for television series.

His first full-length television play was Holiday Song (1952). His greatest success was Marty (1953), about the awakening of love between two plain people, a butcher and a schoolteacher. The film version in 1955 won four Academy Awards, including one for Chayefsky’s screenplay, and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. Two of his other television plays also were made into motion pictures: The Bachelor Party (1953; film 1957) and The Catered Affair (1955; film 1956).

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Another television drama, Middle of the Night (1954), became, in expanded form, Chayefsky’s first stage play and marked his Broadway debut (1956). His next two stage productions, The Tenth Man (1959) and Gideon (1961), were on religious themes and attacked contemporary cynicism, while The Passion of Josef D. (1964) was a treatment of Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution. The Latent Heterosexual (published 1967; performed 1968) tells of a successful homosexual author who marries for tax purposes and enjoys it.

Chayefsky also wrote numerous film scripts and scenarios. In addition to Marty, he received Academy Awards for his screenplays for The Hospital (1971), about a depressed chief of medicine in a hospital experiencing many inexplicable deaths, and Network (1976), a brilliant satire of network television.