Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky (; January 29, 1923 – August 1, 1981) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both Adapted and Original screenplays.
He was one of the most renowned dramatists of the Golden Age of Television. His intimate, realistic scripts provided a naturalistic style of television drama for the 1950s, dramatizing the lives of ordinary Americans. Martin Gottfried wrote in All His Jazz that Chayefsky was "the most successful graduate of television's slice of life school of naturalism."Quote re Chayefsky, google.com; accessed June 29, 2015.
Following his critically acclaimed teleplays, Chayefsky became a noted playwright and screenwriter. As a screenwriter, he received three Academy Awards for Marty (1955), The Hospital (1971) and Network (1976). The movie Marty was based on his own television drama about two lonely people finding love. Network was a satire of the television industry and The Hospital was also satiric. Film historian David Thomson called The Hospital "years ahead of its time.… Few films capture the disaster of America's self-destructive idealism so well." His screenplay for Network is often regarded as his masterpiece, and has been hailed as "the kind of literate, darkly funny and breathtakingly prescient material that prompts many to claim it as the greatest screenplay of the 20th century."
Chayefsky's early stories were frequently influenced by the author's childhood in The Bronx. Chayefsky was part of the inaugural class of inductees into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Television Hall of Fame. He received this honor three years after his death, in 1984.
Early life Sidney Aaron Chayefsky was born in the Bronx, New York City, to Russian-Jewish immigrants Harry and Gussie (Stuchevsky) Chayefsky. Harry Chayefsky's father served for twenty-five years in the Russian army so the family was allowed to live in Moscow, while Gussie Stuchevsky lived in a village near Odessa. Harry and Gussie emigrated to the United States in 1907 and 1909 respectively.Considine, p. 3
Harry Chayefsky worked for a New Jersey milk distribution company in which he eventually took a controlling interest and renamed Dellwood Dairies. The family lived in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and Mount Vernon, New York, moving temporarily to Bailey Avenue in the West Bronx at the time of Sidney Chayefsky's birth while a larger house in Mount Vernon was being completed.Considine, p. 5 He had two older brothers, William and Winn.Considine, pp. 4–5
As a toddler, Chayefsky showed signs of being gifted, and could "speak intelligently" at two and a half. His father suffered a financial reversal during the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and the family moved back to the Bronx. Chayefsky attended a public elementary school. As a boy, Chayefsky was noted for his verbal ability, which won him friends.Considine, p. 5-6 He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he served as editor of the school's literary magazine The Magpie. He graduated from Clinton in 1939 at age 16 and attended the City College of New York, graduating with a degree in social sciences in 1943.Considine, pp. 16–17 While at City College he played for the semi-professional football team Kingsbridge Trojans. He studied languages at Fordham University during his Army service.Considine, p. 20
Military service In 1943, two weeks before his graduation from City College, Chayefsky was drafted into the United States Army,Considine, p. 17 and served in combat in Europe. While in the Army he adopted the nickname "Paddy." The nickname was given spontaneously when he was awakened at dawn for kitchen duty. Although actually Jewish, he asked to be excused to attend Mass. "Sure you do, Paddy," said the officer, and the name stuck.Considine, p. 18
Chayefsky was wounded by a land mine while serving with the 104th Infantry Division in the European Theatre near Aachen, Germany. He was awarded the Purple Heart. The wound left him badly scarred, contributing to his shyness around women.Considine 17, 40 While recovering from his injuries in the Army Hospital near Cirencester, England, he wrote the book and lyrics to a musical comedy, No T.O. for Love. First produced in 1945 by the Special Services Unit, the show toured European Army bases for two years.
The London opening of No T.O. for Love at the Scala Theatre in the West End was the beginning of Chayefsky's theatrical career. During the London production of this musical, Chayefsky encountered Joshua Logan, a future collaborator, and Garson Kanin, who invited Chayefsky to collaborate with him on a documentary of the Allied invasion, The True Glory.Considine, p. 23
Career
1940s Returning to the United States, Chayefsky worked in his uncle's print shop, Regal Press, an experience which provided a background for his later teleplay, Printer's Measure (1953), as well as his story for the movie As Young as You Feel (1951). Kanin enabled Chayefsky to spend time working on his second play, Put Them All Together (later known as M is for Mother), but it was never produced. Producers Mike Gordon and Jerry Bressler gave him a junior writer's contract. He wrote a story, The Great American Hoax, which sold to Good Housekeeping but was never published.
Chayefsky went to Hollywood in 1947 with the aim of becoming a screenwriter. His friends Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon found him a job in the accounting office of Universal Pictures. He studied acting at the Actor's Lab and Kanin got him a bit part in the film A Double Life. He returned to New York, submitted scripts, and was hired as an apprentice scriptwriter by Universal. His script outlines were not accepted and he was fired after six weeks. After returning to New York, Chayefsky wrote the outline for a play that he submitted to the William Morris Agency. The agency, treating it as a novella, submitted it to Good Housekeeping magazine. Movie rights were purchased by Twentieth Century Fox, Chayefsky was hired to write the script, and he returned to Hollywood in 1948.Considine, pp. 30–35 But Chayefsky was discouraged by the studio system, which involved rewrites and relegated writers to inferior roles, so he quit and moved back to New York, vowing not to return.Considine, p. 38
During the late 1940s, he began working full-time on short stories and radio scripts, and during that period, he was a gagwriter for radio host Robert Q. Lewis. Chayefsky later recalled, "I sold some plays to men who had an uncanny ability not to raise money."
Early 1950s During 1951–52, Chayefsky wrote adaptations for radio's Theater Guild on the Air: The Meanest Man in the World (with James Stewart), Cavalcade of America, Tommy (with Van Heflin and Ruth Gordon), and Over 21 (with Wally Cox).
His play The Man Who Made the Mountain Shake was noticed by Elia Kazan, and by his wife Molly Kazan who helped Chayefsky with revisions. It was retitled Fifth From Garibaldi but was never produced. In 1951, the movie As Young as You Feel was adapted from a Chayefsky story.
At the start of the decade, Chayefsky moved into the new medium of television. His first TV credit was co-writing an adaptation of Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run?, which aired in April 1949. He then wrote half-hour scripts for the TV series Danger and Manhunt. After seeing Chayefsky's work, talent agent (and future TV producer) David Susskind encouraged him to contact Fred Coe, producer of The Philco Television Playhouse. As an initial assignment, Coe asked Chayefsky to adapt a Reader's Digest article by Paul Deutschman, "It Happened on a Brooklyn Subway", about a photographer on a New York City Subway train who reunites a concentration camp survivor with his long-lost wife. Since Chayefsky had always wanted to use a synagogue as a backdrop, he converted the photographer into a Jewish cantor who is having a crisis of faith on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. The result was Chayefsky's first hour-long TV show, Holiday Song, broadcast in September 1952 (and brought back for an encore performance a year later).
He submitted more work for Philco Playhouse, including Printer's Measure (1953), The Big Deal (1953), The Bachelor Party (1953), and Catch My Boy on Sunday (1954). He also wrote a story for Gulf Playhouse, "A Gift from Cotton Mather" (1953), directed by a young Arthur Penn.
The seventh season of Philco Playhouse began September 19, 1954 with E. G. Marshall and Eva Marie Saint in Chayefsky's Middle of the Night, a play which relocated to Broadway theaters 15 months later. In 1956, Middle of the Night opened on Broadway with Edward G. Robinson and Gena Rowlands, and its success led to a national tour. It was filmed by Columbia Pictures in 1959 with Kim Novak and Fredric March.
Marty and fame In 1953, Chayefsky wrote Marty, which premiered on Philco Playhouse with Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand. Marty is about a decent, hard-working Bronx butcher, pining for the company of a woman in his life but despairing of ever finding true love in a relationship. Fate pairs him with a plain, shy schoolteacher named Clara whom he rescues from the embarrassment of being abandoned by her blind date in a local dance hall. The production, the actors and Chayefsky's naturalistic dialogue received much critical acclaim and influenced subsequent live television dramas.
Chayefsky was initially uninterested when producer Harold Hecht sought to buy film rights for Marty for Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. Chayefsky, still upset by his treatment years before, demanded creative control, consultation on casting, and the same director as in the TV version, Delbert Mann. Surprisingly, Hecht agreed to all of Chayefsky's demands, and named Chayefsky "associate producer" of the film. Chayefsky then requested and was granted "co-director" status, so that he could take over production if Mann were fired.Considine, p. 70
The screenplay was little changed from the teleplay, but with Clara's role expanded. Chayefsky was involved in all casting decisions and had a cameo role, playing one of Marty's friends, unseen, in a car. Actress Betsy Blair, playing Clara, faced difficulties because of her affiliation with left-wing causes, and United Artists demanded that she be removed. Chayefsky refused, and her husband Gene Kelly also intervened on her behalf. Blair remained in the cast.Considine, pp. 72–77
In September 1954, after most of the movie had been filmed, the studio ceased production due to accounting and financial difficulties.Considine, pp. 77–80 From the start, producer Harold Hecht encountered resistance to the Marty project from his partner Burt Lancaster, with the latter "only tolerating" it.Considine, p. 81 The film had a limited publicity budget. But reviews were glowing, and the film won the Palme d'Or at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, and the Academy Award for Best Picture as well as a Best Actor Oscar for the star Ernest Borgnine, greatly boosting Chayefsky's career.Considine, pp. 83–87, 99–101
Late 1950s
After his success with Marty, Chayefsky continued to write for TV and theater as well as for film. His teleplay, The Great American Hoax, was broadcast May 15, 1957 during the second season of The 20th Century Fox Hour.
His earlier work, The Bachelor Party, was bought by United Artists, with Chayefsky assigned to adapt it for the screen. His 1955 teleplay, The Catered Affair, was acquired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Gore Vidal hired to write the screenplay. The Catered Affair (1956) film did well in Europe but poorly in U.S. theaters.Considine, pp. 101–103
The Bachelor Party (1957) was budgeted at $750,000, twice Marty budget, but received far less acclaim and was viewed by United Artists as artistically inferior. The studio chose instead to promote another Hecht-Hill-Lancaster film, Sweet Smell of Success, which it believed to be better. The Bachelor Party was a commercial failure, and never made a profit.Considine, pp. 107–109