Live Television

The Golden Age of

1946-1958 in New York

by

...
Frank Sturcken

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
 -P N /?92
,3
U 5'"5 ?7
(C/90

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data are available

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Sturcken, Frank, 1929-

Live television : the golden age of 1946-1958 in New York / by
Frank Sturcken.
p. cm.
[Includes index.)

,e
Includes bibliographical references. Q
ISBN 0-89950-523-6 (lib. bdg. : 50# alk. paper)
1. Television plays, American-History and criticism.
2. Television programs-United States. I. Title.
PN1992.3.U5S87 1990
812'.02509054- dc20 89-43690
CIP

c 1990 Frank Sturcken. All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
 11m�a11�im1r�n�11 1 11�u11 1
32101 019468980

Acknowledgments

It is appropriate to thank the television professionals that provided

original material for this book. Many of the most successful executives,
producers and artists were willing to share-Pat Weaver, Hubbell
Robinson,Jr., Albert McCleery, Worthington Miner, Rod Serling, Ed­
mund Rice and many more. Much of this original material was collected
between 1959 and 1963 and has been hoarded ever since. Eventually
there was simply too much material to use.
I wish to express my particular gratitude toJack Gould of The New
York Times. He provided the best record of what happened in those
years. Hal Humphry of The Los Angeles MiTTor is not often quoted
directly but his ideas are found throughout, as I was very much in­
fluenced by him and enjoyed his columns for many years in the early
sixues.
1 I offer my special thanks to Pat Sturcken, Hal Algyer, Anne
�Sturcken and Dr. Arthur Ballet - to Pat and Anne for editing and typ-
1.,-ing, to Pat for her computer expertise, to Hal for editing and to Dr.
<P8allet for supervising the early research.

r(
/\J
,<)
c-0
r<
0
0
0
0
0

V
 Table of Contents

Acknowledgments V
Preface Xl

1. Introduction 1

Remember. 1
And Then Crash 2
The Prewar Experimental Programs 6
The Formal Debut 8
World War II 10

2. The Age of Tdevision Begins 13

The True Age Dawns, Finally 13

Major Obstacles to Growth 14
NBC Pioneers Television Drama 16
Kraft Television Theater 17
The 1947-48 Season 20
The Big Freeze 23
CBS and the Second "Civil War" 25

3. Entering the Fifties 33

The HalfHour Series of 1949-50 33

ABC Enters the Race 37
The Big Thaw 38

vu
Vlll Table of Contents

4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 41

High Noon in New York 41

Dawn in Hollywood 42
The Measure of Excellence 44
DuMont Who . . . ? 46
The Golden Age of Live Television 46
Fred Coe and the Playwrights 48
The Great Kraft Theater 53
Robert Montgomery Presents 56
The Hallmark Hall of Fame 57
The Celebrity Writers 60
CBS Presents 61

5. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Pat Weaver 63

The Peak Seasons 63

The 1954-55 Season 64
The NBC Peacock Replaces the RCA Dog 65
"Spectacular" Pat Weaver 66

6. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Fred Coe 75

Philco-Goodyear, the Sixth and Seventh Seasons 75

Fred Coe 78

Between pages 82 and 82 there are 16 plates

containing 19 photographs

7. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Kraft,

Hallmark, and U.S. Steel 83

The Kraft Television Theater, Seventh and Eighth Seasons 83

"All Hail, " Hallmark and Albert McCleery 87
Thunder on Sycamore Street 90
Some Others on CBS 93
Curtain Call at ABC, the U.S. Steel Hour 94
Creativity-Spectacular and Otherwise 98
 Table of Contents ix

8. The Finale, 1955-58: Major Players 101

Sunset in New York 101

High Noon in Hollywood 104
Feature Ftlms, Front and Center 106
The Erosion of Network Leadership 107
Playhouse 90 and Hubbell Robinson, Jr. 109
Matinee Theater, the "Most Formidable" Undertaking 111

9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 115

The Alcoa-Goodyear Playhouse 115

Kraft Television Theater, the Lone Survivor 115
Fred Coe and Playwrights '56 119
Producer's Showcase, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Ford Star
jubilee 121
Worthington Miner and Kaiser Aluminum Hour 122
The Last Hurrahs 124
Last Words 127

Appendix I: Memorandum from NBC's

Pat Weaver, 1955 129
Appendix II: A Sample of the Growth and Demise
ofLive Television Drama 147
Chapter Notes 153
Index 171
 Preface

This book is the inside story of the early days of television, of what
happened in those years from 1946 to 1958, now often called the
"Golden Years" of television. It focuses on the most significant pro­
gramming feature of that time, live television. It is concerned with the
people, the plays, and the performers. It marks television's growth from
a strange gadget at the neighbor's house to an ordinary commodity and
an ordinary part of our lives.
Was the live programming from 1946 to 1958 really quality pro­
gramming? Did it flourish on television? Was it truly "golden" or just
glitter? There is a kind of innocence surrounding the early days of
television and we are curious to know if live television truly stood on
its own feet, irrespective of its novelty aspects.
The great change in programming in 1958 came when the net­
works junked their production and programming plans, dropped New
York, and went into pannership with the filmmakers. Eventually the
quality of Hollywood television would go up, but what happened
before then and why did the networks give up?
When media reponers and commentators of today refer to the
Golden Age of television, they too frequently cite performers such as
Jackie Gleason and shows such as I Love Lucy. They see filmed reruns.
They forget, or just do not know, that the biggest and best of that
period was all live from New York.
Only shon years ago, Telstar brought television to an international
threshold. Today cable has crossed the threshold into a large variety of
programming. Pay television was another threshold that was promised
to solve all the problems. It should be illuminating to visit that era of

xi
XU Preface

live network elegance in New York, which ended not by crossing a

threshold, but by leaping off a cliff.
Over five years of searching out the facts in the memories of pro­
ducers, directors, executives, the files oflibraries and the archives ofthe
television industry have revealed the story of a fascinating series of
events unparalleled in the history of entertainment. On a single morn­
ing in that time, 65 million viewers could say, "I saw Mary Martin per­
form live last night," and, as Jack Gould, the critic of The New York
Times, said, "Surely there must be a trace of fairy dust from coast to
coast this morning." 1
This book redresses my grievances. Many media writers and col­
umnists are mistaken about early television. They write and talk about
variety shows and film. Check the record herein. I have presented and
documented something quite different.
 1
Introduction

Remember . . .

The American television set has been around for over fifty years.
It has served many functions, but none is more dominant than its role
as storyteller. It all began in 1938 when NBC began broadcasting live
television drama for the first time. There was a lull during World War
II, then television finally emerged from the laboratory, bright with
promise, glowing with expectations. Kraft Theater, Studio One, and
Philco Playhouse opened for business. Playhouse 90 and Hallmark Hall
ofFame followed. Playwrights from Shakespeare and Shaw to Pushkin
and Pirandello, Serling and Chayefsky to Wilde and Wharton, gave
that early television in New York some elegance and distinction. Over
5,000 dramas in a new form with a new emphasis were broadcast live
to the largest audiences in history. By any standards, this was storytell­
ing of some consequence.
The problem of feeding the hungry electronic beast has been the
overworked metaphor concerning television production. Young pro­
ducers such as Fred Coe, Albert McCleery, and Worthington Miner,
and young executives such as Pat Weaver and Hubbell Robinson, Jr.,
fed the hungry beast exceptional originals such as Patterns and Marty.
They borrowed stories from the stage, Peter Pan, Mr. Roberts, Our
Town. They revived classics, Hamlet, Macbeth, She Stoops to Conquer.
"Howdy Doody" became a household word. Ed Sullivan was host of the
Toast of the Town and Edward R. Murrow appeared with his
cigarette-all live from New York.
Live drama in the hour-long series variety became television's most
2 Live Television

exceptional form in those early days. In spite of the fact that those series
were the pace-setters in terms of quality, for many years live drama
withstood the flood of mysteries, situation comedies and quiz shows;
it maintained a large audience, and a satisfying sales report for the
sponsor. Live television at its best achieved great dramatic production
and distinguished original playwriting. At its worst it was hasty and
one-dimensional and previewed the "soaps" of today's daytime tele­
v1s1on.
There were workers and dreamers such as NBC executive Pat
Weaver, and play producer Fred Coe, who visualized this medium as
engendering a new kind of drama, a complete departure from the often
shoddy, repetitious programming of radio, and the slick, cheap films
of Hollywood.
"Lordy, it was exciting," said television criticJohn Crosby. "It was
wild" said Hubbell Robinson.Jr., formerly a CBS vice president. "We
shall create the Great American Theater" said Pat Weaver. New actors,
directors and playwrights were being discovered by the dozens. Cham­
pagne flowed, and the great (dramatic) American Dream was no longer
Holl ywood's or Broadway's, it was television's. Good or bad, by
1955-56 there were as many as 16 live stories broadcast nationally every
week.
Early in the game, the movie moguls had taken a hasty look over
their shoulders and decided to ignore this brash new thing. And who
needed the motion picture industry? Every time one opened the papers
one could read that NBC was adding a new color studio or CBS was
opening a Television City.

And Then Crash . . .

During the 1955-56 television season, industry personnel were

predicting that live two-hour dramas as a regular feature and in a
regular series format were just around the corner. Yet another end was
already in sight. No one dreamed that in the following two short years
the filmed Western would do what Milton Berle and the filmed situa­
tion comedies had failed to do. What was heralded as a great revolution
in the American theatrical arts amounted to rather "small change" as
television moved to Holl ywood and the "B" movie makers moved from
the corner popcorn house to the living room.
 1. Introduction 3

The huge television studio production plants that the networks

had built became empty tombs. A few ghosts loitered around in the
crypts for a while: soap operas and live news and game shows, but all
of the "live ones" have long ago departed.
Most of the top, the best, the most talented producers, directors
and writers quickly and successfully moved on to Broadway and to
Hollywood. The live television industry was a fertile uaining ground for
the talents behind the scenes. Their names are generally unfamiliar:
Fred Coe began producing; Arthur Penn was directing; Vincent
Donahue did Sunrise at Campobello; John Frankenheimer and Rod
Serling began making films; Chayefsky and Mosel had hits on Broad­
way. There were many, many more. It was sad when they left. The
promise of shows such as Kraft Television Theater, Philco Playhouse,
Producer's Showcase, Studio One, and Playhouse 90 was broken by the
network programming from 1958 to the mid-1960's. That period had
the dreariest pretence at dramatic entertainment that any medium had
ever perpetrated upon an audience.
The eminent television critic,John Crosby, abdicated in 1960 with
a self proclaimed "swan song":
Tdevision no longer deserves daily criticism on a serious level. ...
Silence is the only sensible greeting for "Pete and Gladys," "Hong
Kong," "Argonauts," and the rest of the dreary new shows .... Televi­
sion isn't awful. Awful things are fun to write about. If it were bad
enough, we critics could denounce it. But "Rawhide" isn't really that
awful. It's a bore. 1

The hue and cry ranged the length of the land. And it was not just
the high culture buffs railing at a mass culture success story. The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), the United States Senate, the
eggheads, certainly, but also a number of just plain folks seemed gen­
uinely appalled at the quick and drastic change in programming and
the seeming dedication to vacuity. "It's not true," said NBC chairman
Robert Sarnoff as he cited new programming ventures, "that this
season's (any season from 1958 to 1964) programming is a rehash of
previous years'. "2
In the ensuing years television became one of the major whipping
boys for the American public, second only to the Russians and the
public schools as a source of all of their troubles. Maybe the new baby
had simply lost its bloom, but a great many people in those days were
genuinely concerned. The apologists of those years have explained that
4 Live Television

Westerns and mysteries were all the public wanted. The fact is, there
has never been any great public disenchantment with television. Per­
haps television has lost some of the initial allure for the public, and
perhaps sometimes people turn on their television sets when they have
nothing else to do. Certainly people do not talk about last night's
television show as much as they used to. In any case the novelty wore
off and the criticism began. In many homes watching television became
a synonym for taking a cat nap. The criticism grew and the networks
stirred around and it all built to FCC chairman Newton Minow's
famous statement that television is a "vast wasteland."
"We're steeped in nostalgia," said Hubbell Robinson.Jr., a former
executive at CBS. "Much that we did seems better than it was." Then
he warmed up to his topic. "But we did do some good and great
things." And he finally admitted when consulted in 1961, "It has
declined terribly. It's a mess of pottage. I find it hard to look at, but
I'm getting a chance to read again."3 Pat Weaver, a former executive
at NBC, was quite frank when interviewed in 1959. "It stinks. The au­
dience is running away. The nets buy junk in cans from 'B' movie peo­
ple and pretend they're program people."4
Dr. Frank Stanton, president of CBS, and Leonard H. Goldenson,
head of ABC, indicated little concern at that time about the quality of
television. They frankly admitted their goals as lowest common
denominator programming. Dr. Stanton testified at a United States
Senate hearing,
Ifl am correct in my definition of the basic nature of television, we must
face the fact that it is a major part of our function to try to appeal to
most of the people most of the time .... It is not an elite medium ....
We cannot force people to like what they don't like, to want what they
don't want.5
Goldenson of ABC was direct: "These minority groups- these
eggheads-are not big TV watchers anyway. Television is a mass
medium, and we don't want to lose this status."6
The two ex-executives, Robinson and Weaver, were program peo­
ple. Robinson explained, 'There are no creative men in the networks
today. They're all businessmen, buying and selling." After resigning,
Weaver had his say: "The networks cannot do their job because of inter­
network warfare based on program ratings and high costs." The firing
or resignation of creative executives such as Weaver and Robinson were
obviously symptoms, not causes.
 I. Introduction 5

The general public is inclined to think of the television networks

as the shows' producers. This is far from true. And the question of"who
produces what?" is only pan of the answer. The varied relationships
among the networks, the advenising and talent agencies, the indepen­
dent television producers, and the film industry are vastly complicated.
In telling the story of live television, it is difficult to determine what
forces were responsible for what. In the early stages of the game the net­
works did attempt to dominate programming and competed with
many outside sources of talent and materials for production profit. The
William Morris Agency and the Music Corporation of America, for ex­
ample, controlled enough talent in the country to deny the networks
the "name" stars; therefore they produce for themselves or support in­
dependent operations. 7
Under the trade name Revere Productions, MCA, known to the
trade as the "Octopus," eventually became one of the biggest and most
successful ofall television packagers. Its television policy was to produce
television shows that would sell, based on the "follow the leader"
psychology prevalent in Hollywood. The William Morris Agency did
not produce shows but it was the exclusive selling agent for one of the
largest packagers in those days, Four Star Productions. In the begin­
ning, they and MCA concentrated on inexpensive situation comedies.
Showcase Productions and Talent Associates are examples of the inde­
pendent package producers in the field of drama. One advenising
agency, J. Walter Thompson, was eminently successful producing
shows such as Kraft Television Theater and Lux Video Theater.
One thing does seem apparent. In the early days the networks
seemed to maintain varying degrees of programming control. They
developed programs with their own organizations, financed others,
farmed others out or worked jointly with independents. 8 This is an over­
simplified answer to the question of"who produced what" on television
up to 1958. There is no clear-cut picture. The fact remains that the net­
works exercised some creative control and maintained large creative
staffs to investigate shows, produce them, or obtain them from the out­
side.
It is also clear that the networks dismissed their creative staffs when
the programming moved to Hollywood. Film studios and independent
filmmakers began to produce the majoriry of television dramas and sold
them, not to networks, but to advertisers. And the networks? They
began to provide the mechanical service of beaming these films through
6 Live Television

the lines that they rented from AT&T. The networks occasionally pro­
duced films for television, however, and the filmmakers often cut the
networks into their production pie, mostly in the areas of planning and
profit.
Filmed drama in the beginning of television's sojourn in Holly­
wood was simply motion pictures made for television and was a product
of the Hollywood motion picture industry. In contrast, the production
of live or taped television directly involved the television industry. The
type of live television associated with the beginnings of television
broadcasting came from New York in a unified performance in which
the action was continuous and, in the case of drama and variety shows,
it was seen by an audience as it was performed. In this respect, the live
television drama was close to the stage play; its peculiar characteristic
was its immediacy. In a second respect, live television was close to the
motion picture. Each views the subject through the lens of a camera.

The Prewar Experimental Programs

In 1928 The New York Times carried a front page headline: "Play
Is Broadcast By Voice And Acting In Radio-Television." This first
transmission of a dramatic performance on television was accomplished
by the General Electric research laboratory through its pioneer station,
WGY at Schenectady, New York. To publicize their engineering ac­
complishments GE chose a fony-minute broadcast of an old spy
melodrama, The Queen's Messenger byJ. Hardey Manners. The Times
stated that this play was chosen because "its cast contains only two ac­
tors who could alternate before the three cameras and a microphone."
"While the actors went through their parts in a locked studio room their
appearances and voices" were carried by wire to a transmitting station
four miles away; there they were broadcast and picked up at the place
of origin.9 An early work by Orrin Dunlap, published in 1932, has some
rare pictures of this production revealing the crudeness of equipment
and settings. 10
Some researcher erred and the television files of the New York
Public Library erroneously list an obscure extravaganza called The
Mysterious Mummy Case as the first television drama, and the date as
1938. That is just ten years behind the institution of the era of television
by the broadcast of a television drama.
 I. Introduction 7

Television, like radio, had its beginnings in the nineteenth cen­

tury. Not only were the scientific foundations laid, but numerous at­
tempts were made to transmit pictures by electrical means. It was not
until the electronic cathode ray tube was developed about 1915 that it
was possible to produce a television picture of decent quality and in­
dividuals began to think about commercial television. 11 The cathode
ray tube made it feasible by converting the intensities of the light rays
from the image to be televised into electronic impulses which could be
transmitted over wire and through the air.
In 1923 Dr. V.K. Zworkin had patented an electronic pick-up
tube, the iconoscope tube that had relatively good picture qual­
ity, but required extremely strong light for effectiveness.12 The tube
went through various stages of development and by the 1930's tele­
vision had reached a fairly high stage of technical development.13
With the major technical problems solved, it was in 1938 that broad­
casters first began to srudy production methods and operational pro­
cedures in attempts to bring order and efficiency to the many complex
components that make up a television broadcast. By 1938 there were
18 stations in the United States licensed to broadcast on an experimen­
tal basis.14
The first actual major telecast was sta ed on A ril 7, 1927, by
AT§c'r. It was a speech 6y Her6ert Hoover as Secretary o{Com­
li'i'ercethat was telecast by wtre from Washington to 'N-ew York.
The immortal first words were those of an AT&T vice president,
"I am instructed to make a little conversation while they are getting
the loudspeakers ready." Jbe Times headline read, "Far Off Speaker
een As Well As Heard ... Like A Photo C�Q ife" and while
the tmes su eadline indicated "Commercial Use in Doubt," the
event was prophetic : "next was a vaudeville act .. . a stage Irish­
man. "o
In the thirties, everyone's chief concern was with pick-up tubes
and picture quality. There was one entrepreneur, however, whose
imagination was fired beyond the immediate technical problems into
a consideration of television's production problems and its artistic
future. This gentleman, David Sarnoff, was to become television's
foremost champion. Years before, in 1916, when he was a 25-year-old
assistant traffic manager for Marconi, the inventor of wireless radio; he
wrote a memo that set the pattern for radio and eventually for tele­
v1s1on:
8 Live Television

I have in mind a plan of development which would make a radio a

household utility in the same sense as the piano or the phonograph. The
idea is to bring music into the home by wireless. The same principle can
be extended to numerous other fields, as, for example, receiving lec­
tures at home, which can be simultaneously announced and received.
Baseball scores could be transmitted in the air.16

In an amazing address, "Radio-Vision Era Is Dawning," at the

early date of 1931, David Sarnoff was charting television's course and
keenly predicting its future. On the front page of The New York Times
he predicted:
It [television] will prove a welcome stimulant, a pleasant tonic to al]
the entertaining arts ... , furnishing a new and greater outlet for artistic
expression .... Special types of distribution networks, new forms of
stagecraft and a development of studio equipment and techniques will
be required.
New forms of artistry will be encouraged and developed. Variety and
more variety will be the demand of the day. The ear might be content
with the oft-repeated song; the eye would be impatient with the twice�
repeated scene. The service will demand: a constant succession of per­
sonalities, a vast array of talent, a tremendous store of material, a great
variety of scene and background.17

The Formal Debut

"TV Is Just Around The Corner ... " Television made its formal
debut in April of 1939 when NBC broadcast President Roosevelt's
speech at the opening of the New York World's Fair. 18 That same day
RCA put its first receiving sets on sale with prices ranging from $199. 50
for the smallest to $600 for the 10" by 12" size. Because of the wide
publicity Gertrude Lawrence received in the play Susan and God, the
"official" inauguration of drama came the year before, however.
The tragic loss of the early television shows because there was not
yet a method of recording them was in a small way rectified by Life
magazine, which preserved an historical record of what the television
camera caught in the Susan and God production in a series of ten
photographs of a television receiver. Life's pictures are remarkably clear
and well-defined. 19 This, of course, was the whole point. It was ob­
viously the most essential value in a broadcast in those days- "Could
you really see it?" Life commented, "the images were lucid and sharply
 1. Introduction 9

defined" and the lead-off statement in The New York Times review is
quite revealing: "The scenes were clearly televised." The reviewer found
"the scenery and costumes were exactly as seen on the stage" and was
pleased that "the viewing's perfect, no audience's heads to dodge, no
latecomers to disturb the continuity."20
With David Sarnoff's unending interest in the new medium and
with the financial resources of RCA, it was natural that NBC should
take the leading role in projecting television into a big time operation,
and the leading role in making drama its number one format. In 1938
NBC's flagship station, W2XBS (later WNBC), began to broadcast ex­
perimentally from atop the Empire State Building in a bid for public
interest. At the start there were three afternoon transmissions of test
charts and still pictures and two evening programs of entertainment
each week.21
It was apparent to NBC's staff, headed by Thomas Hutchinson,
that storytelling was eminently suited to the new medium. Television
adaptations of popular Broadway shows were presented as the Wednes­
day night feature of these broadcasts. Among the offerings were Jane
Eyre, Susan and God, Brother Rat, and]une Moon. 22
One of the earliest of these productions was the aforementioned
The Mysten·ous Mummy Case. It was, at the time, generally applauded
as the "most professional" to date, for "sixteen hours of rehearsal were
required to polish the performance." 23 Hutchinson wrote about NBC's
work and commenced that these first dramas were simple, short scenes,
but "as the success of this entertainment was proved, the plays
presented became longer, the casts larger, and the productions more
pretentious. " 24
Under the impetus of this regular dramatic fare, The New York
Times ran its first conventional review of a "teleplay" in a column "Tele­
views of Pictures" by Orrin Dunlap. The production was Dulcy by
Kaufman and Connelly, and Dunlap commented that as an amusing
telecast "it proved beyond all doubt that drama is one of TV's aces."
In this column, which was to become a weekly feature, Dunlap com­
plained prophetically in his first review, "the difficulty here is, however,
that the show despite its long rehearsal is gone in one showing. There
is no second night!" 25
It should also be noted that the Columbia Broadcasting System
also began serious experimentation in 1937, when space was leased in
the Grand Central Terminal and Gilbert Seldes was engaged as
10 Live Television

manager of program development. By 1939 equipment was installed

and closed circuit telecasts were made. Broadcasts did not begin until
1941 because ofdelay in installing the aerial on the Chry sler Building,26
and because the FCC ordered a halt in television expansion in 1940 un­
til the best standards for transmission could be determined. 27 When
CBS finally began a program service of15 hours a week in 1941 they had
to cease operation the next year because of the war, and they did not
broadcast again until 1944 when the Grand Central studios were re­
opened and a new staff assembled. 28

World War II

In 1941, six months before the United States entered World War
II, the FCC rescinded its order of 1940 that had halted television's
development and once again authorized full commercial television on
the black and white standard still in use. 29 NBC had the only station
prepared to accommodate advertisers and was granted the first com­
mercial license under the name WNBT.30 Television was off and run­
ning. World War II was just around the corner and the situation
quickly changed, but it looked good for a while. NBC got its rate cards
out, listing a full hour oftelevision in the prime evening time as costing
sponsors $120! 31 It is now routine to pay $100,000 or more for a
3O-second commercial on Miami Vice or Dallas.
The FCC accommodated those stations wishing to hold onto their
licenses during the war by reducing the minimum broadcast time from
15 hours a week to four. Five stations across the country kept television
alive during the war through their attempts to meet these re­
quirements. The New York stations WNBT and DuMont were limited
in their programming to films with an occasional instructional program
for civilian defense.32
Television was crippled by the war effort just as it had begun to
look promising. Many speculated about "the thirty million dollar if,"
that being approximately the amount spent developing television up
to the war.33 One writer in the Saturday Review, who withheld his
name, went so far as to suggest in 1942 that television was not so much
a "war casualty" as a victim of "the powerful interests in the press, the
movies and the radio" who "put it as far back on the shelfas they could
because they saw in it a threat to their status quo. "34 Gilbert Seldes of
 1. Introduction 11

CBS answered the critic with the comment, "Your critic says that we
are being held back. I assure you we have our hands full."3)
Television was ready co explode. NBC had pioneered commercial
television service in the United States and the production of drama as
pan of that service. It was immediately apparent to NBC's staff headed
by Thomas Hutchinson, and later the CBS and DuMont units, that
drama was eminently suited to the new medium. In New York, where
television programming got its start, drama was a ready-made form of
entertainment. George Norford, director of information at NBC, sug­
gested when remembering those days that the producers "were trained
in the legitimate theater.... We had no money and quiet little in­
timate dramas were easy to produce."36
Television drama in its brief live existence must be considered a
unique form developed by and for networks of stations to meet the
prime time broadcast needs of the new industry.As it grew it borrowed
staging techniques from the theater, camera techniques from motion
pictures, broadcasting techniques from radio, and, some think, quickly
imposed on them all its own unique forms.
 2
The Age of Television Begins

The True Age Dawns, Finally

It was not until August 14, 1945, that Japan surrendered, yet in­
terest in postwar television had begun building since as early as 1944.
By June of that year there were 52 applications for station licenses on
file with the FCC. By April of 1946 there were 144. 1 Though program­
ming had come to a standstill during the war years, engineering and
technical advances had continued, improving picture quality and thus
entenainment potential. The problem of program expense would, it
was thought, be solved by the development of networks through inter­
city cables and, most imponantly, American production methods
would bring the price of television sets within the range of everyone.
Television was on the move and by April of 1946 seven commercial sta­
tions were operating in the United States: three in New York and one
each in Chicago, Schenectady, Philadelphia, and Washington.
In March 1944, NBC had announced its plans for a national televi­
sion network, with a regional Eastern network as the first step. This an­
nouncement came simultaneously with station WNBT's first network
broadcast to Philadelphia and Schenectady.2 Previously, the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company had announced its intentions of
laying coaxial cable designed to carry the television signal between the
major cities throughout the United States-a very costly and time con­
suming operation.3 The aim was to completely network the country.
The alternative to the use of coaxial cable was kinescoped film, or kine­
scopes as they came to be called. The poor quality of the reproduced
picture was a serious defect of kinescopes.

13
14 Live Television

The growth of networks was an inevitable phenomenon. As

previously mentioned the idea was similar to the radio networks already
in operation. A major difference between radio and television, how­
ever, was the great cost of television programming, even on a local
basis. It was clear that because of tremendous expenses a single program
would need a large audience to be commercially feasible.
It is significant to note that Zenith Radio Corporation had already
laid plans as early as 1945 for subscription television! Having patented
a "scrambling" device, Zenith proposed this as the only practical
method of financing programming. 4 It is interesting to speculate on the
course television would have taken had Zenith obtained Federal ap­
proval of its pay television approach. Zenith had bigger problems than
the FCC, however. Zenith's failure to develop pay television lay in the
nature and size of its two major opponents: AT&T and RCA!

Major Obstacles to Growth

Program expense was only the first of television's problems. At the
outset, a quick national growth might have been expected. There were,
however, considerable delays. Television had lost public interest in the
rush production of luxury goods following the war, and for a number
of years after the war, people were more concerned with refrigerators
and cars than they were with squinting at bad shows on the little picture
rube. David Sarnoff of NBC was, as always, a prophet and proponent
of the electrical revolution. But he admitted that NBC and the industry
had "oversold" the public before the war and had not made good on
their promise. 5
Whereas early prewar efforts were carefully chronicled, the New
York papers rarely mentioned postwar television except to list program
schedules.Jack Gould, The New York Times radio columnist, andJohn
Crosby, of the New York Herald Tribune, seldom discussed television
until 1949. The leading trade magazine, Broadcasting, did not concern
itself with television except to list the activities of the FCC. It changed
its name to Broadcasting-Telecasting in 1950, perhaps inadvertently
implying that telecasting is not broadcasting. It went back to the single
name a few years later. Americans were simply more concerned with
new cars after the war than they were with watching television shows
of dubious value.
 2. The Age of Television Beg-ins 15

A second major problem was the controversy that developed over

which band television should be assigned in the broadcast spectrum
and whether uansmission should be in black-and-white or color. A pro­
longed color conuoversy between CBS and the colossus, NBC, was
heightened in November of1946 by an announcement from NBC that
it had achieved color elecuonically, as opposed to CBS's mechanical
system. Finally, after 14 weeks of testimony, the FCC ruled out color
for the immediate future and authorized black-and-white television
over 13 channels in the very high frequency, or VHF range. Within six
months the number of applications for television stations jumped to
more than 300. 6
Television's third problem was its biggest problem, and is its eter­
nal problem. How do you fill up that rectangular space day in and day
out, 52 weeks a year? Although there were many applicants for televi­
sion stations and many acquired construction permits, the "28 hour
rule" of the FCC, requiring 28 hours of programming a week, went into
effect June 20, 1946. It resulted in many withdrawn applications and
relinquished construction permits. 7
The telecasters had full schedules to maintain and little money.
They desperately needed program material and they begged the movie
companies to release to them, rent, sell, or give, any kind of old films
which they could televise to take up space between the few studio shows
and special events available. Generally the movie companies were un­
cooperative on the grounds that the telecasting of films would empty
theatres.8
This was the normal neurotic condition of Hollywood. When
radio and talking pictures came along Hollywood had also tried to delay
or prevent their growth for fear they would kill the industry. Now it was
telev ision, and later it would be Pat Weaver's subscription television on
cable.9 Television producer Albert McCleery gave his vivid opinion to
this writer at a later date: "the Movie Moguls turned their backs, knelt
down facing west, and prayed it would go away!" 10 It would be a long
time before the correct formula was worked out for celluloid's marriage
with the new medium.
Philip Gustafson, a management consultant, looked at television
in 1947 and commented in the magazine Nation's Business: "Program
wise, television suffers from growing pains that would kill anything but
a hardened war-waif bred in starvation." Tdevision programming was
suffering from a lack of space, shonages of equipment, and a scarcity
16 Live Television

of trained personnel. Mr. Gustafson concluded that the baby's environ­

ment was unhealthy because it had "a backwoods full of feuds" pro­
voked by the rivals CBS and NBC. 11
Those stations on the air, however, had to provide service. It is
generally agreed that the programs were inferior-an endless succession
of wrestling matches, roller-skating derbys, parlor games, animal acts,
and sporting events. Television had progressed beyond the point where
the audiences' major concern was "was it a good picture?" It was very
difficult to do a bad show, however, because television's novelty was
such a useful asset. So great was the medium's power to enchant people
that the mere act of placing something, anything, on the screen was
enough to guarantee an audience-for a while. 12
When they were bored with Benny and Hope on radio, the critics
would occasionally look at television and comment on the serious de­
ficiencies of video art. 13 Producer Albert McCleety of the Hallmark Hall
ofFame show and Edmund Rice of Kraft Theater emphasized when in­
terviewed how much could be "gotten away with" at this stage of the
game. If the quality level of video programming was as depressing as
it was pictured then what would happen when the novelty wore off?
Something had to be done and fast. After all, RCA had television sets
to sell!

NBC Pioneers Television Drama

It was NBC, through its New York station WNBT, that made
preparations to remedy the program deficiencies outlined above.
Through its parent RCA, NBC had the financial resources that the
other stations lacked. It thus gets full credit for projecting television
into a big time operation by taking the leading role in making drama
its number one prime time offering.
Storytelling had been big in radio and it received a major share of
the attention in postwar television planning. The legitimate theatre
scripts were wntten; the legitimate theatre actors and directors were
trained; and the programming void needed filling. So WNBC execu­
tives set out to build a staff capable of producing, directing and design­
ing plays.
In April of 1945 John Royal, executive director at WNBT, hired
theatre-trained Fred Coe as a production assistant. Coe was one of the
 2. The Age of Television Begins 17

earliest of many Yale-trained drama graduates who would come to net­

work television. "Mr. Television Drama" had left his job at a little
theaue in Columbia, South Carolina, and had been hanging around
New York looking for television work. He had given up and was prepar­
ing to leave town when Mr. Royal called him. Within a month Coe
directed his first play for a late afternoon children's show. 14
The career of one of live television's finest producer-directors was
launched with a television version ofDeMaupassant's The Necklace. In
the years to come this man would be closely identified with live televi­
sion's greatest triumphs: productions such as Marty, Peter Pan, and
Other People's Houses; and dramatic series such as Philco Television
Playhouse, Producer's Showcase, and Playhouse 90. ,s
Fred Coe directed many of the monthly Sunday evening dramas
in the 1946-47 season under the heading Television Theatre. Full
length, three-act plays became known as WNBT's "Sunday Night
Fone." Towards the end of that season the Borden Company picked up
the sponsorship of these shows with a production of Twelfth Night and
carried it through one production in the fall. 16 The Shakespearean com­
edy was done in a 70-minute version with Borden's commercial con­
fined to the opening and closing spots. Borden's temporary support of
Television Theatre gains it the honor of being the first sponsor of Sun­
day night dramas on NBC, a dignified sponsorship also held later with
great honor and financial success by the Philco, Goodyear, and Alcoa
Aluminum companies. Several New York reviewers described the show
as "top drawer emenainment" and "good Shakespeare." 17

Kraft Television Theater

The most significant event of the 1946-47 season, and maybe of
network television's first ten years, occurred on May 7, 1947. Kraft
Television Theater opened as the first weekly hour-long dramatic series
on the new medium. Sunday night Television Theatre had been an on
and off affair in contrast to the regularity of Kraft's broadcasts. Kraft
was to have the longest run of any of the successful live dramatic series
that were to follow and the longest run of anything since. Incredibly, it
missed only three live telecasts in eleven and a half years, including
summers, and then only because its time on the air was preempted by
presidential conventions. Throughout its distinguished history Kraft
18 Live Television

was to be selected by NBC to achieve other television firsts: it was the

first show to be televised over the Midwest coaxial cable and was the first
dramatic show to be televised in compatible color. 18
The Kraft idea came about not from the Sunday Television
Theatre but from a show produced by theJ. Walter Thompson advertis­
ing agency called The Hour Glass Show. In May of 1946 J. Walter
Thompson suggested to one of its clients, Standard Brands, that it ex­
periment with the new medium in advertising Chase and Sanborn
coffee. The Hour Glass program resulted and it followed the pattern
of a variety show in which most productions contained a short one-act
play or skit. These one-act plays were quite popular with the Thompson
staff and they received considerable audience mail. Among the plays
Edmund Rice edited for these spots were Farewell Supper by Arthur
Schnitzler, The jest of Hahalaba by Lord Dunsany, and A Tooth for
Paul Revere by Steven Vincent Benet. 19
After spending two and a half million dollars Standard Brands
asked to be released. The company had not expected advertising value
per dollar and felt it "had acquired enough experimentation to wait for
a larger audience." The J. Walter Thompson company, however,
thought it could do for television what it had done for radio with Lux
Radio Theater. Because of the simplicity of production it had been
quite common in radio for advertising agencies to produce shows and
then sell them to advertisers. Edmund Rice of the Thompson staff re­
membered specifically what had happened:
After a couple of hours of the Hour Glass show we began to believe
drama would go well on television. John Reber-who is now dead-was
in charge of television at J. Walter Thompson and he was strong for
television drama. I prepared a presentation and then we sold it to Kraft.
If we had to give a title, John Reber would be our Executive Producer.
Stanley Quinn directed every show and I wrote every show for a long,
long time. 20

Kraft liked Rice's presentation, signed a one year contract with

NBC, and Double Door opened on May 7. Because so few people were
trained in the technical operation of a television studio, the early NBC
production format required one of its own directors, in this case Fred
Coe, to take over when the play reached the studios.
This historically important first production was housed in a tiny
studio on a side corridor in Radio City and broadcast to an audience of
less than 40,000, for there were only slightly more than 43,000 sets in
 2. The Age of Television Begins 19

the nation at that time. The play had had a long run on Broadway in
1933 but the television critics were unhappy with it. "Kraft got off to
a faulty start," said Variety, "through the unfonunate selection of a
dull, overly-done melodrama that has lost whatever merit it might have
once possessed through the passage of time."21 But the show was
carefully and smoothly produced and Kraft was pleased. It was on this
very first show that producer Quinn introduced the famous trademark
of the series, the large-blocked "K" and the accompanying toy-sized
cameraman.
Many of the early Kraft shows bombed with the critics. 22 But the
audience was intrigued and the Kraft Company was delighted. On the
first few shows it was decided to test the effectiveness of the new
medium by advenising a new product, MacLaren's Imperial Cheese. It
was the only product advertised, and it was only advertised in live com­
mercials on television. 23 "It was sensationally successful," said Rice,
"with only a few thousand sets." The vivid nature of television advertis­
ing was nowhere more successfully demonstrated than when the camera
dollied in onto the slicing of several thick pieces of MacLaren's Imperial
Cheese. In addition, Kraft had been having trouble with a new prod­
uct, presliced processed cheese. Fewer housewives wrote in and com­
plained after the young actress demonstrated how to peel the slices
off.
Kraft Television Theater quickly came to assume a personality of
its own. This resulted from the goals of the]. Walter Thompson presen­
tation, their elaborations as the show continued, and the show's low
budget in contrast to other series. Although little publicized and
seldom reviewed in the many years that followed, Kraft became a pleas­
ant habit to the television audience, and was consistently in the top ten
of the audience surveys. This caused some concern among the sponsors
of the other early-hour dramas, none of which made it to the top ten
in their first seasons, with budgets four times as large as Kraft's. The
Kraft Television Theater was an amazing feat for an advertising agency.
The much-m:iJigned advenising business can look with pride at J.
Walter Thompson's accomplishment. In fact, the much-maligned ad­
vertising business can look with great pride at the many television firsts
that were inspired by this company.
The]. Walter Thompson company was the first to produce a full
variety show on television for Shell - in 1940- and the first to telecast
a basebal l World Series, for Ford in 1947. There were many more firsts
20 Live Television

for this adventurous advertising agency-the first rodeo and horse

shows in 1946, the first to bring the World Series out of town back to
New York-and in 1949 they had five sponsored shows in one evening.
(They also produced the first dog show and if horse shows were an ac­
complishment in those days, one can imagine the problems they had
with the dogs. )24
But it was Kraft Theater that was the most significant of their firsts.
Those many Americans who had an 11-year love affair with Kraft,
despite the over-eating that was stimulated by their commercials, will
understand Rice's description of their policies in the 1950 edition of
Best Television Plays:
Our aims in the very beginning were to build in our audience the habit
of tuning into Kraft. The actors were not top stars and the play was
usually unfamiliar, so we attempted to get our audience to expect a
good story. 2,
Maury Holland, a Kraft producer, also stated in the same vol-
ume:
We feel that we have a steady family audience that tunes into the Kraft
Television Theater every Wednesday evening with the assurance that
they're going to see a good play. Judging by the mail that has come,
our viewers have come to look upon the show much in the manner of
the theater-goer who buys a season ticket because he has found by ex­
perience that week in and week out he will see a good drama. 26

The 1947-48 Season

This was the season that television went big time. Howdy Doody
and Milton Berle joined Kraft Television Theater and sports program­
ming began to come into its own. Spons occupied the number one spot
in the programming for several seasons and sold enough TV sets to keep
RCA investors happy. The set manufacturers had begun to hit their
stride and they were selling all the sets they could make. As the au­
dience size increased that season, some television stations increased
their fees as much as 50 percent.
The race was also on for networks and station licenses. KSTP-TV
of Minneapolis signed the first station affiliation contract with NBC, in
March of 1948, and in the same month received program service by a
film technique called kinescopes.27 It was quickly followed by stati ons
 2. The Age of Television Begins 21

in Richmond and Cincinnati, and in the following week nine more had
signed contracts with NBC.28 CBS signed Baltimore at the end of March
and in the following week signed eight more afliliates. 19 The rush for
station licenses in the East began to spread steadily westward. There was
a shortage of spectrum space in contrast to demand, and the FCC was
having "the devil of a time" trying to secure an orderly yet rapid
growth.� But General Sarnoff was feeling better about it and once
again was making predictions. He was a little premature in describing
television as "a major social, economic and artistic force," but the sta­
tions on the air were expanding schedules and by July 1948 thirty were
broadcasting and had greatly expanded schedules.31
In those years sports constituted an entertainment that was ready­
made in proven entertainment value. The first televising of the World
Series and the broadcast of the Louis-Walcott boxing match from
Madison Square Garden made the picture box quite popular. Variety
reported after the world series that "Broadway box office suffered a fifty
percent slump with matinees kayoed, but bars with television upped
500 percent."32 This was the season of Henny Youngman's famous gag:
"Bartender wanted; must be able to fix TV set." And television was de­
scribed the following summer as the "wonder of the year" when it
covered the national Republican and Democratic conventions in Phila­
delphia. H Ben Cross of the Daily News gave a vivid picture of the
unusual developments in Manhattan in his book, I Looked and I
Listened:

Families borrowed and scrimped to buy television sets; soon friends and
casual acquaintances crowded the living rooms to gaze at Milton Berle;
beds were unmade and soiled dishes filled the sinks; school kids ignored
the homework; taverns displayed signs, "FREE TV TONIGHT."34

As Edmund Rice of Kraft Theater pictured drama programs, they

were "no small timers" in comparison. Broadway got into the act and
the high and mighty Theatre Guild and the American National
Theatre and Academy lent respectability and professionalism in their
at tempts at series drama. The Theatre Guild made arrangements with
NBC in October of 1947 for joint presentation of a series of six plays
o n television. John Ferguson by St. John Ervine had been the Theatre
Guild's first major success in 1919, and was chosen as the premier pro­
duction with Thomas Mitchell as the star and Edward Sobel as the pro­
ducer.3� It was transmitted on a four-city network, recorded on film and
22 Live Television

sent to NBC affiliates in Detroit and St. Louis. There was no sponsor
but NBC paid heavily for the best in talent and production. It was a
highly publicized venture and as a result was a major step in the
development of television drama. The Theater Guild stated its purpose
was to build television into "a straw hatter for the showing of new plays
and talent."36
The reviews were unfavorable and few individuals today
remember the series. Variety was polite as it stated that the Guild made
"a promising but unfortunate entry into television." The reviewer,
Stahl, describes the script as "decrepit," resembling a remake of The
Drunkard. 37 Jack Gould of the Times was not so kind, charging that
the Guild ventured out in the strange world of television and "promptly
fell on its art." He criticized the Guild for allowing sentiment to in­
fluence the choice of production, stating the play was the "grand-daddy
of the soap opera writers." It is true that the play has a mortgaged
homestead, a villain, a ravished daughter, and a brother who avenged
her honor. To the television audience these incidents were thrown in
an excessively melodramatic frame. Gould explained that in cutting the
script NBC settled for the narrative, or bare plot, leaving the characteri­
zations weak. 3s
After six productions, the Guild contracted with NBC to produce
another six dramas but a sponsor could not be found. Several sponsors
were reponedly ready to pay $12,000 every week but the Guild felt that
with its many interests it could not do justice to more than one show
a month. 39 The sponsors were still thinking in terms of radio with its
regular weekly broadcasts. There was also a feeling at that time that
advenisers would never be able to afford thousands of dollars for a
single showing of any lengthy or complicated production because the
value would be nil after one nationwide showing. NBC had grander
plans; it continued to spend money and its productions grew i n
lavishness and dimension. For NBC the gamble would begin t o pay off
in a few seasons. For the Theatre Guild, it would eventually pay off with
the lengthy and successful run of the U.S. Steel Hour.
The American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA) was not
quite so fonunate. ANTA and NBC planned a series of half hour
dramas in the fall of the 1947-48 season. For the second time in that
season NBC was looking to Broadway theatrical producers when it
wanted to broadcast drama. Their first production was Tennessee
Williams' The Last of My Solid Gold Watches. Twenty-four hours
 2. The Age of Television Begins 23

before the first broadcast on December 4, 1947, A Streetcar Named

Desire had opened and the New York critics were doing handsprings
over Tennessee Williams. This excited some interest in the ANTA
television opening that was originally scheduled before Streetcars
Broadway opening but was "fortunately" postponed because of
"technical difficulties. "40 The story of the old salesman and his "solid
gold watches," living on past glories and unwilling to accept the chang­
ing world, was ironically and prophetically similar to ANTA's and the
Theaue Guild's views of television.
The ANTA series also could be said to have died when no sponsor
could be found. It was not the last of the many attempts to "bring
Broadway to all of America," but it marked the end of that period when
television was regarded as simply the opportunity to photograph a
play.

The Big Freeze

A television signal is a roadhog on the airways. It requires 600
times the width of the path required by a radio signal and signals on
the same path interfere so badly with one another that they must be
clearly separated. In September 1948 the FCC, hearing the effects of
signal interference as more and more stations took to the air, imposed
a freeze on the processing of station applications. The 70 station appli­
cants who had received permits prior to that date were permitted to
proceed with the construction of their stations.
For the three and a half years of this famous big freeze the Com­
mission investigated the best frequency allocation plan, and what
policy the FCC should adopt for color. 41 For three and a half years the
106 operating and licensed stations had time to entrench their positions
with no fears of immediate new competition. In these years television
sets began to be mass produced. Movie attendance began to fall in cities
with television stations and by 1960 in New York alone 50 movie
theaters would close their doors forever. If television went big time in
1947-48, then television drama went big time in 1948-49 with Philco
Playhouse, Ford Theater, and Studio One.
The main problem for the independent stations in 1948 was still
financial. No single network and very few stations were yet showing a
profit , with operating costs already five times more expensive than
24 Live Television

radio. As the year closed, however, nearly 900,000 television sets were
in use and network operation was expected in the Midwest in 1949. The
New York Times' prediction of three million sets in use by the end of
1949 was exceeded by half a million.42 The use of AT&T's new Midwest
coaxial cable was also a tremendous development in terms of network
advertising. It provided an electrical connection from New York to such
far-flung cities as Chicago, St. Louis and Milwaukee, and opened up
these vast audiences to the network advertisers' message. The advertis­
ing agencies were excited. A major show such as the Philco Television
Playhouse now went to 16 stations weekly and four additional ones on
alternate weeks on kinescope film. 43
The truest indications of television's fast and furious growth rate
at this time were the reports on network advertising revenues. The
sharp and dramatic changes justify regarding 1947-48 as the end of the
period of early growth. From a gross business of $12 million in 1949,
the networks jumped to gross billings of $127 million in 1952. 44 (In
1954 they were up to $320 million.) The big freeze and AT&T's cable
proved a boon to those stations in operation, enabling them to increase
audiences and revenues in a period of relative calm. By the 1950-51
season, at the tail-end of the freeze, every one of the 107 stations on
the air claimed it was operating in the black.
Television drama began the era of the big freeze rather auspi­
ciously. In the fall of the first season, 1948-49, costly dramatic shows
were introduced on a permanent basis. The Philco Television Playhouse
was first, with a budget that allowed it superior dramatic vehicles, and
excellent talent. Then came Ford Theater and Studio One, both known
for their quality and popular acceptance. 4) Altogether there were six
major live dramatic shows on television as early as 1949.
These programs continued to present Broadway plays, but the in­
creasing competition for hits suitable for television raised prices in what
was a limited market. 46 Philco paid only $750 a script at first, but by
the end of the season it was paying $2,000, with the cost of adaptation
an extra expense.47 New half-hour shows such as those sponsored by
Chevrolet and Colgate reflected problems of limited running time and,
together with the one hour shows, faced the problems of small budgets
and little suitable material. Only a very limited number of one-act or
full length plays worked on live television. The programmers were
restricted by the need to use indoor settings as much as possible and
only a limited number of these per play and by the censorship
 2. The Age of Television Begins 25

restrictions inherent in a mass media form of entertainment. The ex­

panding half-hour series quickly gobbled up the meager supply of one­
act plays and following the lead of ABC's Actors Studio, tapped a new
source, the short story. Kraft, on the other hand, looked more and
more to originals.
In spite of these problems the drama was a popular format with
the programmers and, when grouped with dramatic films, shoved
sports for the first time from first to third in the percentage of total
broadcast time. Truly, television was doing for drama what radio had
done for music. In contrast, musical programs on television started out
strong but quickly deteriorated in number and qualiry. A more visual
art, the opera, began to have a mild success on NBC, but CBS dis­
banded its symphony orchestra and made no attempts to produce
opera. 48
The critics, led by Jack Gould of The New York Times, hammered
at those productions that merely photographed from a proscenium
viewpoint. But he summarized the excitement over the "living" feature
of broadcast drama:
Its magic lies in the fact that it reaches mass audiences through
mechanical means, yet it preserves the uninterrupted and instantaneous
performance which is theater at its most credible. The uncenainty of a
flubbed line can be the arresting attraction of television. 49

With increased budgets came larger studios, more equipment,

and a smoother, more polished and professional performance. NBC, of
course, continued to dominate dramatic programming. CBS, however,
is the more interesting topic for the first year of this middle period as
it began its first full-scale assault on Rockefeller Center.

CBS and the Second "Civil War"

On May 4, 1944, one year before Japan surrendered, CBS re­

opened its Grand Central studios and assembled a new staff under the
direction of Worthington Miner, a producer-director from Broadway.
Thus it began its second "civil war" with NBC, a businesslike effort to
do the best job and win the American public. CBS had successfully
lured some major radio stars away from NBC but in the television area
they had produced only a few half-hour dramas and mystery shows on a
26 Live Television

sustaining basis. However, in May of 1946, production ceased when

Miner cancelled all live studio shows indefinitely in favor of old films
and remote pick-ups of programs, usually athletic events from outside.
They were cheaper and Miner was able to cut production costs in that
early period. CBS simply did not have the resources of RCA. This
changeover further delayed any extensive programming by CBS, and
the first battle of the war was won by NBC.
Even though it was out of the picture as far as drama was con­
cerned, in 1947 CBS made one highly publicized and fumbling at­
tempt to telecast scenes from Broadway hits. It was called Tonight on
Broadway and it featured Mr. Roberts in its premier broadcast. The
reviewers described it as "amateurish television" that turned into a
"fifty-minute advenising trailer for the play. ",o The American Tobacco
Company dropped the sponsorship after three shows. CBS sustained
three more before dropping the show-except for one brief attempt to
revive it in the fall of 1949.,.
In the first season of the big freeze, 1948-49, CBS was credited
with a bid "to catch up" through its television version of the radio show,
Ford Theater. This experiment by the Ford Motor Company, which had
been a big spender on television for sports broadcasts, was a monthly
venture alternating with a film theater and later in the season with
Studio One. ' 2 With plays such as The Man Who Came to Dinner and
Edward, My Son, and top stars, the show had a reasonably successful
season and many viewers. Perhaps Ford Theaters most unusual produc­
tion was the result of an experiment in which the Ford Radio Show
broadcast a version of Camille on November 12 with Ingrid Bergman,
followed by a television version November 14 with Judith Evelyn_
Vanety agreed with the happy television producers who observed that
"though the cards were stacked in advance for the radio program, w ith
Ingrid Bergman playing the lead, the visual program won hands down
over the aural."'3
Because it passed from the scene after three seasons, the Ford
Theater received little attention in subsequent years. Under the leader­
ship of Garth Montgomery and director Marc Daniels, however, the
Ford Motor Company cancelled the Ford radio theater and announced
in the second season it would concentrate on Ford Television Thea ter
shifting to two programs a month and continuing with the same larg�
budget.'4 Vanety gave Ford Theater a Show Management Award
for
the 1949-50 season and described it as "one of the top video dra
matic
 2. The Age of Television Begins 27

programs."ss Marc Daniels, however, quit at the end of the season

because he was refused the status of producer-director. Daniels went on
to a successful career producing and directing other shows, but unlike
the other brilliant young directors of television (Coe, Miner, Mc­
Cleery), who moved up to producer status and gave their shows an
identity and an individual purpose, Daniels was released and his
original show died after him. S6 One interesting aspect of Ford Televi­
sion Theater's final season of "literal adaptations" was the hiring of
Franklin Schaffner as the director. Schaffner had a successful career pro­
ducing and directing on both networks after this apprenticeship with
Ford Theater; he is most remembered for his Hallmark Hall of Fame
shows.
If the Ford Theater fired the first shot, it was the honored and suc­
cessful Studio One that fought the war. Studio One began its long
career in 1948 with a title inherited from an old CBS radio show of
Fletcher Markle's. This unit was the brain child ofWonhington Miner,
who had left the Theater Guild in 1939 to develop programs for CBS.
Miner, a Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, came to television from the legiti­
mate theater where he began his career in 1925 "carrying a spear" in a
Walter Hampden road company. As a director, Miner staged more than
27 Broadway productions, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Both
Your Houses. Mr. Miner's assignment from CBS after World War II was
to create four different types of shows. He was brilliantly successful in
each and left a bright and indelible mark on the history of television.
The variety show he created was the Toast of the Town, in later
days known as the Ed Sullivan Show. The situation comedy he created
was The Goldbergs; the children's show he created was Mr. I. Magina­
tion; and finally, the one-hour quality drama he created was Studio
One.SJ
The premiere of Studio One on November 7, 1948, was The
Storm, adapted by Worthington Miner from a novel by McKnight
Malma. Margaret Sullivan and DeanJagger starred and Miner directed.
"Unfortunately," said Variety, "Studio One got off to a start that left
the viewer both confused and bewildered."ss This did not assuage Mr.
Miner who stated vehemently that the reviewer's comment "needs
clarification." In a conversation with this author, Miner explained:
I was experimenting basically with adapting shows to a new medium.
And in this first show I deliberately went out of my way to do a mystery
story that would cause talk. This was deliberate. The show had no
28 Live Television

ending; it left you in doubt. It was a revolution in techniques-in the

mood lighting, in the use of the camera.s9

For almost four years Studio One under the tutelage ofWonhing­
ton Miner was hailed by critics and professionals alike for its slick pro­
fessionalism and its daring production experiments. Television's first
smash hit and Mr. Miner's most brilliant experiment was a modern
dress version of Shakespeare'sJulius Caesar in this very first season. The
critics were generally overwhelmed! Gould portrayed it as "The most
exciting television" he had seen:

A magnificently bold, imaginative, and independent achievement ....

The visual power and vitality that lifted television to the status of a
glorious an. 60

Such words of praise as those had hardly been seen before. Variety
agreed with him, pronouncing it a "big step forward. The fine integra­
tion of movement, lighting, camera, and staging . . . gave breadth and
intensity to an exciting version of Shakespeare!"61 This production was
hailed across the country. The compliments were consistent: "One of
television's memorable events"; "Extraordinary."62
Miner felt that this was the first application of the highly fluid
storytelling technique of the television cameras to the classics. He was
very delighted that Gould noticed and made mention of "An intelli­
gent use of cameras to tell the story." For example, he told how they
revealed to the audience their interpretation of Mark Anthony as a
totalitarian:

When Brutus was speaking to the crowd, in the rain with newspapers
over their heads, we moved the camera through the crowd getting their
reactions, and over behind the pillar was Mark Anthony, plotting his
rebuttal. It was in his face-meditatively-we focused on him and we
had it! He was played by Richard Han. He was great! 63
Miner describes his use of the camera as an attempt to clarify. He
felt that the best of camera work subsequently in television derives from
this production. He describes one instance of using the cutting device
to achieve a "theatrical wallop." The instance is the death of Cinna, the
Poet. The camera cut from the fist of Cassius cursing and screamin g at
Brutus in the tent to the death scene: a man picks up a brick and slams
it into Cinna's face; that is, right at the camera; the camera cuts and
the dramatic statement has been made.
 2. The Age of Television Begins 29

CBS sustained this expensive show until May of �949 when West­
inghouse picked up the sponsorship and kept it for nine and one half
years until it went off the air in 1958. It was evidently a mutually
beneficial relationship second only to the Kraft sponsorship of Kraft
Television Theater. Several times throughout the following years it will
be seen that Westinghouse and CBS changed producers, sometimes be­
cause they felt the quality of the show had fallen, but on the whole it
seems to have been a very happy and distinguished relationship, with
never a hint of bickering or sponsor interference.
The highlight of Studio One's second season was The Battleship
Bismarck, one of television's first attempts at spectacular physical pro­
duction. The Worthington Miner-Paul Nickell combination which had
had such a great success withJulius Caesar in the first season of the big
freeze, achieved, according to Gould, "a scope and variety of scene
which suggested that television had barely begun to explore its own
capabilities in the field of production. " 64 The story concerned the
fateful cruise of Germany's king-sized battleship, the Bismarck, and
told of her successful engagements with the battleship Hood and the
cruiser Prince of Wales and her eventual sinking by the British fleet.
CBS newsman Larry LeSuer opened and closed the production so as to
add authenticity. 65 Miner wrote about these pioneering activities:

The fundamental fact ... is that the Battleship Bismarck stood out
for me as a symbol of escape from the strait-jacket of four-wall interiors,
which had become an accepted limitation in television production up
to that time. Many stories of fine quality, of valid interest had been
turned down, solely because no workable production scheme had
sprung to mind. More and more it appeared that the living room, the
dining room, the office and the bar, were being frozen into the perma­
nent habitat for every type of dramatic expression...66

Miner also felt that a show done later that season, The Last Cruise,
was far more exciting technically, and went relatively unnoticed. He
describes the Battleship Bismarck as "simple compared to The Last
Cruise," in which a burning sub sank in the Arctic and a sister ship came
to its rescue. "Eleven guys went to the doctor; we had one case of
pneumonia and one broken leg. But we had two subs and we got them
rocki ng in opposite directions!" One anecdote that Miner tells is that
they never got the water until the very last rehearsal and they had never
tested it on the floor. He said the water was within inches of shorting
out the camera cables during the performance.
30 live Television

Worthington Miner's third season in Studio One saw his con­

tinued personal success. His productions continued to be mostly adap­
tations. Among these were Jane Eyre, Henry James' The Ambassadors,
and a television version of Menotti's opera The Medium. He tells a story
on himself about them. Miner felt that Of Human Bondage was his
"biggest goof." He states:
I had great success with adaptations of novels of Henry James-The
Ambassadors, for example. These stories concerned a small number of
people in a mass of extraneous material that can be caught by the televi­
sion camera. So I got carried away and decided to do Bondage. This was
a fiasco. I got a pretty good script from Sumner Locke Elliott, all things
considered; but it had one fault-it was 27 minutes too long! 67

The year 1951-52 was Miner's final season with Studio One. He
also felt it was one of his "best in terms of the quality of the shows. We
had five knockout productions in a row." He particularly remembers
Waterfront Boss, Pontius Pilate, and Macbeth. Miner was fascinated
with Waterfront Boss because a lot of film was taken on the waterfront
and he "couldn't get any police protection." He felt Pontius Ptlate was
one of the best scripts he had ever worked with, but "I made a mistake
in casting Cyril Ritchard."68
Already in 1952 had come live television's third version of Mac­
beth, and there have been few like it before or since. Unlike Miner's
previous Shakespearean productions, this was done in period costume.
There were always reservations about Miner's "jazzing up the Bard."69
It was one of the earliest television dramas seen by this writer and he
remembers it as a provocative and exciting 60 minutes. It is easy when
reviewing a production or writing in retrospect to remember it as a tour
de force because of the production tricks, such as using prerecorded
passages integrated with the live readings of the soliloquies and super­
impositions of pictures to achieve the illusions of the ghostly dagger
and the murdered Banquo, and it is easy to forget the impact and the
intimacy that the television camera brought to the eternal Macbeth.
This was also Miner's final season with CBS. According to the
newspapers he had been attempting to negotiate a new contract with
CBS since July1951, which would have given him the right to "expand
into experimental and creative programming techniques." CBS report­
edly stalled on his demands. According to Variety he met with NBC's
Pat Weaver inJanuary of1952 and "set a deal on the spot." It was highly
publicized throughout the industry that Worthington Miner would
 2. The Age of Television Begins 31

assume a major role in Weaver's "creative programming activities" at

NBC. 70 Miner himself states that it was "simply a dispute over con­
tract .... Mr. Weaver offered me more money." He was left to "cool his
heels" for many years, however, and never did make a complete come­
back. Some of Miner's later work on NBC will be discussed later in this
book; also taken up will be Pat Weaver's explanation, "I bought the
best" so the "others couldn't have them."
It was also a bad day for Studio One. Of the succeeding producers,
Donald Davis was accused by reviewers of doing a particularly dull job
and he was followed by Fletcher Markle who stayed for one year and
went to Hollywood. It was not until Felix Jackson took over with Paul
Nickell and Franklin Schaffner alternating as directors that the program
regained the luster and pioneering nature that it had had under Worth­
ington Miner. As Rod Serling described him in those years with Studio
One, Miner was a "pioneer without coonskin, whose expanse was
becoming as much horizontal as vertical."71 As Miner put it, "we set the
standards. It had a pattern. There was a bench mark of the kind of thing
we wanted to do, and though we sometimes failed, we never compro­
mised. "72
Wonhington Miner consistently attempted serious drama on a
regular series basis, and very often succeeded, and seldom disregarded
the mass entertainment features of the medium in which he was work­
ing. Those viewers and reviewers who contrasted Miner's success with
the later success of Fred Coe on the Philco Playhouse like to point out
that Fred Coe succeeded with more serious adult fare than any of those
who were belittling the standards of television at that time could have
imagined was possible, because he primarily sought to entertain. This
is contrasted with Miner's use of esoteric and classical properties. In
retrospect it hardly seems a fair comparison and perhaps is not even
wonh mentioning. The big difference was Miner's focus on adaptations
and Coe's use of original materials. Another interesting difference be­
tween Coe's and Miner's approach to television drama is revealed by
Miner himself and relates in a real way to the different production
policies of NBC and CBS:

NBC was under the control of RCA and they made a policy decision
early in the game giving power to technical supervisors to countermand
the Director's orders. CBS declared the Director supreme. No technical
supervisor could ever countermand a director's orders; furthermore,
di rectors had direct contact with the camera men. This gave us a whole
32 Live Television

new dimension in adapting a show. We were able to explore "how to

tell a story by camera." This contrasts with Fred Coe's putting his focus
on developing a stable of writers. They were parallel developments. Coe
would ask me about how we did this or that on a particular show­
things which seem so simple today-pedestals in motion, raising and
lowering cameras smoothly, low-key lighting. We were developing
directors at CBS, men trained in the principles of directing, the use of
cameras, mood lighting. For example, we had three outstanding direc­
tors refuse to direct the play of the week when we got in a jam and had
to use the NBC studios.73

CBS's other two hour-long dramatic entries in the period of the big
freeze were the Magnavox Theater and Prudential Family Playhouse.
They had brief ordinary runs. The Prudential show, however, had quite
a happy premiere with Gertrude Lawrence in S.N. Behrman's Biog­
raphy, a performance that was typical of the vivacious and captivating
Lawrence. Its quick death was occasioned by its placement opposite the
popular NBC Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle.74
Attempts by CBS to maintain the qualitative programming pace
of NBC ran into considerable difficulties during these early years. Miner
expressed the opinion that they were attributable to "lack of imagina­
tion at the executive level and a failure to develop and encourage
talent." Certainly NBC had not only acquired a good head start on the
other networks in the early years of programming on television, and it
had continued to provide its personnel with the encouragement and
the means to attempt the best. The big change at CBS would begin in
1950 when Hubbell Robinson, Jr., transferred to television from the
position of vice president in charge of programming at CBS radio. This
creative executive will be known as the man who created Playhouse 90,
Climax, 20th Century, and the man who locked Phil Silvers and Nat
Hicken in a hotel room until they created the great situation comedy
starring Sgt. Bilko.
 3
Entering the Fifties

The Half Hour Series of 1949-50

One of the most noticeable features of dramatic programs from
1949-1951 was the emphasis on the half-hour live drama. This type of
programming function passed quickly into the hands of the film­
makers: a brief, slickly presented dramatic incident with room for a
middle commercial. But in 1949 the producers were impressed with the
successes of the live Colgate and Chevrolet shows, and the sponsors
were impressed with their costs: $5,000 for the Colgate Theater and
$6,000 for the Chevrolet Tele-Theater. Such low budgets made the
half-hour drama easy to sell. International Szlver Theater, Big Story,
and Lights Up were offered in the fall of the 1949-50 season and in the
summer the Armstrong Circle Theater and Cameo Theater got on the
bandwagon. These half-hour series were a short-lived and unusual
phenomenon.'
The Chevrolet Tele-Theater, or Chevrolet on Broadway as the pro­
gram was originally titled, made its debut on the NBC network the
previ ous season with the half-hour play The Home Lzfe of a Buffalo
by Richard Harrity. The story of a dancer and his family who refused
to believe vaudeville was dead, it was a tried and proven script, having
first been done on NBC television in 1946 and staged in a one-act
playbill on Broadway in 1947. The play could hardly have missed for
it used the same three leads from the earlier television and Broadway
prod uctions. The show and the series were instant successes. The show
was produced by Owen Davis, Jr., and when he lost his life late in the
season in a boating accident, he was succeeded by Victor McLeod.

33
34 live Television

McLeod's background in motion pictures enabled him to atuact many

Hollywood actors. Also many top stars were still appearing in many of
these programs just to gain the experience in the new medium. 2
Chevrolet was followed in January of 1949 by an alternate Monday
night half-hour drama, the Colgate Theater, also produced by Mcleod
and Davis.3
These were relatively inconspicuous series and this was a relatively
inconspicuous format. They succeeded in a grand way for a few years
because Hollywood's high-falutin' attitude and the high costs were de­
laying the use of film in television. The poor quality of reproduction
may be conceded to be a factor in film's slow start, but more imponant
is the fact that the cost per half-hour was well over $16,000 as compared
to $6,000 or less for a half-hour live drama. So NBC decided to go
"whole hog" and began in the late summer of 1949 with a series on NBC
under the title Lights Out, produced by Fred Coe.4 This series, The
Big Story, and the Armstrong Circle Theater series differed from the
conventional dramatic series in that they attempted a continuity of
mood, theme, or style from production to production, much in the
manner of the filmed situation comedies that became a major enter­
tainment feature of television. They did not, however, fall into that
class of comedy, mystery, or Western situation series that maintains the
same hero from week to week in a new situation.
Coe had staged several Lights Out programs for NBC in 1947. This
low budget program was based on the popular old radio series and was
designed so that Coe could use experimental production techniques for
the first time without fear of losing the audience or sponsor reprisals.
The purpose of the show according to a publicity release was to do "psy­
chological, mystery, and supernatural fare using adaptations and
originals." The show was noted in successive seasons for its "first person"
technique wherein the camera became the eyes of an unseen central
character in the drama. It was also cited for the first utilization of a
"split screen" technique; for example, when viewers witnessed
simultaneously both sides of a telephone conversation of a frantic wife
who is trying to save her husband from the electric chair. 5
An original script wrinen by Fred Coe in December 1947 was very
unusual in consideration of Coe's subsequent career as the leading light
of original television drama. One must in good humor guess that this
led him to decide to become a writer's producer rather than a writer's
director. It is the story of a television director who gets his just desserts
 3. Entering the Fifties 35

for cutting and rewriting an original play beyond recognition. The

characters, "almost frighteningly alive" in the first draft, actually do
materialize and attempt to intimidate the director into going back to
the original. "You've cut us out from our story!" they cry. The director
insists the play go on as it is, but he pays with his life when the char­
acters murder him! 6 Evidently Coe decided in 1950 to "save his life" and
not overdo rewriting originals. From this point onward Coe would be
known in the industry as a writer's producer and would make a special
contribution to television through his work with his "stable" of young
television writers.
Several other NBC half-hour series had a decent success. The Big
Story was based on the radio production of the same name and its
stories were derived from accounts of newspapermen who had per­
formed public service. It popularized the use of film clips. Two that
were eventually published were The Julian Housman Story and The
Kathryn Steffan Story, the titles bearing the names of the reporter be­
ing recognized.
The Armstrong Circle Theater, with Hudson Faussett as the pro­
ducer, offered sentimentality with "the pleasantly related moral" as the
show's thematic approach. This "family type drama" concentrated on
sentimental fiction and real life stories and eventually resulted in a one
hour series that lasted until 1954. A typical example might be The
Rocking Horse, which told of a mother and her son's tender reunion
after 25 years because of a rocking horse the son recognized.
In many ways the Lights Out series should be regarded as the most
successful of the half-hour programs premiered by NBC during the big
freeze, mostly because of its production experiments, but in its second
season it ranked eighth in a national popularity poll, and it acquired
a sponsor, the Admiral Corporation. 7 NBC dropped its half-hour Col­
gate and Chevrolet series in their second season, but the half-hour for­
mat received fresh interest from the many new arrivals on CBS the
following season: Lux Video Theater, The Web, Danger, and the
Somerset Maugham Theater. Competition between the giants of
broadcasting was, as always, a significant influence in terms of progress.
CBS again showed its determination to better the dramatic program­
ming activities of NBC through the half-hour shows above and the two
previ ously mentioned hour-long series: The Magnavox Theater and the
Prudential Family Playhouse.
Actually CBS's half-hour series did not fare well with the reviewers.
36 Live Television

Lux Video Theater was intended as a television version of Lux Radio

Theater, which had had a phenomenal 15-year success in radio, often
being on top of the Hooper and Nielsen ratings.8 The J. Walter
Thompson Agency was having similar success with Kraft Television
Theater and decided to move Lux to television as it had done on radio.
The premiere of the new series was Maxwell Anderson's Saturday's
Children, which was edited down to a half-hour. John Crosby, the
television reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune, was often "cute"
in his reviews and he seems less quotable than Jack Gould of the Times
in terms of what actually happened. But Gould did occasionally make
fun of television and in this review he was concerned with "obscure"
motivations and characterizations "evidently mislaid at the story con­
ference," but his prize comment concerned the commercial:
Joan Caufield merits considerable applause for her reading of a
difficult commercial. Even though this is the year 1950, she had to say
the following: "Wherever I am and whatever part I play, I'll be a Lux
girl. It's a wonderful soap."9
CBS' second new half-hour series, the Somerset Maugham
Theater, was quite successful until it ran out of material as a natural
consequence of its relatively short format. To utilize Maugham's
novels, this series was expanded in April of that season to an hourly ver­
sion. The revised series opened with a performance of 0/ Human
Bondage. R.L. Shayon of the Saturday Review tended to be harsh and
pedantic in his occasional television reviewing but he was particularly
vitriolic about 0/ Human Bondage:
the wickedest sin ... was not the audacious attempt ... it was not the
outrageous commercial ... the basic transgression ... was the rape of
the spirit and meaning of Maugham's novel ..., the hero's search ...
was scaled down to an insipid version . ..10
This was quite strong stuff and if the writer may be allowed a
"basic transgression," it was not unusual. Shayon did once in a fit of
good humor describe a Robert Montgomery Presents production of F.
Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon as a "first rate performance." He also
described this television adaptation as one that "respected the author's
approach and communicated it to video with taste and imagina­
tion."11
Shayon's comments were actually a come-on for he had not discon­
tinued his sullen ways. The above comment was contained in a column
 3. Entering the Fifties 37

in which he expressed intense dislike of six hourly television dramas of

the previous two weeks. On an earlier occasion Shayon expressed a pref­
erence for radio drama and expressed a "dim view" of stage plays on
television in a still earlier column because of an "inevitable thinning
out process." 12 Many of Shayon's comments seem exaggerated, but it
is certain that the programmers were relying on adaptations of novels
and biographies and the "thinning out" process warranted some of his
negative reactions. Robert Lewine, an NBC vice president, accurately
described these years as television drama's "dull" period, "the gathering
of energy and experience and the calm of adapting others' works before
the storm of original creations." 13

ABC Enters the Race

ABC made a late start in dramatic programming in the 1950-51

season and it never got to the finish line. The venture, which was quite
a memorable one, was Schlitz Pulitzer Prize Playhouse. 14 Actually, the
American Broadcasting Company had made a half-hearted attempt at
dramatic programming in the first season of the big freeze, 1948-49,
with a half-hour series, Actor's Studio, which ran for two years. In the
tradition of the now famous Actors Studio of New York, ABC
presented realistic plays successfully under the joint sponsorship of the
Actors Studio, World Video Company, and ABC. Since Actor's Studio
was more of an informal gathering of theater artists for the mutual self­
improvement than a formal producing organization, it did not produce
these plays in the usual sense of the word, as, for example, the Theater
Guild produced the U.S. Steel Hour. Rather, actors associated with the
Studio lent their time and talents to the series' productions at low
salaries to achieve experience in the television medium. 1� This series
received national recognition as the first television program ever to be
honored by the distinguished Peabody Award, cited for "uninhibited
and brilliant pioneering in telecast drama," as "the first to recognize
chat drama on television is neither a stage play nor a movie, but a
separate and distinct new art form." 16 Donald Davis, Actor's Studio
producer, spoke about their pioneering activities:

When Actor's Studio first went on the air, there were, up to then,
very few if any, dramatic shows which ever attempted to do more than
38 Live Television

pur cur versions of old plays in front of the TV cameras .... We hir on
what was then considered a novel idea .. . the shon story. 1 7

Actor's Studio was a low budget sustaining show in the sense of

the early experiments on NBC. The Schlitz Brewery Company's venture
with Pulitzer Pnze Playhouse was quite different. This ambitious proj­
ect was under the management of the William Morris Agency and had
the cooperation of the Columbia University Graduate School of Jour­
nalism, which had received a $100,000 gift from the Schlitz Company.
The opening production was Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It
with You. Despite the series' successes, it lost its sponsor at the end o f
the season because of " a lack of available dramatic propenies. " 18
The show's format posed limitations and problems similar to those
that beset the Somerset Maugham Theater. During the year it was
forced to present many dramas which were not Pulitzer Award winners,
but by authors who had been cited by the Pulitzer Committee. ABC
was still the "baby network" of the television industry and did not yet
have the audience potential to keep a big adveniser tied to a high
budgeted show. Schlitz planned instead for the 1951-52 season to move
to CBS with its larger network and to produce a new dramatic series
called Schlitz Playhouse ofStars which would replace the Ford Theater
on Fridays. No less a group of authorities than Fred Coe, Worthington
Miner, and David Suskind 19 have been quoted to the effect that ABC
was very much responsible for the death of live drama in 1958 because
of its low-grade competition in the form of Western dramas. It should
be noted, however, that in 1950-51 and successive seasons, ABC made
attempts to produce and compete on the same level as the two big net­
works with brilliant and quality productions in series such as the
Pulitzer Pnze Playhouse, Celanese Theater, and the Steel Hour. In all
three instances ABC demonstrated creativity at the executive level;
shows did not last, however, or as in the case of the Playhouse and the
Steel Hour, moved to one of the big networks.

The Big Thaw

The thawing out of the FCC freeze was the beginning of the end
of Broadway revivals on live television. The three short years of this big
freeze saw television become a colossus of the world of entenainment
 3. Entering the Fifties 39

and saw live television drama increasingly dominate programming ac­

tivities. The most durable form of television program was the straight
drama and it was consistently the highest rated program category in the
A.C. Nielsen audience surveys.20
The problems television drama had in this period were the usual
desperate search for story material and the continued cry of the critics
against ruthlessly skimpy and unfair condensations of full length
works. Television was quickly using up the available material and many
works that were potentially good drama were not usable because their
authors were afraid of television, or copyright laws made presentation
prohibitively expensive or impossible. As it exhausted the supply of ob­
vious revivals of three-act plays, television experimented with one-act
plays, short stories, novels, biographies, and royalty-free literary
classics. Shakespeare, Moliere, and the nineteenth century novelists
were fair game, and NBC's summer show, Masterpiece Playhouse, did
television productions of dramatic classics by Ibsen, Chekhov, and
Pirandello.
This Masterpiece Playhouse replaced the PhzJco show and was one
of a number of summer hiatus shows that were usually experimental
and usually sustaining. One such show was Worthington Miner's CBS
Workshop where top young directors were to receive valuable training.
The Masterpiece Playhouse is particularly notewonhy because the pro­
ducers were Yale University's Curtis Canfield, Fred Coe, and Alben
McCleery, and they adapted such famous plays as Hedda Gabler, The
Rivals, Richard III, Six Characters in Search ofan Author, Othello, and
Uncle Vanya. The series received mixed reviews and even this viewer
was somewhat disappointed and seemed less inclined than ever before
to excuse production errors on the basis of experimentation in a new
medium. Six Characters in Search ofan Author was particularly bad but
the off-stage antics would have delighted Pirandello! If the reader does
not already know it, the play presents several levels of reality and poses
the question "What is real?" Instead of a bare stage it was presented
in a bare video studio. Therefore rather than use a stage doorman to
interrupt the action, the director decided to use an NBC page. When
the question of casting the page came up someone suggested that there
was a boy on the page staff that wanted to be an actor by the name of
Ericksen and he received the part. After the show was over the wardrobe
mistress asked the page to turn in his costume. He replied, "No, it's
mine; I own it." She insisted and he inszstedright back that he had to
40 Live Television

go to work in it the next day. Being very determined, she called over
a script girl and requested that she support her argument, to which the
script girl replied that she didn't know anything about it-she wasn't
a script girl-she was an actress playing a script girl! 21
On the whole, however, the best television drama was still a rehash
of Broadway successes. On the creative side, very little had happened
since the initial experiments in camera techniques. Most television
drama in this middle period was a mere cataloguing of Broadway adap­
tations. The saturation point of adaptations had been reached, and
drama was more popular than ever. It suddenly became painfully evi­
dent that television drama would have to shut up shop unless more
material was uneanhed. A producer, Stanley Quinn of the Kraft show,
explained: "The originals we get usually were turned down by the
theater or the movies. " 22 Another producer, Robert Montgomery.
blamed the writers: "We don't have enough original plays submined
to us for consideration." His program used only six originals in the
1951-52 season, and they were his first such attempts. 23 Producer Fred
Coe in 1954 gave the best summary of television drama's problems at
this point and their eventual solution:

When the "Playhouse" did its fuse show in October 1948, all of us
were convinced it was our mission co bring Broadway to America via
the television sec. And so we drew our material from the Broadway
Theater. We took Broadway plays, trimmed them to an hour and cast
them with Broadway players, topped by a Broadway star.Within a cou­
ple of months it became obvious that this could not work out.We were
running out of material! Broadway did 50 or 60 plays a year, many of
which were unsuitable or unavailable for our show ...
Meanwhile other dramas were emerging on television. The shortage
of material became acute. Agents stalked archives, bought rights to
stories and novels in umpteen languages, toured obscure libraries here
and abroad searching, searching for words to fill the void.
And soon, logically, we had worked out our present "Television Play"
serup in which we use virtually nothing but originals. Our writers turn
out television plays in every sense of the phrase .... Our emphasis is
now almost completely on the original television play, and in the pro­
cess we have developed a group of television playwrights.24

Within a few years new plays and new writers such as Reginald
Rose, Rod Serling, Paddy Chayefsky, Tad Mosel, Horton Foote, and
Robert Alan Aunhur would answer the television dramatic series' most
pressing need and bring to them original creation in a "new art."

-
 4
The 1951-52 and
1952-53 Seasons

High Noon in New York

The television networks launched their seventh year of postwar
commercial telecasting with the first live transcontinental television
program on September 4, 1951, President Truman's address at the
Japanese peace conference. This opening-up of the West Coast even­
tually had a marked effect on television. Already there were signs that
the top variety shows would come from Hollywood and dramatic shows
would begin to appear on the Coast which used the stars from the mo­
tion picture industry. Live television, however, and live original televi­
sion drama from New York were to be the significant money-making
features of prime time network television for at least five more years.
During that time the network's income continued its fantastic rise while
the motion picture industry watched its income drop faster every day.
Network radio was dead for most purposes. Jack Benny's radio show,
for example, had a rating of 26.5 in 1948. Its rating in 1951 was 4.8. 1
Variety labeled television the "monster" and wondered "will TV even­
tually swallow up practically all of show business?" The "worst" was yet
to come!
On April 14, 1952, the FCC ended its three and a half year ban
on new television stations with its "Sixth Repon and Order" allowing
for 2,053 new stations blanketing the country and reserving 242 for
educational use. 2 The freeze had been originally imposed to eliminate
station interference and to set a pattern for future expansion. The

41
42 Live Tdevision

resolution arranged for maximum use of the band of frequencies then

in use, VHF or very high frequencies, and opened a new band of fre­
quencies, UHF or ultra high frequencies. In the next six months, 175
new television stations were authorized and within a year the number
of stations broadcasting had doubled. By 1954, over 393 stations were
on the air, and television set ownership rose to 3 5 million. 3 By 1955,
television became a billion dollar industry and the networks were able
to undertake programming on a larger scale than anyone previously had
imagined. 4 Within a single decade television had established itself as
the dominent mass communications medium of our time.
As television grew it became, along with public education, one of
America's favorite critical targets. As the major mass medium it re­
ceived much blame for the social and cultural evils of a mass society.
The television industry, through the National Association of Radio and
Television Broadcasters, uied to protect itself from public criticism by
adopting a Television Code in 1951. Robert Swezy, chairman of the
NARBT at that time, admitted:

To a great extent, however, it (the television code) was adopted under

the threat of government censorship of the medium; i.e. the Benton
Bill which provided for the establishment of a citizen's comminee co
review and make recommendations to the Congress concerning televi­
sion programming.,

This Code urged adherence to "decency and decorum in produc­

tion" and was generally negative in approach. It had very little effect
on programming through the years. Such concern for the social effects
of this mushrooming monster resulted in a Ford Foundation study and
eventually the famous Omnibus Show.6

Dawn in Hollywood

If live television had its "high noon" in New York in the early
fifties, there was a bit of "dawn" in Hollywood. Abel Green and Joe
Laurie,Jr., in their book Show Bizfrom Vaude to Video, described the
1951-52 season as the "year of decision" for the moviemakers. Major
film studios were beginning to rent space for television film production.
Also many film moguls were investigating the possibilities of producing
such films themselves.7 When the freeze had ended and television had
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 43

doubled and tripled in size, the moviemakers finally realized that they
must join forces with this "monster" in order to survive. The results of
this reversal in policy were seen as early as July 1952 when Variety
reponed that television films on the networks had grown in the pre­
vious season from 12 hours weekly to 18, a 50 percent increase, and
added a separate review section called Telepix Reviews.8
What was even more shocking to the devotes of live drama was
that for the first time since television had started there were no new live
dramatic series announced that September.9 The trade newspapers
boldly announced that the celluloid era in television had arrived. Also
the reviewers were worried that the quality of the returning live drama
had fallen. Each major dramatic program could point to individual pro­
ductions of which it had reason to be proud, but none had maintained
the consistent excellence of Celanese Theaterof1951-52 or the pioneer­
ing Philco or Studio One shows in their early years. Jack Gould of the
Times practically panicked:
The medium is heading hell-bent for the rut of innocuity, medi­
ocrity, and sameness chat made a drab if blatant jukebox of radio. Morn­
ing, noon, and night the channels are cluttered with eye-wearying
monstrosities called 'films for TV,' half-hour aberrations that in story
and acting would make an erstwhile Hollywood producer of 'B' pictures
shake his head in dismay. 10
Such anxiety was perhaps well founded, for as one television pro­
ducer, D.W. Sharpe, commented when asked by Gould about the
terrible quality of the films Hollywood was grinding out: 'Tm so busy
(making them], I just don't have time to watch them." 11 By 1965, the
filmed situation comedy would dominate television programming with
40 plus series that season. For the present these two sample seasonal
lineups reveal the hard times they were having:

1950 1952
Beulah Abbott & Costello
Easy Aces Boss Lady
George Burns & Gracie Allen Date with Judy
The Girls Dave and Charley
Pinky Lee Show Life with Luigi
Hank McCune Show Leave It to Larry
S tu Erwin Show It's a Business
Peter Lind Hayes Show Those Endearing Young Charms
Menasha the Magnificent My Little Margie
Mr. Peepers
44 Live Television

(cont.) 1950 1952

Papa Cellini
My Friend Irma
Heaven for Betsy
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet
Our Miss Brooks
Doc Corkle
I Married Joan
Meet Millie
My Hero

The titles tell the story. Most of them were superficial, simplistic
pap with stereotyped characters and pallid plots. In a few years Van·ety
would report bankruptcies, mergers, and general turbulence among
the independent ("B") moviemakers that had been trying "to make a
fast buck. " 12
Thus the shouting about film was premature. Aside from the
relatively high budgets and low picture quality of most of the filmed
dramatic series, there was a dynamic creative force ready to explode in
the television industry. This creative force was furthered and nourished
chiefly by the same pioneering series and advertising agencies that had
popularized the live, hour drama-the Philco Television Playhouse and
the J. Walter Thompson Agency through its Lux Video and Kraft
Television theaters. On these shows there appeared by 1953 original
television plays by authors such as Horton Foote, Paddy Chayefsky, Tad
Mosel, Rod Serling, and Roben Alan Aurthur. Others would appear in
the next few years, including Reginald Rose and J.P. Miller. These and
the many other fi n e writers of original television drama were youths
who had developed their talents working in the television industry,
many of them by writing the adaptations of the preceding seasons. Now
the television industry needed them.
It was not film but live television drama that continued to domi­
nate prime time programming in the next period.

The Measure of Excellence

The Broadway theater was still the measure of excellence in 1951,

not movies. Nor had television drama achieved an identity of its own.
It was that way, then, when ABC made a brilliant effort to compete
with NBC and CBS. In the field of hour-long television drama, where
 4. The 19.51-.52 and 19.52-.53 Seasons 45

the competition was unusually keen, the Celanese Theater of ABC

achieved exciting success and for one brief year established a pre­
eminence in quality programming. It was a package show from the
William Morris talent agency which had access to the long, venerable
list ofBroadway hits by the playwrights identified with the Playwrights
Company-Maxwell Anderson, Philip Barty, Elmer Rice, Robert E.
Sherwood, S.N. Behrman, and Eugene O'Neill. In fact, it was origi­
nally to be called the Celanese Playwright's Theater.13
Much of the credit for the Celanese success went to Jerty Stagg,
head of program development for the William Morris Agency, who
signed up the properties ofa number of distinguished playwrights. He
put himself in such an enviable position, in the vital area of program
materials, by drawing up a season's schedule a year ahead. Credit also
goes to Alex Segal, the producer-director, and future Hallmark Hall of
Pamer, who had handled 1950-51 's Pulitzer Prize Playhouse on ABC.14
With the scripts of proven successes in hand, the battle was half won.
Jack Gould in the Times portrayed Alex Segal as "one ofthe most deft
and discerning directors in television's ranks, ... bringing these hits to
the screen with remarkable faithfulness." 1' For the second time the
George Foster Peabody Award honored a television dramatic series and
again it was an ABC show.16 At that period ofgreat critical concern over
television's poorly executed adaptations, it is interesting that this
Peabody award credited the Celanese Theater with drama "done with
fidelity, intelligence, and scrupulous regard for the intentions of the
playwr ight." The high culture elitists and television professionals who
criticized ABC in later years did not give it enough credit. The "big
boys" would not let the "little guy" play the game. We shall see how
ABC eventually lands the Disney film show, introduces the film
Western and chases the "big boys" right out of the ball park.
Celanese Theater also received a special citation in Variety's
Showmanagement Awards:

In a season which saw television's hour long dramatic shows come into
their own as the best in qualitative programming, ABC-TV's "Celanese
Theater" quickly established itself as rops ...
Alex Segal directed ... with imagination, plus production and direc­
tion know-how .... He embellished for "Celanese" the comparatively
new concept of camera technique- that of shooting from all four sides
of a set.The smooth and easy fl.ow of his camera movements often com­
pensated for static qualities in a script.17
46 Live Television

DuMont Who ?
Also in the early fifties the small DuMont television network made
a feeble attempt to get into "big league" television drama with the high
budgeted Cosmopolitan Theater, packaged by the Louis G. Cowan
Agency for DuMont on a sustaining basis. These were the most lavish
productions ever attempted by DuMont, with scripts based on stories
from Cosmopolitan magazine. 18 A sponsor was not found and the show
closed by December. 19
A more interesting attempt at television drama was made by Du­
Mont that season on a local basis in New York City. The series was
called Broadway Theater and the producer was Warren Wade, who had
been one ofNBC's first production chiefs. Under Wade's direction each
play was performed five nights a week in a full length, 90-minute to
two-hour version. This format attracted considerable attention because
of a feeling that so many programs "go down the drain" as far as the
individual set owner was concerned. A survey made for DuMont by
Pulse, Inc., revealed the five performances of the opening production,
The Trial of Mary Dugan, reached a larger percentage of television
homes than any other show that week including those on the net­
works.20 Wade continued to produce these shows for two seasons on a
local basis. From the very beginning he faced the problem of acquiring
rights to suitable plays, and he never did achieve financing on a net­
work basis.21

The Golden Age of Live Television

Live, original television charged onto the screen in the early fifties
and live television drama finally achieved an identity of its own. The
years 1951 through 1956 were a time wherein television made a signifi­
cant contribution to the arts in the form of the original television play.
Rod Serling, one of television's most successful writers, described televi­
sion's entry into the playwriting business in 1951:

The medium had progressed somewhat past the primitive stage ....
The television writer's claim to the title "playwright" had been made
but as yet �as not universally accepted. The television play ... enjoyed
no longevity through the good offices of the legitimate stage and the
motion picture. The motion picture industry looked down on i ts
 4. The 19.51-.52 and 19.52-.53 Seasons 47

newborn cousin somewhat as the president of a gourmet club might ex­

amine an aborigine gnawing a slab of raw meat.22
In describing the "black desert which represented the area of iden­
tity of the television writer" in 1951, Serling used the Kraft Television
Theater as an illustration, stating this oldest of the one-hour shows was
better than most producing units in its treatment of writers but even
it would not permit a writer at rehearsal until the day of the perfor­
mance. 2' The great change that came about in the treatment of the
writer can be discovered by examining Serling's impromptu recollec­
tions of these years, and he stated the results clearly:
The major advance in the television play was a thematic one .... One
could see that the television play was beginning to show depth and a
preoccupation with character. Its plots and its people were becoming
meaningful. Its stories had something to say...
In terms of technique, the "close-up" that had served as such a boon
to the motion pictures was further refined and used to even greater ad­
vantage in television. The key to television drama was intimacy ...24
Serling was describing the realistic, intimate drama found on
television from the period 1952 to 1956 that came to be called "adult"
drama. Ring Lardner offered a reason as to why it came about:
In a mass medium where writer's work is consumed at a ravenous rate,
the lure of the socially significant becomes more than the veriest hack
can resist. The cute premises about amnesia and double identities grow
strained after a while. 2 s
Whatever the reasons for the forms original television dramas
began to take, it was certain in 1951-52 why they began to be produced.
The alternative to their use by the dramatic series was to close up shop.
While Robert Montgomery had blamed the writers in 1950-51 for not
submitting scripts, their reasons for not doing so seem valid: market
prices for a one-hour original went up from $750 in 1950-51 to $2,000
in 1951-52. 26 Before 1950 it simply had not been worth the aspiring
writer' s time because the pay was too low.
The change from adaptations to original drama was so sudden that
the summer of 1952 was a storehouse of original television plays in con­
trast to the drab adaptations of the previous fall. The summer season
was nonnally a time when most shows either went off the air, lowered
their budgets, or played reruns; but that summer, under the new im­
petus to produce originals, the following plays were produced: Expec-
48 Live Television

tant Relations, Tears of My Sister, and The Death of the Old Man by
Honon Foote; The Rack and Old MacDonald Had a Curve by Rod Serl­
ing; Ernie Barger Is Fifty and Other People's Houses by Tad Mosel; and
The Big Deal by Paddy Chayefsky.

Fred Coe and the Playwrights

Theater-trained Fred Coe was hired by WNBT back in April of

1945 and directed his first play for television for a late afternoon
children's show, a television version by Ben Martin ofDeMaupassant's
The Necklace. With Fred Coe as the producer-director, NBC would
take the leading role in projecting television into a big-time operation
and the leading role in making drama its number one format. During
these "glory" years he will be personally identified with many of live
television's greatest triumphs.
On September 17, 1952, the Philco Playhouse produced the first
play of the first playwright to achieve fame through the television
medium. The playwright was Paddy Chayefsky, an aspirant to legiti­
mate playwriting, and the play was Holiday Song. It was produced by
Fred Coe and directed by GordonDuff. It was repeated September 20,
1953, with script revisions and casting changes in commemoration of
the Jewish High Holy Days.27
By the end of that season Chayefsky was joined in Coe's Philco
Playhouse "stable" by Horton Foote, Roben Alan Aurthur, Thomas
Phipps, and Tad Mosel. This first play, Hol£day Song, was "ostensibly
an adaptation" of an article in the Reader's Digest, but Chayefsky felt
that after revisions and changes he had written "what amounts co a
completely original work." It is the story of a gentle, middle-aged can­
tor who becomes distraught and disillusioned over the misery and sad­
ness in the world, especially the antisemitism. Believing that he has
"lost his faith," he feels he cannot rightfully perform his duties during
the Rosh Hashanah services, and consequently takes his problem to a
leading rabbi in nearby Manhattan. But enroute he is twice directed by
a mysterious subway guard into the wrong Brooklyn train. The first
time he meets a woman refugee, and the second time her long lost hus­
band. As a result, he reunites them and renews his faith.28 Van·ety
misspelled the name of this new writer as Paddy Chayepsky, but felt
he had written "one of its [Philco's] more moving vehicles. " 29

-
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-.53 Seasons 49

Chayefsky's second television play, Printer's Measure, was pro­

duced on the Playhouse in April. It is the story of how a linotype
machine affects the life of an elderly printer by shattering, not only his
confidence in his craft, buc also his relationship with his apprentice,
who gradually transfers his hero worship to the new machine. Chayef­
sky felt: "It has neither the honesty of Marty nor half the characteriza­
tions that wenc into The Bachelor Party and The Mother, but it has
solid architecture and I like it. "30 It is basically a character study, show­
ing a crisis in the emotional relationship of the man and the boy, but
it also has a social significance, for the old printer stands for the dying
artisan in the world of machines.
This play was followed in May by the now famous Marty, with its
echoing lines: "Well, what do you feel like doing tonight?" and its con­
uary answer, "I don't know. What do you feel like doing?" Marcy, a
butcher in his middle thirties, has none of the social graces and is
tormented by the emptiness and loneliness poruayed in the dialogue
with his bachelor friend. In a cheap dance hall he finds a gangling,
awkward girl, and the substance of Chayefsky's story is their discovery
that they have a rapport and when they are together, there is a meaning
in life. 31 Much has been written about Marty since it won the Academy
Award as a movie. Ernest Borgnine won fame and forrune in the lead­
ing role. At its first performance on television Gould commented
favorably on its "touching pathos" and Chayefsky's "disciplined ap­
preciation of reality in every day life."32 Marty was the grand debut of
a new style of drama. In his book Chayefsky bundled together Marty
and The Mother 33 in one discussion of this style because he said "each
represencs in its own way the sort of material that does best on televi­
sion":

They [Marty and The Mother] both deal with the world of the mun­
dane, the ordinary, and the untheauical. The main characters are
typical, rather than exceptional; the situations are easily identifiable by
the audience; and the relationships are as common as people. The
essence of these rwo shows lies in their literal reality. I tried to write the
dialogue as if it had been wire-tapped. I uied to envision the scenes as
if a camera had been focused upon the unsuspecting characters and had
caught them in an untouched moment of life.
This sort of meticulous literalness is something that can be done in
no other medium. On the stage, reality is a highly synthesized thing.
The closest thing to reality I ever saw on the stage was in Death of a
Salesman, but even this extraordinary play involved a suicide and an

......
50 Live Television

incident in which the son discovers his father in a hotel room with a
woman other than his mother. These are excellent dramatic incidents,
but they are not everyday occurrences in the life of the lowermiddle
class. In writing the stage play, it is necessary to contrive exciting
moments of theater. You may write about ordinary people, but the au­
dience sees them in unordinary and untypical circumstances.
To a lesser degree, this is also true of the movies, especially American
movies. The Bicycle Thief, an Italian masterpiece, got about as close to
an ordinary day in unemployed man's life as you can get in a movie;
but even this picture required a special urgency of incident. Most
movies, even the good ones, are based upon the extraordinary incident
and the exceptional character.
In television, however, the same insights into a character or into a
social milieu can be made with the most identifiable characters and the
most commonplace situations. I set out in Marty to write a love story,
the most ordinary love story in the world. I didn't want my hero to be
handsome, and I didn't want the girl to be pretty. I wanted to write a
love story the way it would literally have happened to the kind of people
I know. I was, in fact, determined to shatter the shallow and destructive
illusions-prospered by cheap fiction and bad movies-that love is
simply a matter of physical attraction, that virility is manifested by a
throbbing phallus, and that regular orgasms are all that's needed to
make a woman happy. 34
Marty was followed shortly in July by The Big Deal, with David
Opatoshu playing "the big deal," a man of 52, a one-time "big shot,"
as he calls himself, who yearns for the day when he was a big builder
of homes. Now he must rely on the financial support of his daughter
while he dreams up pretentious and impractical projects. He is seen
gradually becoming aware he is a failure and finally accepting a low
paid job.35 Opatoshu's performance and Vincent Donahue's direction
were hailed by the critics as "painfully real." Variety said: "Not once
was there a false note .... With so brilliarit a cast and Chayefsky's un­
commonly perceptive script to work with, Director Vincent Donahue
achieved suong impact and perfect pacing." 36 With this production
Chayefsky finished his first season as a playwright to almost universal
acclaim: Gould spoke of his "disciplined appreciation of reality"; John
Crosby in the New York HeraldTnbune described him as "television's
best writer "; and Variety commented: "Chayefsky ... makes a habit
of writing for TV as if he invented the medium. "37
Horton Foote was the second writer to achieve fame on the Philco
show that season. His two most important productions were The Trip
to Bountiful which was written for Lillian Gish and was later the first
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 51

television play produced on Broadway,3 8 and A Young Lady of Prop­

erty, a vignette about a teenage girl's dreams, loneliness, and growing
pains in a small town in 1925.39 The success of these two plays formed
the basis for a series of dramas by Foote on small town life in Hamson,
Texas, the title of the published series. The plays were of the same style
as Brooklynite Chayefsky's dramas about lower middle class city life, ex­
cept that Foote's intimacy and vividness reflected a different, rural
breed of folk.
Several of these dramas by Foote were featured on another NBC
experimental summer series called First Person, directed by the man,
himself, Fred Coe. In it, a central character was represented by both the
eye of the camera and an actor. When the actor was heard but not seen,
the other characters looked and talked directly to the camera. This no­
tion was not a new one, but Variety credited Coe and his other director,
Anhur Penn, with using it "in a fresh way that opens fresh horizons to
television drama."40 Foote's Tears ofMy Sister, for example, told in a
tender way the stoty of a young girl forced to marry a much older and
unwanted man, so that she could provide for her mother and sister. It
was told through the viewpoint of the younger sister, represented by
the camera with Kim Stanley's voice.41
The third exciting young playwright to be discovered by Philco
Playhouse that season was a find of the show's summer producer. The
playwright was Tad Mosel, and his first hour-long original to be pro­
duced on television was done on assignment for David Suskind, who
was producing Television Playhouse during Fred Coe's summer
absence. The play was Ernie Barger Is Fifty, and on the basis of its suc­
cess Mosel was brought into Coe's "stable" and given a playhouse con­
tract.
Ed Begley played Ernie Barger in the personal tragedy of an
amiable, hard-working man who discovers at the age of fifty that he is
no longer needed in his pottery factory, and that his son has grown up
and is breaking away from him. He has been ignoring his wife and
father and pinning his hopes on his son. When in despair he turns to
them, he discovers that his father has found a lonely life for himself and
does not need his love, and his wife has turned away from him and into
a hypochondriac, because he failed to give her attention.42 This writer
attests to a very moving production and the reviewers agreed. Ed Begley
was great. The play's style and quality were close to Chayefsky's and
Foote's. For all three of these writers the keynote was sensitivity on the
52 Live Television

part of the writer's techniques, character studies in terms of play

materials, pathos in terms of purpose, and intimate realism in terms of
style. 4; In discussing his plotting and characterizations Mosel wrote
much in the same vein as Chayefsky:

Never before has there been a medium so suited to what I call the
"personal drama"-that is, a play wherein the writer explores one sim­
ple happening, a day, or even an hour, and cries co suggest a complete
life.... The life may be an unimportant one, but it implies a commun­
ity, which in turn implies the world.44

He makes a further correlation in terms of his audience:

If I consciously cried to write for an audience of that size [ average at

chis time was about twenty million] I wouldn't know where to begin.
I much prefer to believe the exact opposite, which in this age of para­
doxes, is also true-that television is the most intimate encenainmenc
medium ever conceived: three or four people in a living room, senled
low in their favorite chairs, watching a 21-inch screen.4,

Edmund Rice of Kraft Television Theater fame was the fuse to describe
a television performance in this manner. He was so quoted in Bes,
Television Plays published in 1950 and restated when interviewed thar
he felt the essential difference between motion picture and television
writing is that for the first time a play is seen by three or four people
only. When asked about this description he commented:

I still feel strongly that this is true. You have an enormous audience
in Joto, but you are playing co a small audience actually. The small reac­
tions, feelings, and emotions are thus more important than the broad
action, the big, broad scope.46

Although they received little public recognition, Fred Coe had

another "stable" of artists, his Philco Playhouse directors, Delben
Mann, Vincent Donahue, Arthur Penn and Gordon Duff. All three
playwrights who debuted that 1952-53 season took great pains when
discussing their reactions to rehearsals and live performances to give
most of the credit to these directors' ability to interpret and realize the
best that was in their dramas, and, of course, Fred Coe gave them full
responsibility for his success. All of them went on to successful careers
in the theater, television, and the movies.
In discussing The Lawn Party, a play of the 1953-54 season, Mosel
gives some idea of the work of two of these men:
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 53

Anhur Penn directed The Lawn Party. I can't begin to say how much
I rely on a director. I like to give him my play unconditionally to do with
as he sees fit. This can be dangerous if he doesn't speak my language.
So far I have worked with Delben Mann four times and with Anhur
Penn five. I can only say that I would willingly entrust any play to either
one of them at any time. Arthur always announces at the first rehearsal
that he is not quite sure what the play is about. This sometimes startles
the actors, but it pleases me. Because there is an anticipation in his
voice, an eagerness ro get to work, and I know that by the time rehear­
sals are over he will not only know what the play is about but will have
made a major creative contribution to it.47
The preparation of Search, a realistic documentary about a U.S.
Navy air-sea rescue of fliers forced down at sea, gives some indication
of rhe care and long, hard work rhat went into a Philco Playhouse script.
In 1951 Coe decided rhat he wanted to do a play about a group of men
on a raft at sea. He first tried to get television rights to Kon-Tiki. Failing
this, he next attempted to do a dramatization of Eddie Rickenbacker's
Seven Came Through. He was able to clear the rights, but unable to
reach rhe seven survivors featured in rhe book for personal clearance,
as they were rhen scattered all over rhe world. Coe then approached
writer David Shaw wirh his idea and hired him to write a documentary
play on air-sea rescue. Then followed a series of trips to the Navy
Department in Washington. Coe and Shaw went together, and at times
separately, to speak to Naval experts, to question airmen returned from
Korea, and to screen film for possible use in rhe production. Then rhe
script was written and forwarded to Washington for final approval.
Delbert Mann was assigned as director and joined Coe and Shaw in fur­
ther trips to Washington to screen additional film. The final production
included 35 brief film sequences. 48

The Great Kraft Theater

The Kraft-sponsored show continued its prominent role and the
J. Walter Thompson Agency was as outstanding and influential as ever.
le deserves much of the credit for introducing another new writer, Rod
Serling, through the medium of its half-hour Lux show and hourly
Kraft Theater. Mr. Serling gave most of the credit for his rise to fame
to the Lux Video show, stating rhat over a two-year period (1951-1953)
they bought 12 of his shows and produced 11 of them. (The Lux

.....
54 Live Television

Video Theater had been a second effort of the J. Walter Thompson

Agency, after the big success of the Kraft Television Theater.) Serling
cited specifically Dick McDonagh, a script editor of the J. Walter
Thompson Agency, who "gave me many moments and several words
of encouragement and enough pats on the back to keep me propelled
forward."49 The Lux show eventually became an hourly drama and
moved to Hollywood where the new producers used old movie scripts.
It had earlier been cited by Gould as "one of the better half-hour pro­
grams devoted to original drama. "5° Serling gave his reaction m
describing the work of the show before it changed hands:

In its New York half-hour days, the Lux Vtdeo Theater proved itself
symptomatic of the basic difference between what was Hollywood
television and what was then New York City television. It was a show
that consistently aimed high. Its whole conception in terms of dialogue
and production was adult, never hackneyed, and almost always honest.
It touched upon themes like dope and marital infidelity. It did things
like adaptations of shore stories by Faulkner and Benet. It encouraged
the submission of original scripts by any writer who knew how to write,
regardless of what his credits were. 51

The first of the Faulkner stories that Serling mentioned was pro­
duced inApril of that season. It was The Brooch, and was badly panned
by the critics. Gould in the Times described Faulkner as "the latest vic­
tim of TV's taboos." The play, as presented on television, "was the story
of a comparatively innocuous and uncomplicated juvenile who over­
rides his mother's wishes and marries a sweet young girl ...."As written
originally, "it was the story of a characterless mama's boy who marries
a tramp and commits suicide when she leaves him." Here is an instance
where a change in story ending is necessary in order to meet the re­
quirements of the television code which holds that suicide is undesir­
able as a solution for life's difficulties.52 Van·ety concurred, describing
the adapation as "a saccharine bawdlerization of the literary qualities
of the original story. " 53 Evidently, Faulkner was undeterred by the
failure of this production to receive critical plaudits, for the following
season a second Faulkner short story, Shall Not Pensh, was adapted and
produced on the Lux series.54 It was not reviewed.
As a television dramatist, Rod Serling was quite different from the
:'riters who achieved recognition on the Philco show. Though his plays
m the next few years capitalized on the intimate, personal nature of the
television medium, his characters were set in a larger, more theatrical
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 55

framework. For example, his two biggest successes in later years and the
winners of the Emmy Awards were Patterns, a story of a power struggle
in big business, and Requiem for a Heavyweight, set in the dramatic
background of prize fighting. In 1952-53 two of his hour-long dramas
produced by the other J. Walter Thompson show, Kraft Television
Theater, were The Twilight Rounds, a prize fight drama, and Old Mac­
Donald Had a Curve, a comedy about big league baseball.
The Twilight Rounds anticipated Serling's very successful televi­
sion and film drama, Requiem for a Heavyweight. Each tells of a prize
fighter who is in danger of being seriously hurt if he engages in another
bout. In the latter play the hero retires and seeks to find himself in a
world that is unfamiliar and foreign to him. n In the earlier play the
fighter is urged by his manager to retire, but he takes the advice of his
girl friend, who convinces him that he is as good a fighter as ever, and
goes on to disaster. S6 These stories were the result of Serling's experience
as an amateur fighter in the paratroopers and show a working knowl­
edge of that profession.n
The second show, Old MacDonald Had a Curve, was one of three
comedies Serling wrote up to 1957 in an output of about a hundred
scripts, which gives some indication of the small percentage of comedy
in live television drama.ss None of the well-known television writers of
this period are noted for writing a comedy drama. This is largely
because of the difficulties presented by the lack of a live audience dur­
ing the television performance and the inability to dub in laughter as
in the filmed situation comedies of Hollywood.
Seriing stated Old MacDonald Had a Curve "was one of the few
things I attempted with nothing but sheer entertainment in mind. I
had no axe to grind and no issue to solve."s9 It was a great success.
Variety said it was "one of the most diverting plays in the now enor­
mous catalogue of the series."60 The fantastic story concerns an aged
pitcher who, as a resident of an old folks home, has as his major activity
pitching horseshoes. One day he throws his arm out of joint and
develops a freak curve ball. As a result he is signed up by his old major
league team in order to pull them out of a long losing streak.61
In celebration of its sixth anniversary that season Kraft presented
four scenes selected from dramas that were among the most outstand­
ing in its history: Wuthen·ng Heights, Of Famous Memory, January
Thaw, and My Brother's Keeper. The newspapers said they were
selected on the basis of audience opinion and explained no further.
56 Live Television

Rice could not remember any details but suggested availability of actors
was probably an important consideration.62 After the performance
Kraft held a "Come As You Were" ball at the Waldorf Astoria for 500
of its former actors and acuesses and paid the Eaves Costume Company
to costume them in the parts they had played on the Kraft Theater. 63
Up to that time the Kraft Television Theater had presented 22 classics,
169 Broadway adaptations, 23 adaptations from the London stage, and
40 original television dramas! 64

Robert Montgomery Presents

The Robert Montgomery Show on NBC was gradually receiving

more recognition in the television industry. With Norman Felton and
Herbert Swope,Jr., as the directors, its adaptations in 1952-53 won it
the "Best Dramatic Show" in the fifth annual Emmy Awards of the
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the "Dramatic Show of the
Year" designation in the Radio-TV Dazly annual poll, and the "Best
Dramatic Series" title in the annual Sylvania Television awards.
The award situation was still somewhat confused as there was a set
of Academy Awards (Emmys) announced on the West Coast and
another set of Academy Awards (Michaels) being issued in New York.
The New York Michaels Awards' last season was 1952-53 and they gave
the Philco Television Playhouse a Michael for drama. 6)
In a production sense the Robert Montgomery Show was compared
with Studio One in its high period. Montgomery himself was never
available for comment, but certainly the reviews indicated that Felton
and Swope deserved much of the credit for the show's continued suc­
cess. One anonymous source claimed Montgomery never functioned as
a real producer but only lent his prestige and occasionally his acting
abilities to the series, and that Joseph Bailey, production supervisor,
was the show's top executive. The series' most exciting production that
season and Montgomery's most successful performance was a version of
John O'Hara's Appointment in Sama"a. Montgomery's performance as
Julian English was described as a tour de force and the adaptation as
"a superb work of enlightened craftsmanship, a drama of integrity and
maturity." This is particularly unusual in that, unlike Lux's Faulkner
play, the ending was not changed to satisfy the Television Code and the
climactic suicide resolved the plot as it did in the novel. 66 The book is
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 57

loaded with themes that television normally avoided in those days, such
as drunkenness, but the play did not shy away from them, and there
was no voiced protest, only positive affirmation of a job well done.

The Hallmark Hall of Fame

The distinguished Hallmark dramatic show would long outlive the
other series dramas and its name would be associated with Franklin
Schaefer. But it was Albert McCleery who played the most significant
role in its development. It began rather humbly as a half-hour show on
NBC in 1951. In 1952-53 it took on a slightly new format and there were
intimations of the greatness to come. Sarah Churchill remained as the
hostess and Albert McCleery became the producer-director. McCleery
brought in an arena style of staging that he had had success with in 1949
iri a production of Romeo andJuliet for NBC and in a series called
Cameo Theater, although his settings had become more elaborate as his
budget increased.
What was significant about Hallmark that season was the occasion
of the historic Maurice Evans two-hour television version of Hamlet.
This television uiumph was outstanding in all possible ways. It marked
the beginning of the change of the Hallmark Hall a/Fame format and
the development of the respected Hallmark tradition in television
drama. It signalled the start of Mildred Freed Alberg's career as a pro­
ducer, and stage director George Schaefer's brilliant career in televi­
sion. It was yet another high point in the illustrious career of Albert
McCleery-with many more to come. It was the television debut of
Maurice Evans and was followed by two more, highly praised two-hour
Shakespearean productions-Richard II in January 1954 and Macbeth,
costarring Judith Anderson with Evans, in November 1954.
In 1955-56, Mr. Evans produced the series which was known as
Maurice Evans Presents on the Hallmark Hall ofFame, and he was seen
in Shaw's The Devil's Disciple and in Sfiakespeare's The Taming ofthe
Shrew. In 1956 he starred in Shaw's Man and Superman, and
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and he videotaped a production of
Shakespeare's Tempest which was presented by Hall of Fame in the
spring of 1960.
The Hamlet production was an all time high in the number of pro­
ducers, directors, sponsors, and network executives who nervously
58 live Television

awaited its outcome. The very nature of its two-hour format, the great
expense involved, and the universal prestige of its star performer, com­
manded public and professional interest across the nation. Many a pro­
ducer undoubtedly pointed to its success when justifying "art" to a
budget-minded sponsor, but many a producer doubted its outcome
and the value of such an undertaking. After the show signed off, the
switchboard at NBC was inundated with calls, and they continued for
several days. Evans' mailbox overflowed for days thereafter. 67 The critics
hailed it as a stunning production and a great personal triumph of
Maurice Evans: "His was a gripping powerful performance," said
Time. 68 Jack Gould stated, "The tragedy was played for its sheer
dramatic value and proved superbly arresting theatre." He said "the
deletions were ideal" and "made for a contemporary briskness and
vividness."69 Flora Schreibner in the Quarterly of Film, Radio, and
Television wrote of "Television's Hamlet" as "an experience belonging
uniquely and indigenously to television itself," showing that television
has "an aesthetic all its own. "70 R.L. Shayon in The Saturday Review
was, as usual, intellectually obtuse and wrote his review in a somewhat
affected fashion in the form of a letter to William Shakespeare. While
he did not come out honestly in favor of the production, and parts of
the letter admit of several interpretations, on the whole he seemed
pleased with what television had accomplished. 71
After the telecast Evans told of his experiences in adjusting to the
special features of the new medium:
The consciousness that, in television, some of the viewers are
thousands of miles away makes problems for the actor ... Al McCleery,
NBC executive director, and George Schaefer, my own stage director,
had constantly to remind me of the actual proximity of the audience.
Although people would be sitting before their sets in all pans of the
country, I had to remember that on the screen the distance between
their noses and mine would average six feet - not six miles or six
hundred.
Accustomed to playing Hamlet in the wide spaces of the theatre, I
found it excruciatingly difficult to deliver certain passages with the
requisite vehemence without looking ridiculous at such close quar­
ters...
In rehearsal, we found the best way to scale the performance down
to TV proportion was to have an assistant hold a piece of cardboard
be�ore the actors' faces. This represented the exact size of the image
which would appear on the screen. This device helped me enor­
mously.72
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 59

Evans also had some marvelous comments about the general

nature of the television medium:
Those of us who occasionally sigh for the glories of the theatre of the
past are forced to admit that, from an actor's standpoint, television is
at least a comfortable refuge from the insults of a hostile audience.
Although the simple twist of the dial which utterly obliterates an un­
welcome performer is far more telling than the critical cabbage, the
television actor can continue doing his worst in a state of blissful
ignorance-at least until the mail comes in next day.
Another boon that TV confers upon the actor is the absence of
coughing during a performance. It is not unusual to see some afflicted
member of the studio personnel rushing for the neatest exit before he
commits the greatest professional faux pax-the unsuppressed sneeze.
Comparing this social nicety with the catarrhal cacophony which greets
me nightly when I face a "live" audience at Dial M for Murder, I am
bound to admit that in this respect television has its advantages. On the
other hand, of course, the absence of an audience seems very strange
at the end of show. Instead of the descent of the final curtain and the
applause across the footlights, the television actor is required to remain
motionless until a voice from the control booth says "O.K. -wrap it
up�"7�
The Hamlet telecast was also a spectacular success for Mildred
Freed Alberg, who had suggested the show and "sold it to NBC." She
eventually became the executive producer of the series. 74 McCleery felt
he had not received credit for "the spadework" he did for this show, and
he was unhesitant in downgrading Alberg's contribution. He gave what
he described as "the true story of Hamid' and told how he flew to Kan­
sas Ciry and sold the idea to Mr. Hall of Hallmark Cards:
Mildred Alberg's husband had worked with Maurice Evans and she
asked him [Maurice Evans) if he would like to do Hamlet on television.
She came to NBC and asked them. All she had was Maurice Evans-she
sold him. Jack Rayle called me in and asked ifl thought Mr. Hall would
do it. Fairfax Cohen, the advertising genius behind the Hallmark show,
suggested I take the idea to a meeting with Mr. Hall. I flew to Kansas
City and talked for one solid hour to Mr. Hall and sold him. Hall didn't
quite know who Maurice Evans was and he was hesitant. He went off
an hour, called Cohen and we were in. I insisted on a two hour produc­
tion, and he agreed to take half the expense. Schaeffer Pen was going
to sponsor the second half but backed down and NBC took a $50,000
loss on the show. n
This account agrees with the Variety report that NBC sought two
advertisers, each to pay $75,712 for time and talent. However, when no
60 Live Television

one could be found to take the risk on "such a highbrow production,"

Hall "stepped into the breach" with a solo offer of$100,000. 76 McCleery
described Hall as a "shrewd and brave" man, but he found it strange
that Hall "has had more publicity than other sponsors as an under­
standing and culturally inclined man." He felt that Hall was one of the
"strictest" sponsors he had ever worked with. McCleery spoke further
about his work with Evans:
Maurice Evans was very cooperative. It was Maurice Evans' Hamlet
and it was my job to shoot the Hamlet the way he wanted it. It was my
floor plan. We had troubles with the network; we couldn't get the
studio we wanted, but it was a smooth, happy, working relationship. 77

The Celebn'ty Wn'ters

NBC instigated one other interesting attempt to solve the problem
of program materials that received considerable publicity but ac­
complished very little. In 1952 it signed a conuact with Roben E. Sher­
wood whereby he was to write nine original plays for television. He
received wide latitude in subject matter and was promised no sponsor
interference.78 CBS followed up by signing Ben Hecht to a conuact
whereby he was to write two half-hour plays a month.79 Also the CBS
Omnibus series put Maxwell Anderson and William Saroyan under
contract. Very little came of these arrangements, but the Robert Mont­
gomery show, which continued to produce mostly adaptations and par­
ticipated only slightly in the great excitement over original television
dramas the next three seasons, did open its 1954 season with the second
play by Robert Sherwood. The first play under Sherwood's fabulous and
highly publicized contract was The Backbone ofAmerica, and a special
performance was presented in December of 1953. It was severely
criticized. The second play, Diary , was the opening production for the
Robert Montgomery series and was pictured as "somewhat better than
the first" but still "not a stirring or stimulating drama." 80 Even R.L.
Shayon, who was obviously loath to criticize the respected Sherwood,
made apologies for him and was forced to admit that the show was a
"flop." 81 George Rosen in Van·ety also felt that in contrast to Sher­
wood's previous endeavor, he had "come a long way in adjusting his
talents to the newer medium." But he concurred it "still betrayed a
crudity."82 Sherwood evidently resigned himself to failure on tele-
 4. The 1951-52 and 1952-53 Seasons 61

vision, for NBC announced in February that he was released from his
contract. He stated he had asked to be released so that he could devote
himself to projects in the motion pictures. 83 He died shonly there­
after.

CBS Presents
CBS was still in there trying in 1952 and 1953 with its Studio One
and the new Omnibus series. Donald David and his wife, Dorothy
Mathews, had been coproducers of Studio One since Wonhington
Miner left in April of 1952. Van·ety reponed, however, that the show
had slipped behind NBC's Robert Montgomery Presents which was op­
posite it on Monday nights, and CBS board chairman William S. Paley
and the sponsor were "reponedly unhappy." 84 Gould in the Times
agreed that Studio One "has tended to flounder in rather trite seas."
As a result CBS brought in Fletcher Markle, who had produced the first
Studio One as a radio show, "to restore the program's former luster. "ss
Mr. Markle's first attempt was an adaptation of a novel, I Am Jonathan
Schn·vener, and Van·ety said it had "a professional finish that restores
the program to its original stature."86 Markle thereafter completed
Studio One's season with a series of adaptations.
In spite of the agitation about film, the individuals involved in live
drama showed a sense of purpose and glowed with pride when inter­
viewed about these beginnings. Live drama was not declining. The best
was yet to come.
 5
1953-54 and 1954-55:
Pat Weaver

The Peak Seasons

Variety suggested in the fall of 195 3 that it was the live shows' turn
"to garner the headlines" and that television films were "having hard
sledding. " 1 The "B" moviemakers and independents were still grinding
out film but use of film by the networks had fallen off by 12 percent
in 1953. 2 The one hour dramatic series would seem to be leading a
rather steady life, and color and "spectaculars" were still in their future.
Most of the news items at this point were concerned with whether the
movie producers would eventually release new feature-length films to
television. The major studios were not yet heavily involved in films for
television, and for many years, most of those produced were innocuous
little half-hour situation comedies. They were all alike, many imitating
the highly successful I Love Lucy. 3 Another trend discernible that
season was Hollywood's rush to buy up television scripts. Among these
were Marty, The Bachelor Party, Patterns, The Rack, Crime in the
Streets, 12 Angry Men, Visit to a Small Planet, and No Time for
Sergeants. One script, Operation Home, was bought for $50,000 even
before it was produced on Studio One.
Sports programming was not yet a major money maker. It was a
long time before Monday Night Football would be a factor in prime
time programming. News programming was gradually becoming a
prestige item for the network producers but was almost an adjunct con­
sideration when network executives looked at budgets and profits.

63
64 Live Television

Perhaps the biggest headlines, and one of the more dramatic uses of
television, occurred during the Army-McCarthy hearings from April to
June of 1954. For quite a time the television and political commentators
failed to see what was happening to Senator McCarthy because of his
television exposure; and what would happen to politicians as television
began to play a dominant role in our political lives.
For three more seasons networks would budget huge amounts of
money and reap huge profits from prime time live series dramas and
live variety shows and new series would be attempted in all of those
years. ABC was the leader in new production ventures in 1953-54. This
smaller network had more investment capital in 1953, having con­
solidated with Paramount Theatres, Inc. It made one last desperate at­
tempt to compete with the leaders on their own playing fields with
three new series, the U.S. Steel Hour, the Motorola Television Hour,
and a second version of Kraft Television Theater.

The 1954-55 Season

The 1954-55 season was remarkable in terms of quality; it had

everything from Peter Pan to Patterns, and it had quantity besides. An
examination of a sample week March 6-12, 1955, shows that nine hour­
long live dramas and three live variety shows were broadcast every week.
Included in the live drama in that single week were Crime in the Streets
by Reginald Rose, a television adaptation of Billy Budd, and two
90-minute spectaculars, Peter Pan and The Connecticut Yankee. That
season was live television drama's highest point of development and Ed
Sullivan was a national hero. NBC produced three new series of color
spectaculars: Producer's Showcase and two series of M ax Liebman
musicals; and CBS began a monthly series entitled Best of Broadway
and a weekly series, Climax. That year the television writer was given
more credit and acclaim than ever before. He achieved such status that
by September of the following year Worthington Miner asked the
Pulitzer Prize committee to establish special recognition for television
writing. 4
More than anything else, however, 1954-55 was the season of
NBC's color spectaculars. NBC under the leadership of Pat Weaver held
a virtual monopoly on exciting news items with their unprecedented
break with broadcasting's tradition of regular programming in favor of
 5. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Pat Weaver 65

special one-shot theatrical events. Repetitious scheduling had been a

pan of broadcasting philosophy for so long that no one had thought
it could be any different.

The NBC Peacock Replaces the RCA Dog

The season 1954-55 was color television's introductory year. The

spectacular growth of television had been subjected to equally spec­
tacular growing pains in terms of color. Some of these troubles were
caused by FCC regulations, others by the industry's inventiveness which
made color systems obsolete almost month to month, and mostly by the
fierce competitiveness between CBS and NBC. The FCC had tried to
authorize a system of color television early in order to avoid a situation
wherein black-and-white television sets would be rendered obsolete.
The Commission had examined the color question in 1940, 1945, and
1947. Finally in 1950 it approved the CBS mechanical color system
which was "incompatible" - that is, the picture could be received only
on color receivers. 5 The television set manufacturers were unhappy with
the CBS system. They ignored it, and the Korean war restricted produc­
tion while NBC perfected its electronic system in which the color pie­
cures could be received in black-and-white over existing sets. In
December 1953, the FCC, after renewed consideration, approved
NBC's compatible color television, and in 1954-55 NBC launched a
major color programming schedule. 6 CBS also began a limited schedule
of color telecasting with the NBC system. 7 In all, about 500 telecasts
in color were carried that season. Among the plays shown in color were
Heidi, Cyrano de Bergerac, Alice in Wonderland, The Constant Hus­
band, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and The Devil's Disciple. 8 Pro­
duction costs for these color shows averaged 10 percent over black-and­
white. At the outset the networks absorbed the entire cost differential
between black-and-white and color transmission, since the costs could
not be passed on to advenisers until there were enough color receivers.
This was not a financial burden on the networks, for the Broadcasting­
Telecasting Yearbook reported that national advertisers spent $840
million on network advertising in 1955. This made television the
number one advertising medium, well ahead of newspapers, which had
been traditionall y first. 9
66 Live Television

"Spectacular" Pat Weaver

Cenainly, of all the events in this strange period of the American
ans, the strangest was the elevation in 1953 of Sylvester L. (Pat) Weaver
to the presidency of NBC. During this period, Weaver, a rare creative
genius, would invoke the most startling changes the broadcast industry
had ever seen, and change broadcasting forever. It is unusual that a
man of his daring and creativity could rise to the top of a major United
States corporation. When the announcement was made, he stated to
the press: "Basic to the broadcasting business is the quality and char­
acter of its program structure- 'the play's the thing."'
Pat Weaver, ex-naval commanding officer, ex-advertising execu­
tive, ex-producer, director, writer, was a man of considerable accom­
plishment and had been advancing in the network hierarchy fer several
years. He had joined NBC in 1949 as vice president in charge of televi­
sion when CBS's much-publicized talent raid had attracted many top
stars to CBS. By its aggressive policies CBS had replaced NBC as the
leader in radio and had the major share of successful television shows
and personalities. Weaver and his associates rebuilt NBC's television
program structure and by the fall of 1950, NBC-TV was fully sponsored
from 3:00 p.m. to midnight and had begun to make money. In 1952
as vice chairman of the NBC Board of Directors he led the network in
the battle for color. His success was attested to by the FCC's reversing
its earlier ruling favorable to CBS color television.10
Weaver's leadership was so dynamic, it was bound to be controver­
sial. His method of informing and stimulating his personnel, for exam­
ple, received_ considerable publicity because of the long rambling
memos he used. One such memo on Matinee Theater is included as an
appendix to the present volume. Another memo on television drama
caused much controversy and discussion in the industry after it was
secretly acquired by Variety and published in January of 1952, though
Weaver had asked that it be kept "within the family." The memo filled
eight columns in Vanety and dominated the industry 'talk' for months.
In it Weaver urged his executives and producers to attempt something
distinct and imponant in original television drama. He stated that he
was discoursing on the dramatic form for television and its limitations.
He rambled on:
So far, no television ori ginal has been a smash, if you take the top
five or ten to be a smash. Berle works from a vaudeville house, ...
 5. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Pat Weaver 67

Godfrey works a radio show ... Philco is a legitimate house. Mont­

gomery presents a movie. And so on.
.. . I grant that we must encourage you from management ... I am
having studios designed that will make O.B. Hanson cry like a baby and
General Munson apply for transfer to Atru as a corporal [Munson was
network director of operations and Hanson was in disbursing) .
. . . the
.
stakes
•
for which we are engaged are breathtaking ... courage
... opum1sm ... 11

Throughout the memo there ran a sense of high creative purpose, of

broadcasting's manifest destiny to achieve something significant in the
field of original drama. In contrast, Variety published three weeks later
a "rebuttal" by Hubbell Robinson, Jr., program director for CBS, and
later its chairman, which ridiculed Weaver's high-sounding words and
high intent. He was very brief and very specific in listing what he
dubbed "high water marks in creative achievement in the ten past
months" on CBS. Included in the list were J Love Lucy, See It Now, Ed
Sullivan, Arthur Godfrey and CBS Television Workshop. He con­
cluded, "These are the specific thoughts I have-279 words." 12
How Variety acquired the Weaver memo was never disclosed.
Even though a busy executive, Weaver was generous in sharing his
remembrances, but he was not happy in 1959 when remembering the
purloined memo.
One of the most spectacular of Pat Weaver's programming
changes was the previously mentioned break with broadcasting's tradi­
tion of regular programming. "Regular programming built regular
viewing" was an absolute commandment of broadcasting, as inherited
from radio-it was the "holiest of holies" in the world of broad­
casting.13 Repetitious scheduling had been the standard for broad­
casting since the beginning and no one dared to think that it could be
any different. Pat Weaver said "no" to the lords of the broadcasting in­
dustry and pushed NBC into scheduling special one-shot theatrical
events. They eventually came to be known as "specials" but in 1954 they
were "spectaculars," and there were two series of them produced for
NBC by Max Liebman. These 90-minute "spectaculars" were a large
part of NBC's highly publicized "year of color."
One series was produced every fourth Sunday and the other every
fourth Saturday. Max Liebman had been hired by Pat Weaver as the
producer of Your Show of Shows, a 90-minute revue for NBC every
Saturday night in 1952-53 and 1953-54. This series had been conceived
68 Live Television

by Pat Weaver as a method of getting top stars on television. Liebman

set out his aims as producing "a full fledged musical show" every two
weeks for nine months:
Some of these were to be completely original, some would be revivals.
Some would have a book; some would be revues. All of them would be
loaded with big names and given lavish productions in television
color.14

The first of these much heralded color "spectaculars" was Satins

and Spurs, an original musical comedy by Max Liebman and Billy
Friedberg, starring Betty Hutton. The critical reaction was cold.
Perhaps they "erred by staking everything on the personaliry of one
star." Betty Hutton "just wasn't funny" and there was "too much addic­
tion to color" said the Times. 15 The Broadcasting-Telecasting reporter
described it as "a smash for Betty Hutton," but only "adequate enter­
tainment."16 John Crosby in the New York Herald Tribune did not like
any of it: "Whenever things started running down and they started run­
ning down all the time-Miss Hutton sprang up and started shaking
like a bowl of jelly .... "11
Other "spectaculars" produced in the early months of the season
were Lady in the Dark with Anne Sothern; The Follies of Susy, with
Jeanmaire; Fanfare with Jacques Tati; and Naughty Marietta with
Patrice Munsel. Critical reaction was favorable most of the time,
although it was on the whole somewhat reserved. Lady in the Dark was
the only "smash" hit. The Times described it as "real theater":
It had vitality, it had mood and it had illusion-all the way from stan
to finish. This viewer had no idea how rewarding the show was in black­
and-white, but color gave a breath-taking beauty. It was remarkable,
even to the commercials which did not intrude on the play.18

Pat Weaver not only made the decision to break into the regulari ry
of the television schedule, he also provided that these shows would have
the largest program budgets in broadcasting history to bring to the
screen the highest priced stars and the best scripts. But when at fuse
these programs did not break habitual viewing patterns and did not ob­
tain outstandingly large audiences, Variety reponed that "everyone was
having second thoughts" and "plenty of worries." 1 9 The Nielsen au­
dience rating figures did place Lady in the Dark as one of the ten pro­
grams with the most viewers in a two week period, but the producers
and sponsors of the other nine pointed out that the sponsor had paid
 5. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Pat Weaver 69

as much as five times the budgets of some of the other popular shows.20
The uade papers were filled with charges and counter-charges.21 A large
measure of the published critical comment came from Raymond Spec­
tor, advenising agency head in charge of the Hazel Bishop account,
which had financed two of the "spectaculars." It was charged that these
programs were too expensive, and that they would never build large au­
diences. 22 But NBC continued producing and in February loudly pro­
claimed that 8 of the first 11 "spectaculars" were in the Nielsen top 10.23
Nielsen's year-end figures did show that the average rating of the first
28 spectaculars was 40.0. This compares with an average of 32.2 for the
hourly dramatic series, and 34.6 for the hourly variety shows. 24
The controversy over the spectaculars threw Pat Weaver into the
spotlight. Roben Lewine, an NBC vice president at that time, com­
mented that this controversy was the beginning of Weaver's downfall,
for "big corporations do not like their executives to get too much per­
sonal publicity."2) Lewine worked for the Sarnoffs and was soft­
pedaling the issue. The situation has always been exactly the opposite
in the mass media. There is every indication that General Sarnoff had
always been a center of media attention, and he personally disliked
employees taking over the center stage.
By 195 5 Wcaver was moved off to the side as chairman of the board
at NBC and General Sarnoff's son Robert became president. In
September of 1956 Weaver resigned. The newspapers said there were
"policy differences" with the General. There were rumors of personality
clashes but Weaver said a flat "no" to all of it. Perhaps, as Weaver said
when describing the Home Show to this writer, "The most successful
shows fold when they have run their course." 26
Pat Weaver's ideas and changes have outlasted him and are still
pro ving to be some of television's most successful features. Another of
those legacies from radio that had to be overthrown was the conven­
tional sales method of single sponsors for weekly program series. To
finance his costly "spectaculars," Weaver introduced the "magazine
concept" of advertising which allowed advertisers to get on the air for
smaller sums as the show was sold to multiple sponsors on an insertion
or partic ipating basis. Weaver talked about how "I conceived these
shows and how to sell them. I sold Show ofShows in minutes, sections.
Thi s let us sell to small advertisers. Of course, NBC's business went
through the ceiling and a lot of little people became big people."27
Weaver's magazine concept allowed a network, like a magazine, to
70 live Television

control its own editorial concept and brought a broader base of adver­
tisers to television. He used this concept to finance a number of the
other great shows he created for NBC, significantly, the Today and
Tonight shows which have been smash hits for over thirty years! He also
created Matinee Theater, Home Show, and applying the same principle
to radio, Monitor. Weaver commented in 1960 that in all the conuo­
versy over his leaving NBC it was "never publicized too well that when
I was in charge there was a huge profit. Now it's different and they will
never catch CBS and ABC. They've had it. "28 He was exaggerating
when bringing up sour memories but was only a little off. NBC caught
them, but it took 25 years.
Weaver's aggressive programming might be interpreted as an at­
tempt to gain new revenues and to assume financial leadership of
broadcasting from CBS. On the other hand, NBC had always been the
leader in dramatic programming, and Weaver's "creative program­
ming" activities had been in operation a number of years. 29Jack Gould
rushed to Weaver's defense, stating he was "fighting a vety lonely bat­
tle," when the whole trend was to turn television into a "home nickelo­
deon. "3° Weaver stood by his concepts under the criticism of "low cir­
culation" and "flops":

We're standing pat. I was never more sure of anything than l am

about this, our present strategy.3 1

He acknowledged there would be misses along with hits and com­

mented about ratings:

And what is so bad about Lady in the Dark getting into 10,000,000
U.S. homes! Yet for only a small part of the cost it would have entailed
had Oldsmobile taken a full page ad in the nation's dailies for a single
insenion. Yet here for the client was taste and a sense of excitement he
had never yet experienced.3 2

Weaver was vindicated the next season when CBS followed his
lead and produced ten "90-minute spectaculars." The history of televi­
sion has been more and more "specials" ever since. By 1959 NBC would
budget $31 million for specials and CBS would claim to have 200
specials in the 1959-60 line-up, although it never quite reached tha t
figure. In a few years the major hour-long dramas from Hollywo od,
such as The Untouchables, The Fugitive, Ben Casey and Peyton Place,
would schedule "special" multiple episode stories which eventually
 5. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Pat Weaver 71

made the rounds of European and American movie houses. The show
77 Sunset Strip went beyond that and did an ambitious five-hour tale
entitled "5." Most two-part shows got high ratings, particularly on the
night the show was wrapped up. This idea of Pat Weaver's also led to
the current highly successful miniseries concept. But even in 1960 a
prominent NBC producer still felt compelled to explain "viewers don't
resent irregular programming." Sounds like an old Pat Weaver memo.
A few seasons after the original "spectaculars" the name was
changed to "special." Max Liebman, the original producer, commented
on this change and blamed this word for part of their troubles:
But it was almost inevitable the word ["spectacular"] should be taken
as a boast on our pan, the kind of boast which could scarcely be lived
down by even the best of productions. 33
The great word controversy was second only to the controversy that sur­
rounded Weaver' s resignation. Weaver had his own fascinating com­
ments:
Max didn't like the word but he didn't know what he was talking
about. Max called them Specials from the beginning. I picked the
name. The idea of the Spectacular came about for a number of reasons
but mostly the comedy shows, Colgate Comedy Hour, the Show of
Shows, All Star Revue. These shows were the basis for it.
Continuity, frequency, consistency were inviolate rules of program­
ming. I said we don't need them. Spectacular was a form of program­
ming that would preempt time so you could do whatever you wanted.
It was the year of color.
There were a number of different reasons. A number of great anists
wouldn't work in television. They needed money, publicity, a special
event. Another reason was a number of advenisers had special purposes
they wanted to achieve that regular shows couldn't. In spite of the vari­
ety, we already had a time problem. We were handcuffed by regular
programming.
As usual with an innovation, the people who don't want change,
picked the few flops and raised hell. You always have flops in show
business! (That's the way he said it, italicized, with an exclamation
point, waving his hands!] But all the advenisers renewed; all found it
was effective in selling.
Max Liebman just didn't know. He's not an ad man. They took a
visceral connotation of the word and twisted it. It's a good word in the
ad business and it sold an idea to the agencies!34
Part two of"operation spectacular" at NBC occurred the following
season, 1954-55. It was the monthly 90-minute Producer's Showcase,
72 Live Television

which specialized in straight drama on an elaborate basis. It was not as

much a focal point of fanfare and publicity as were Max Liebman's
musicals, but was a tremendous prestige presentation in the sense of
Celanese Theater. It lasted two years, and in the end its value to the
network was questioned, just as Celanese Theater had been ques­
tioned, because it failed to achieve high ratings in comparison with
high costs. Fred Coe was the producer, with Delbert Mann and Arthur
Penn continuing as his directors, and Showcase Productions, a package
producing organization of Henry and Paul Jaffe, was the producing
organization.
The origins of Showcase Productions, which in October 1955
took over production of the Alcoa-Goodyear Playhouse, was much
like that of Talent Associates. Henry and Paul Jaffe were lawyers
handling theatrical clients just as David Suskind had been. One of
their clients, Leland Hayward, had the idea of producing a monthly
90-minute show. Weaver was receptive to this idea as part of his
color programming, but Heyward became ill and Fred Coe was brought
in to replace him. The Jaffes stood by as legal watchmen over the
company they had created for Heyward, and Producer's Showcase was
born.3,
The initial presentation was Noel Coward's Tonight at 8:30 which
was described as "a personal triumph for Ginger Rogers."36 It was
followed by the Lindsay-Crouse creation of the 1940s, State of the
Union. Lindsay and Crouse themselves had "modernized" the script,
substituting Eisenhower for Truman and freshening it with recent
political quips.'7
And so it went until the climax in March 1954 of what was prob­
ably the most successful single show in the history of television. About
65 million viewers saw Mary Martin in a two-hour Broadway musical
comedy version of Sir James M. Barrie's Peter Pan.YJ After closing, the
Broadway production was moved almost intact to television with Fred
Coe taking over the production reins. More than anything else the show
was a great personal triumph for the celebrated actress, Mary Manin.
The reviewers outdid themselves with praise. A clipping folder in the
NBC files contained 23 separate columns which appeared in news­
papers and magazines across the country. Jack Gould said: "Surely
there must be a trace of fairy dust from coast to coast this morning,"39
and George Rosen headlined it, "A Major Television Triumph. "4o The
show was repeated the next season, and it won the Emmy award as
 5. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Pat Weaver 73

the best single program and the Sylvania award as the television show
of the year.
Cenainly, this was just another of the many vindications of Pat
Weaver. What did he think were his failures when reflecting a few years
later:
The information programs. When I left we hadn't won the battle to
get these on the air. Long power struggles are necessary to pre-empt the
time and we needed a balance between public affairs and emenain­
mem. They are doing a good job now.41

Pat Weaver was relaxed and amused as he made his epitaph for NBC:
I ran NBC for 8 years. I used monopoly tactics. I never made any
bones about it. I was making a huge profit for NBC so anything came
along that looked good I grabbed it. They should never have let ABC
get Disney. Or a Miner, a Goldberg. I hired Worthington Miner and
never used him. I would never have let ABC succeed. The General is
nuts-he's publicity mad. Bobby (Sarnoff.Jr.) is a fool. He fired a man
when I was away who had 32 years-and never gave him a pension. He
should run a delicatessen and not a good one.42

Robert Sarnoff, Jr.'s office pointed out three times that he was too
busy to be interviewed. The man Bobby fired, however, was identified
by Alben McCleery as an "old henchman to Pat" and an honored name
in television history: "He was fired to antagonize Weaver."
Pat Weaver could only have happened to television in the begin­
ning, when it was new-although it resisted him, opposed his changes
and eventually rejected him. In the end, people make the difference,
not better technology, better facilities, better budgets. And he repre­
sented the people television needed.
 6
1953-54 and 1954-55:
Fred Coe

Phtlco-Goodyear, the Sixth and Seventh Seasons

The Philco-Goodyear Playhouse moved into a magnificent sixth
and seventh season. Only the Kraft Theater would exceed them. The
1953-54 season was the last in which Fred Coe's full attention was
devoted to Philco Playhouse. In the fall of 1954, he was assigned to Pro­
ducer's Showcase and his status with Philco Playhouse became that of
executive producer with several producers working under him.
That season the George Foster Peabody Award recognized the
Philco Playhouse for "outstanding entertainment," and cited Fred Coe
as "the most consistent producer of fine television drama." It especiaJiy
commended him "for his firm emphasis on good writing." 1 Fred Coe
had received a number of other awards. Among these was the annual
Look Magazine award as "the individual who organized and most
creatively presented a television series," which he received for two years;
the Variety Showmanship award; the Sylvania award for Marty; and
several Emmys.2
In Fred Coe's writing group that season Tad Mosel had his most
successful year. Although the production of his Other People's Houses
on August 30, 1953, was at the tail-end of the 1952-53 season, it seems
more appropriate to view it as the beginning of the next season. This
was the second of Mosel's plays produced by David Suskind, and it is
one of Mosel's better known works. The Variety review stated that
Eileen Heckart played the pan oflnez as if it had been written for her.3

75
76 Live Television

Mosel said he cherishes this review "because it indicates that an actress,

a director, and a writer worked so closely together and so much to the
same purpose that the end result appeared to be a single creative
effort." Actually, he stated, the play was written for the "exact op­
posite" of the tall, angular actress: "I had pictured Inez as motherly,
round, soft-voiced, and about fifty years of age." The producer,
Suskind, suggested Heckart, and although it had seemed "farfetched"
to Mosel at the time, he felt she "gave one of the most rewarding perfor­
mances I have ever seen in one of my plays."4
It was also the beginning of a "rewarding" relationship; Mosel
worked with Heckart a number of times, notably in The Haven, which
he wrote for her. This fuse play with Heckart, Other People's Houses,
was a drama concerning old age-as the title so dramatically indicates.
The central character, played by Heckart, is "a woman who has been
kind all her life and who is suddenly forced by circumstances to do an
extremely unkind deed." She is a spinster housekeeper who must put
her trusting father into an old man's home because he is childish and
irascible and refuses to adjust to living with his son-in-law. 5
In discussing The Haven, which was produced on November 1,
1953, Mosel told "how eventually the play came into the hands of pro­
ducer Fred Coe, ... and there began the most important relationship
in my life as a writer." Mosel describes this play as "the most popular
unproduced play in television history." It was the fuse play to excite in­
terest in Mosel's work as it passed around from producer to producer,
but because of its subject, marital infidelity, and a suicide that occurs
before the play opens, he had some difficulty selling it until Fred Coe
agreed to produce it.6 Although marital infidelity and suicide sound
like mild stuff today, Mosel related an anecdote that shows some of the
ridiculousness of television's early self-imposed censorship. The pro­
ducing unit had waited many days to hear from NBC's Continuity
Department to see if the play would be approved. With the fuse rehear­
sal imminent, Delbert Mann, the director, had called the Continuity
Department head:

There was a long silence at his [Mann's] end of the telephone. I had
visions of my "immoral" play's being rejected yet again, and this time
irrevocably. He finally hung up and admitted that we did have a prob­
lem. In the first act there was a reference to an "old Chevy," and since
this constituted a rather gratuitous plug for Chevrolet, would we mind
changing it to "old crate"? 7
 6. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Fred Coe 77

Rod Serling wrote of a similar experience on a program called Ap­

pointment with Adventure when he was asked not to use the words
"American" or "lucky," because they connotated a rival brand of
cigarettes to the sponsor of the program. The words were to be changed
to "U.S." and "fortunate." At first Serling was not sure, but after
establishing that his "leg wasn't being pulled," he had his name
withheld from the script as a protest.8
Two of Paddy Chayefsky's scripts that were produced by Philco
that season were The Bachelor Party and The Mother. In the first,
Charlie, a $75-a-week accountant has just been told by his wife she is
pregnant. He is depressed because of money problems and a job that
holds no real future for him. To cheer him, his wife encourages him
to attend a bachelor pany. His depression mounts throughout the
party, but in the end he discovers that his life has meaning through his
marriage and that marriage is far more than a habit formed by coex­
istence. Variety described it as "a mature script" and a "resounding
hie," and gave the credit to Chayefsky.9 Chayefsky, on the other hand,
felt the credit belonged to Delbert Mann, the director. In giving Mann
credit, Chayefsky first went into a lengthy description of the "complex
and frightening job" of the television director. Then he explained:

I am not sure to this day where the basic approach was wrong; but
obviously the line of the story is six inches off from beginning to end,
and the third ace resolution is hardly an inevitable outgrowth of the
preceding two aces ... I wanted to show the emptiness of an evening
about town, and emptiness is one of the most difficult of all qualities
to dramatize. What Delben Mann, the director, did was to balance each
scene deliberately so that the emptiness became heavier and heavier.
The [last] act still required some line relating to the other two aces, and
we decided the line that the first act indicated was the leading
character's desire to go to bed with a woman other than his wife. It is
impossible to write such blatant adultery in a television script .... It was
up to the director and the actor to convey this basic thought to the au­
dience. It was done with simple stage business and by a quality in the
acting. 10

Chayefsky's second script, The Mother, caused this question to be

asked by Patricia O'Connor in a textbook type of analysis of selected
television dramas:

There is a wide, and some say unbreachable, gulf between a king of

Greece and a Bronx seamstress [the mother]. The seamstress, they
78 Live Television

would say, is about the most uneventful figu re in existence, so why or

how write drama about an uneventful woman? 11

A Chayefsky answer to this question might be selected from his discus­

sion of Marty:

There is far more exciting drama in the reasons why a man gets mar­
ried than in why he murders someone. The man who is unhappy in his
job, the wife who thinks of a lover, the girl who wants to get into televi­
sion, your father, mother, sister, brothers, cousins, friends-all these
are better subjects for drama than Iago.... These are the substances of
good television drama; and the deeper you probe into and examine the
twisted semiformed complexes of emotional entanglements, the more
exciting your writing becomes. 12

The Mother reveals such probings into the emotional problem of an old
woman whose husband has just died. She craves her independence and
work will give her this, plus the salvation of her integrity as a person.
Her younger daughter has a driving compulsion to win her mother's
love and keep her dependent at home, but the old woman manages to
get a job as a seamstress. She makes a silly error on her first day,
however, and is fired. She resigns herself to living with her daughter,
but after sitting up all night in the strange apartment, it is beautiful
and very moving that she goes out again to try and find a job. 13

Fred Coe

In the seventh season, 1954-55, the Philco Playhouse returned

with Gordon Duff as the producer and Fred Coe as the executive pro­
ducer, and the Goodyear Tire Company as the alternate week sponsor.
Several new writers were featured on the Playhouse that season and the
old series was as successful as ever. One such writer wasJ.P. Miller, who
came to attention with The Rabbit Trap, after which he immediately
left for Hollywood to do a screenplay of the show for Hecht-Lancaster
Productions, as Hollywood increasingly began to lure away television's
writers. 14
Miller was characteristic of the Playhouse writers. Criticized at that
time for being too preoccupied with depressing "slices of Life," The
Rabbit Trap was certainly that rype of play. n It is the story of a drafts­
man, a sad little man, and his effort to fight his way out of a
 6. 19.53-.54 and 19.54-.5.5: Fred Coe 79

personal psychological snare. After being at the beck and call of his
employer for years, he finally finds the strength to quit and "call his soul
his own." The incident that precipitates the crisis occurs on a vacation
in which the draftsman and his son set a trap to catch a rabbit. When
the father's vacation is interrupted by the employer, the family hur­
riedly leaves, forgetting the trap.His son is apprehensive that the rabbit
might starve in the trap and this poses a personal challenge to the father
when his employer refuses to let him go back and check the trap. The
symbolism seems contrived in a summary but the play worked. 16
Robert Alan Aurthur and Gore Vidal were two other Philco
playwrights who received recognition that season. Robert Alan Aurthur's
Man on a Mountain Top won the Sylvania award as the "finest original
celeplay of the year." 17 It was set in a Greenwich Village coldwater flat
and told of a child prodigy, now an adult genius, who had retreated
from life because of lack of love. He feels he is a machine and his
psychiatrist father has "left out love " when creating him. In the conclu­
sion it is indicated he will make an attempt to adjust through the in­
fluence of a woman.18
Gore Vidal was unusual in that he came to television as a successful
novelist. The adaptation of his television play, Visit to a Small Planet,
had a long, successful run on Broadway. Cyril Ritchard starred in both
productions. Keeton, a gentleman from another dimension, lands his
flying saucer in the backyard of a news commentator. He is fascinated
by the helpless earth people and has the power to know what they are
thinking. He explains that they will not be civilized for another thou­
sand years and will thrive on violence and savagery. But he is delighted
with them and toys with the idea of restaging the Civil War so that this
cime the South wins.He decides to start a new war to keep Earth people
happy, but another saucer arrives in time and he is carted off.1 9 Again
and again television is too timid. The producers of three series were un­
willing to do this show but because of the broad social commentary
outline d above, only the Philco Playhouse could get its sponsor to agree
to the production, even though it was a very light comedy. Vidal,
himself, seemed delighted that sponsors took his play too seriously:
"The dramatic art is particularly satisfying for any writer with a
pclemical bent and I am at heart a propagandist ... complacently
positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if
people would simply do as I advise." 20
Tad Mosel and Paddy Chayefsky continued to write for Philco.
80 live Television

Mosel did another play especially for Eileen Heckart, My Lost Saints,
and by this time Chayefsky had done 12 scripts for Philco. Two of his
plays that amacted attention that year were Catch My Boys on Sunday
and The Catered Affair. These writers had begun to expand their ac­
tivities into motion pictures and the legitimate theater, as well as into
ocher series; Mosel, for example, wrote plays for nearly all the dramatic
programs on television.
All of these early 1950s seasons demonstrate Fred Coe's great con­
tribution to the television medium in the areas of writing and direction.
The artists that he uncovered and nurtured were among television's
most talented and productive, and continued so in the film and
theater. All of the live dramatic series had provided tremendous oppor­
tunities for young writers and perhaps never before or never again will
the writer be in such demand. But it was Coe who was credited with
almost single-handedly giving these writers a solid artistic status in the
television industry. When asked how this came about, he explained
that he had established what was virtually "a writing stable" by trying
to keep a group of about ten writers busy turning out adaptations. 21 His
more specific contributions are harder to describe. The producer hires
and buys; he creates a series in the sense that others specifically create
an individual drama. But he also is an individual creator and con­
tributes specifically in story conferences with the writers and by attend­
ing rehearsals and production conferences with the writers and by at­
tending rehearsals and production conferences with the directors.
About this key role of the producer, Chayefsky had this to say:
It is imponant to the writer to find a producer with talent and
authority. You can write the finest literature in the world, but there has
to be someone who will buy it from you and who will fight the vast
negative elements in television to see that your show gets on. A good
producer hires gifted directors, and a good director is as necessary to a
successful television drama as is the basic script. 22
In his book Chayefsky makes the same complaints that Serling does in
his book, Patterns, about censorship and the treatment accorded the
writer in television. But he has this to say about Philco: "I enjoy writing
television a good deal for personal reasons and because the Philco­
Goodyear Playhouse allows me to write as well as I care to. "23 About
Coe he is more specific:
When the script is finished, the writer brings it in to the director and
the producer. Again script conferences are called, revisions suggested.
 6. 1953-54 and 1954-55: Fred Coe 81

The mood of these conferences varies with the personalities involved.

In my case, I have been almost childishly dependent upon the reactions
of Fred Coe, the producer (at this writing) of the Playhouse, Gordon
Duff and Bill Nichols, his associates, and Delbert Mann, who usually
directs my shows. By the time I have finished my first draft, I have long
since lost my perspective and will accept just about any suggestion they
make. It must be made clear that these four men are inordinately
talented at their jobs. I don't believe there is a better story mind in the
business than Fred Coe's.24

Since most of Coe's writers and directors were as unabashed in their

praise of him as Chayefsky is, it is perhaps through their comments
that Coe's significance may be further assessed. Horton Foote had this
to say:

I have never had more dignity of treatment as a writer by producers,

direcrors, and acrors than during the production of these plays [on
Philco Playhouse].
I think a great deal of the credit for this goes to the producer, Fred
Coe. Coe believes deeply in writers and his belief, in turn, gives the
writer a feeling of confidence in himself, his talent, and his craft. The
staff around Coe-Delbert Mann, Vincent Donahue, Arthur Penn,
Gordon Duff, and Bill Nichols-all reflected and supported this
belief.2)

And Vincent Donahue said:

Despite his enormous knowledge of television and his constantly
corning forward to us with good solutions, he has never become the all­
seeing or all-knowing arbiter.26

And Delbert Mann wrote sentimental reminiscences about his work

with Coe:
The wonderful, frantic, frustrating, exciting Philco days ... the time
you threw the sound man out of the studio ... The Last Tycoon ...
Van Gogh ... Othello ... Ah want it quiet in this studio and ah mean
quiet ... High Tor ... and what was it called-A Matter of Life and
Death(!!!) ... memories that bless and burn, as they say ... some
burn more than others ... the raft and the problems with Search­
Ah'm payin' all this money for this thing and ah want to see how it
works. Ah want to see the water ...
Paddy and Many and Bachelor Party and The Mother ... We're over
the hump now ... wonderful and agonizing memories, funny and sad.
It 's strange how the rough ones fade in time and the good ones
remain ...21
82 Live Television

And finally Tad Mosel wrote:

Fred Coe was the fuse man co raise the writer co a position of impor­
tance in television, and co a writer he is a combined father, friend,
buffer, psychiatrist, and newspaper critic. 28
When asked about these comments Coe replied: "A composite of that
guy would look pretty funny, wouldn't he?" Cenainly the picture of
Coe is an overwhelming one. Coe surrounded himself with and com­
manded the loyalty of a group of talented writers and directors who
created a style of drama that was neither theater nor movies but
definitely was television.

- z
Top: As early as 1947 the Theatre Guild and the American National Theatre
and Academy lent respectability to television's attempts to do live series
dramas. Here Helen Hayes (second from right) and others are pictured in a 1947
Guild producrion of Dinner at Eight. Bottom: Another Theatre Guild produc­
tion in 1947 was The Traitor with Tyrone Power (center) and Homer W. Fickett
(right\ shown here in a script conference). (Photos courtesy of The National
Broadcasting Company, Inc.)
Above: Television's first smash hit was Worthington Miner's modern dtess ver­
sion of Julius Caesar in Studio One's first season on CBS, 1948-49. Here in the
murder scene with the conspirators, clockwise from lower left, Brutus (Robert
Keith), Cassius Uohn O'Shaughnessy), Decius Uoseph Silver), Casca (Vaughan
Taylor) and Metellus (Emmett Rogers). Julius Caesar, center, was played by
William Post, Jr. (Photo courtesy of The National Broadcasting Company,
Inc.)

Opposite: On May 7, 1947, Double Door opened the lengthy run of Kraft
Television Theater on NBC. Tis historically important first production was
h

housed in a tiny studio on a side corridor in NBC and broadcast to an audience

of less than 40,000. The play had had an extensive run on Broadway in 1933
but the television critics were unhappy with the Kraft version. It was generally
agreed, however, that the show was carefully and smoothly produced and Kraft
was pleased. The pleasure for Kraft and the eventually huge national au­
diences, lasted 11½ years. (Photo courtesy of CBS, Inc.)
Top: Studio One began its nine-year career on CBS in November, 1948, with The
Storm. Margaret Sullivan and John Forsythe starred. Bottom: The highlight of
Studio One's second season on CBS was Battleship Bismarck, starring Charlton
Heston (seated left) and Paul Lukas (standing). It was one of the first successful
efforts at spectacular physical production. (Photos courtesy of CBS, Inc.)
The Search by David Shaw was a realistic documentary about U.S. Navy air-sea
rescue. This picture gives some indication of the care and hard work that went
inco the preparation of a Playhouse original. Bill Shellberger is in the raft; Pro­
ducer Fre d Coe (glasses), director Delbert Mann and Cmdr. Neal, a naval expert,
are shown checking the raft device for simulating water action. Coe tried unsuc­
cessfully in 1951 to get the rights to Kon Tiki for the NBC Philco-Goodyear
Playhouse. He then tried Eddie Rickenbacher's Seven Came Through and finally
curoed to David Shaw to research and write this original drama. The final pro­
duction USed 35 brief film clips. (Photo courtesy of the National Broadcas ting
Company, Inc.)
Hallmark Hall of Fame began as a live half-hour series on NBC in 1951 and
Hallmark is still sponsoring Hall of Fame specials in 1990. The show grew to an
hour series in 1952 and in 1953 producer Alben McCleery flew to Kansas City
and persuaded Hall to sponsor parr of a two-hour version of Hamlet with Mauri ce
Evans. The nature of the two-hour format, the tremendous expense and the
prestige of the star performer, commanded public and professional interest. It
was an outstanding success and Maurice Evans followed with Richard II in
January 1954 and costarred with Judith Anderson in November, 1954, in
Macbeth (shown here). They are shown in an NBC publiciry photo. (Photo
counesy of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc.)
In 1952 the Philco-Goodyear Playhouse produced Holiday Song by Paddy
Chayefsky. He was the first playwright to achieve fam e through the television
mediu m and is most known for his television original Marty, which won the
Aca demy Award as a movie. David Optasha (left), Herben Berghoff and Joseph
Bulloff starred in Holiday Song, the story of a gentle middle-aged cantor who
becomes disillusioned over the mise.ry in the world, especially the anti-semitism,
and eventually regains his faith through an incident on a subway. (Photo counesy
of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc.)
Tad Mosel, one of Fred Coe's "stable" of writers, became enchanted with Eileen
Heclchan after her performance in his Other People's Houses. She is shown here
in The Haven on NBC's Philco-Goodyear Playhouse. Mosel wrote the play for
her in 1953 and it was rejected by a number of producers because of its subjeas.
marital in.fideliry and a suicide that occurs before the play opens, until it finall"
came into the hands of Coe. (Photo courtesy of the National Broadcasting Com·­
pany, Inc.)
Top: Playwright Reginald Rose burst onto the CBS Studio One scene in the
1953- 54 season with Thunder on Sycamore Street starring Kenneth Utt (dark
suit) and Nell O'Day (at door). (Photo courtesy of CBS, Inc.) Bottom: ln 1954
Kraft Television Theater's presentation of Rod Serling's Patterns won
unanimous praise from the critics and was one of the few live television dramas
to be rep e ated several months later. Ed Begley (left), Everett Sloan and Richard
Kiley (standing) starred in this story of a big business power struggle. (Photo
courte sy of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc.)
Above: The 1954-5 5 season on the CBS Studio One was called the Reginald
Rose season. It opened with his 12 Angry Men, a jury room drama that was
highly successful as a motion picture, featuring Edward Arnold {standing, left),
Franch ot Tone, Walt er Abel {bow tie), John Beal {hand to chin), Paul Cum­
mings {standing, right). {Photo courtesy of CBS, Inc.)
Opposite: In a bid for "name" writers and top original scripts NBC began con­
tracting well known authors in the early fifties. Robert Sherwood was hired to
write a series of original plays for television. He had only a modicum of success
and NBC did not renew his contract. Sherwood died shortly afterwards. He is
shown on th e right in rehearsal for the 1954 Diary featuring John Cassavettes
{center). The play was featured on the long-running series Robert Montgomery
Presents. {Photo counesy of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc.)
Above: Be tty Furness was hostess of Studio One for many years and is shown
here with Westinghouse flash bulbs. She was known throughout the country
for her punch line, "You can be sure, if it's Westinghouse." (Photo courtesy
of CBS, Inc.)
Opposite: Playhouse 90 was produced on CBS by Martin Manulis and then Fred
Coe. It wa s an expensive show featuring celebrity stars, quality productions and
high ra cings. Here Jackie Gleason (right) and director Paul Nickell are examin­
ing a set model for The Show Off. (Photo courtesy of CBS, Inc.)
Perhaps the most successful single dramatic show in the history of television oc­
curred in 1955 on NBC's Producer's Showcase. The two-hour version of Peter
Pan featured Mary Martin (laughing at left), with Cyril Ritchard as Captain
Hook (right). It received tremendous critical and public acclaim and was
repeated live the following year and again i.n the summer of 1989 &om a video
tape copy. (Photo courtesy of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc.)
Playhouse 90 on CBS is one of the most remembered of television's live dramas
because it survived so long in a live and taped version, well into broadcasting's
film era. It was the creation of Hubbell Robinson, Jr., and its second produc­
tion, Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight, won five of the major Emmy
Awards, the first Peabody Award for television scripting and the Sylvania
Award as the best play of the year. It was also a highly successful motion pic­
rure. This popular photograph shows Keenan (left) and Ed Wynn the only time
they appeared together in a drama. Jack Palance is between them as the
heavyweight. (Photo courtesy of CBS, Inc.)
 ,\IM't.c. ....... � ... .--
Ktaft lftt'Yt�Oll n.c..._..... �- -•'-eatll°
of 10 ,e{al,..-i pc<,Pk cwwo •c.,iel.

Television's first 10-Y-ear-old!

Now in iu 11th year. Kr.th Th<a1er mdust1·v than anv �ca:t in 11$ br,;con l\rah Tcle\·MOO 'l'hatrr pradacta;an..
h>. bo,n on 1cl,<ision longt,r lhan any ..re &e:-lccttrd. ca,t. d,� •ad odw-r
-.,,., ,.bolJ,

..�...�......__,...,_
Td'-..,biOJ).s fu,t JO-,c:u-old "u
other tho•. produ,.-.d b, I..D.it and
W 6nt-f <.Vromtto,1 ne1,v,k ��
I, hll.> p,od•.,J"""' 1haa 520 hwr• the J W.licr Thomp,<>n C""'J>N>'
the 6� \\ttkl" rfr.,ma Jto11i to go on
IMg dramo..s. a «>kir ,d,aiuk. U ,oa -ouWtih110diec.- ..., �
La..c ,ur tt gained • btggc.1· aud.. h h.. prescntc:d ,ti<h ,.".dcl1 ><· rn Htudl •ub tta• J \\alt�, Thoap+011
c11tC rhan an� >"•r in 1b bisto�· and loo• lcd,tcd 1dn-1�..on m.&ttcq»tta u C�• oS« ftOfUl � - 0,- .-nlr.

---
now •• seen bv about 20 rsull100 ..4 X1gltt To R�" '4Pancht'>. ... t2Ql..n-,f!�""�"'"y 17"-'
people• -.,,A • � Pto{il, m C<JU,,v... It <an male J. \\'ALnll l)tO\IPl>O' co,tP,'\
L;n,t year ii produced mc,r,r l,il • ot" ..1.-r Q\<might. ;a• 11 chd 1hlS �,ow1:..a..a..��--­
l.M� ......................... )CU.-.
.J,o-. ,-.old mure smpo. ro the film -.ar -.,lh ·Th, Su.p' Idol "

This advertisement was run in 1957 and features the large blocked "K" and the
accompanying toy-sized cameraman, the famous trademark ofKraft Television
Theater on NBC. It was introduced by producer Stanley Quinn with Double
Door, the first show of the 11 'h year run of television's longest live series. Krafc
Television Theater was a pleasant Wednesday night habit for television viewers
and was consistently in the top ten of audience surveys. Produced entirely by
the). Walter Thompson Company, it was a remarkable feat for an advenising
agency and, as the advertisement indicates, was seen by about 20 million peo­
ple a week in 1957. (Photo courtesy ofJWT Archives, Manuscript Dept., Duke
University Library.)
 7
1953-54 and 1954-55:
Kraft, Hallmark
and U.S. Steel

The Kraft Television Theater,

Seventh and Eighth Seasons
Under the sterling leadership of the J. Walter Thompson com­
pany the great Kraft Foods Company opened a second Kraft Television
Theater on ABC in the fall of 195 3. This was a major departure in pro­
gramming economics and format. After six years of success with the
NBC Kraft Television Theater, the Kraft Company had redoubled its
effons. Variety estimated they would spend $6 million a year for the
two shows. 1 Edmund Rice explained what happened:

Kraft Theater was extremely successful for the Kraft Company. The
products were selling. The ratings were up. There were several strong
indications. A cheese product, Deluxe Slices, had been returned in
stores with customers complaining it wasn't sliced. We showed how the
slices could be peeled off and they never had any more trouble. Televi­
sion is good for food advertising. They credited television with doing
the job for them. But there wasn't enough time on one show for all of
their products. The different products in Kraft were fighting over the
time allotted, so it was decided to put another show on the air. The first
thing we suggested was a different type of show. The sponsor wanted
the same kind of thing. They said it was hitting the right kind of au­
dience.2

83
84 Live Television

The two plays a week, 52 weeks a year, made for a tremendous job
of casting and producing by the]. Walter Thompson Agency. Rice, for
example, at various times edited plays for both of these shows plus the
Lux Video Theater. 3 The Kraft Company, however, ended this unique
operation in January of the following 1954-55 season. This was not the
end of the series, for another sponsor, Pond's Incorporated, picked up
the costs, and it became Pond's Television Theater, which continued
producing plays through the following summer.4 According to Rice the
reason for the change lay mostly in the small size of the ABC network,
which meant "It was not doing well in the ratings." 5
The original Kraft Television Theater on NBC had a relatively
unhappy season in 1953-54. Its two biggest years were still ahead - the
1954-55 and 1955-56 seasons. Two serious blunders in the 1953-54
season were its seventh anniversary production, Alice in Wonderland,
and a one-hour version of Romeo andJuliet. The critics were infuriated
with the Alice in Wonderland production. Jack Gould stated the
"treasured story" was "not merely adapted" but "shockingly dese­
crated." Its whole spirit, he said, "was violated and largely changed into
a coarse, wisecracking charade." Gould complained further that "in an
incredible lapse of judgment" Alice was accompanied to Wonderland
by Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd. "Their often
earthy gags and vaudeville quips" were "both outrageous and offen­
sive. " 6
On the following Sunday Gould continued to rail at the program:
"Rarely in this reviewer's experience has there been such articulate
resentment on the part of so many viewers over the treatment of one
program [ there were many letters to the newspaper]. What made the
shock greater was that it came from such an utterly unexpected source.
Kraft's standards have always been the best. " 7 This writer agrees that
he has a strong remembrance of pain when recalling this strange
production.
The Romeo and Juliet production starred 16-year-old Susan
Strasberg, the daughter oflee Strasberg, the noted director. She played
Juliet, a role written for a 14-year-old girl. The NBC press depanmenc
made much of Strasberg's youth, but Van'ety said "she lacked the
maturity to get the full meaning of the part across." Shakespeare had
been doing quite well on television but this production "missed the
boat in almost every department," chiefly in "the 60-minute digest
limit," which was "a tough hurdle." 8
 7. The 1953-54 and 1954-55 Seasons 85

In 1954-55 Kraft Television Theater came back after the humiliat­

ing criticism of its anniversary production the year before, and in that
season of"spectacular" adaptations produced the season's most exciting
original play. The television industry got very excited about Kraft's
presentation of Rod Serling's Patterns; it won virtually unanimous
praise from critics and public, and it was one of the few live television
dramas to be repeated intact a month later.9 It won the Emmy award
as the best original teleplay and the Sylvania award as the best dramatic
show.10
Rod Serling gave Fielder Cook's production the credit, citing the
Time magazine review that stated it was a soundly built play that had
had the most uniquely consistent acting and production ever accorded
a television play. Serling said:
Fielder Cook's direction was creatively and artistically a total triumph;
the acting ... was almost unbelievably excellent.
The success of Patterns was uniquely due to a kind of team effon ...
A totally new conception of the ending came from the editor, Anhur
Singer, and it proved to be perhaps one of the most successful and
lauded moments of the play. Most television productions are col­
laborative, but Patterns evolved, I think, a little more collaboratively
than most. 11
Setling describes it as "a story of power" that he presented "in terms of
big business because there is an innate kind of romance in the big, the
blustering, and the successful." It deals with three men: The head of
a firm, named Ramsey, who is fanatically dedicated to the growth and
expansion of his company; his chief vice president, an older man who
is dedicated to the business but whose perspective is influenced by
human values; and an ambitious yet sensitive young executive who is
brought into the company to supplant the older vice president. Ramsey
sets out to force the vice president to resign, and the young executive
goes along with his brutal methods until the older man is pushed too
far and drops dead at a conference. In the climactic scene the young
man confronts Ramsey, but Ramsey challenges him to stay and help
make the business grow. The young man does not play the martyr and
quit, but stays to take the dead man's place. 12 Most of the reviewers
compared it with the highly publicized movie Executive Suite, that was
playing at that time.
Gould found it "one of those inspired moments that make theater
the wonder that it is," and stated:
 86 Live Television

By comparison, Executive Suite might be Babes in Toy/and without

a score. For sheer power of narrative forcefulness of characterizacioa.
and brilliant climax, Mr. Serling's work is a creative uiumph that can
stand on its own. 13
Time said "the play had areas that made Executive Suite look like Little
Women, "14 and Chandler in Vanety described Executive Suite as "a
pale cliche next to Patterns. "n John Crosby in the New York Herald
Tribune stated "it was one of those rare, almost unique combinations
of fine writing, excellent acting. and workmanlike job of directing and
production. " 16
Several other Kraft originals were interesting and were among the
many television originals being published that season. A Seacoast in
Bohemia by Ben Radin, which was first presented by Kraft in 195 3, was
repeated in a new performance, 17 and with FJisha and the Long Knives
by Dale Wasserman and Jack Balch, was published as one of the "Top
Tdevision Shows of the Air."18 Perhaps more interesting because it was
the exception rather than the rule, was the Eugene O'Neill kick the J.
Walter Thompson Agency went on in February and March of that
season. It started with a revival of EmperorJones in February that was
greatly criticized. 19 Ponds Theater, the J. Walter Thompson show
which had been the Kraft Television Theater on ABC, followed up in
March with a highly praised version of Anna Chnstie, and a ]. Walter
Thompson film series, Star Tonight, presented an O'Neill one-act,
Ile. 20
The J. Walter Thompson Agency had received considerable
criticism the previous season for its Alice in Wonderland debacle. This
year Van·ety, in its Show Management Awards, pointed to "the agency's
courage, independence, and responsibility to the public in its choice of
dramatic material." Variety could never be accused of high culture
elitism but they sounded a little like it as they listed The Emperor
Jones, Anna Chnstie and Patterns. 21 The facts remain. The ]. Walter
Thompson Agency was remarkable and unique in an industry highly
criticized for its ethical and cultural standards.
In addition to this heavy dramatic fare, Kraft maintained its
modest entertainment-first posture week in and week out. Wednesday
night was Kraft night on the tube in homes and apartments around the
nation. Most of us would not have missed it for the world. The]. Walter
Thompson Agency did a rare piece of business indeed.
 7. The 19.53-.54 and 19.54-.5.5 Seasons 87

"All Hat/, " Hallmark and Albert McCleery

No live half-hour dramatic series had yet emerged as a "big-time"
dramatic show comparable in prestige and audience acceptance with
such hour shows as Studio One and Philco. Lux Video Theater and the
Hallmark Hall ofFame were the two biggest contenders in prime time
up to the 1953-54 season. Variety commented that both in ratings and
from a qualitative standpoint, Lux had fallen "far shon of the goal." 22
Hallmark had had a big success with the Maurice Evans' Hamlet special,
but it too was receiving little attention. As a result Albert McCleery and
Sarah Churchill had little trouble in talking Hall of the Hallmark Com­
pany into expanding into an hourly format. The]. Walter Thompson
Agency had less success with Lever Brothers. In 1953-54 the sponsors
moved Lux Video to a new producing unit on the West Coast, and it
became the first dramatic show to emanate from CBS Television City.
It was still a half-hour series but the sponsors produced several full hour
dramas, 23 and by 1954-5 5 it went on a regular hourly basis with adapta­
tions of old movies.24
But it was Hallmark that got the attention. It first opened in 1953
as a full blown, one hour dramatic series with Alben McCleery the
producer-director. Eventually George Schaefer would be thought of as
the preeminent producer-director of Hallmark. By 1964 he would have
produced or directed 49 out of the 60 presentations of the distinguished
Hallmark extravaganzas. This was the last show to run live dramas and
from 1953 into the 60s it aired quarterly shows such as the brilliant ex­
hibition of the Off Broadway musical, The Fantasticks, memorable
m oments in television theater history such as Little Moon ofAlban with
Julie Harris; Alfred Drake and Celeste Holme in The Yeoman of the
Guar d; A Doll's House starring Julie Harris; Kiss Me Kate with the
dream cast of Alfred Drake, Patricia Morrison, and Julie Wilson;
William Warfield in The Green Pastures, and Victoria Regina and
Pygmalion also with Julie Harris. 2s
These Hallmark shows were expensive packages with high priced
talent and first-class production. It all started when McCleery made it
the first NBC hour-long live drama series to originate on the West
Coast . When interviewed poolside at the Beverly Hilton about the
move to Hollywood, McCleery indicated he did not feel the move West
was a factor in the eventual deterioration of prime time television: "Ab­
solutely not! Didn't you know I was a leader in that movement?" He
88 Live Television

explained chat NBC had opened two new studios in Hollywood, and
they could not get anyone to go out there and use them because the
first director co go out, William Corrigan, "came back and complained
so much." So Hall of Fame went "on a temporary basis for six weeks
and stayed for two years!" McCleery told why he liked the West Coast:
I was very enthusiastic about working out West. We had facilities,
space to move around in, young, enthusiastic crews. (The old ones were
working in movies. Here in New York they're in their fifties-we've
killed off more of chose guys with the pace and tensions of television.)
We weren't a slave to the transponation companies as in New York.
Also the props, scenery and costumes are better. The costumes on the
West coast are the most beautiful in the world. Every costume in New
York is old and shabby. You actually get something chat Minnie Mad­
dern Fiske wore and has been patched a hundred times since. The props
are exquisite out there; we have no prop houses in New York to compare
with chem; and they can give you almost everything-the original. You
ask for a Napoleonic carriage and you get the carriage Napoleon rode
in-in top shape.26
Hall of Fame hardly ever held to the announced purpose of pre­
senting "real stories of great individuals." The most imponant devia­
tion was a second two-hour Shakespearean production. The play was
RichardII, for which McCleery returned to New York and worked again
with Maurice Evans. This performance received mixed reviews and was
not as spectacular a success as the Hamlet of the season before, though
it was far more spectacular in production values. Hallmark Cards
financed the whole $175,000 in production and time coses. There was
"a mammoth studio" replete with 40-foot castle walls, "immense in­
teriors of Westminster Hall," massive baroque designs, and wide, open
exterior secs. Instead of creating a sense of spectacle and scope, some
reviews felt the scenery "confused" and "cluttered" the scene and "the
fakery was distraccing."27 Alben McCleery, however, was pleased with
their technical accomplishments and had many humorous insights on
the production:

That year we had all the money we wanted. We built forry foot castle
walls and filled the studio with groups of black and white horses-they
are very sociable and talk to each ocher, so we had trouble when we put
chem on opposite sides of the studio. George Schaefer and I directe d
it together. They[?) bent over backwards hoping we would fight, but
we cooperated. Schaefer is an extraordinary, Christian, talented guy. He
is a superb craftsman-close to genius.
 7. The 1953-54 and 1954-55 Seasons 89

I wanted to do it as an elaborate cameo but Maurice Evans insisted

on his great palace walls. Some of the critics didn't like the set and
shooting through the flame. So what, Maurice Evans takes direction
beautifully-an artist who absorbs an idea and is so sensitive to direc­
tion. They laughed at me having to "direct" Maurice Evans but he was
wonderful. I think the prison scene was the most exciting moment in
the play and on television ever.
This play also was the beginning of the legend of the famous
McCleery stagehand ghost. Maurice Evans was beginning his famous
"And now I am alone" when in back way up the long hall this stage­
hand comes walking in in work clothes. Then he sees he was on camera.
Paralyzed, if he hadn't run around like a frightened doe looking for an
escape he wouldn't have distracted.
That SOB has haunted me ever since. First show in California another
one walked in. The stagehands stick together and wouldn't tell me who
he was. So we think he's a ghost (we studied the film clips?). Ever since
that Ghost occasionally wanders on and my crew says, "Here he is
again!"28

McCleery referred to Schaefer's productions of Green Pastures and

Little Moon ofAlbans as examples of his genius. He also spoke of his
relationship with Maurice Evans:

I fell out with Maurice Evans next year [after Hamlet]. He insisted on
RichardII. I wanted to wait. I felt RichardII would be a good color pro­
duction if we could wait, but he absolutely insisted on doing it then.
He had his eye on NBC's big new studio in Brooklyn, but I still believe
it would have been an ideal production for color.29

About this Maurice Evans had this to say:

When I was asked to do a second Shakespearean production for

Hallmark Hall ofFame, it was logical that I should pick King Richard
II. For one thing, this is the play which brought me fame, if not fortune,
in the United States and is the classic which I have played the greatest
number of times. Familiarity with the part of the "skipping king" is a
great asset; the inuicacies of the technical aspects of television leave lit­
tle time for the actor to concentrate on creating a new characterization,
whereas if you know a part backwards you can devote your rehearsal
time to adjusting to the special problems posed by the medium.
Apart from suiting my own convenience, King Richard II has become
almost a cause as far as I am conce·rned. Each time I have revived the
play, it has evoked the same kind of ecstatic praise from the critics and
the same wonderment that it has been so long neglected in the theatre
and the classroom.30
90 Live Television

This was McCleery's last season with Hall ofFame. He stated that
Hall disliked his productions of The Imaginary Invalid and Moby Dick.
Then when Of Time and the River "got blasted by the critics and Hall
disliked it also, that began my 'swan song' with him." Variety had
treated Imaginary Invalid as a dud but it described Moby Dick as "a
fluid dramatic hour-everything was top-notch." McCleery compared
his $35,000 Moby Dick with the $2.5 million motion picture of the
same book. He did not feel they had a better production-"all they had
was a big whale that looked fake."31
Maurice Evans third Shakespearean production with Hallmark
came the following season, Macbeth, with Judith Anderson costarring
as Lady Macbeth. Hallmark was getting its money's worth out of the
classics. Their PR man proclaimed:

We have been extremely pleased with the reception given Mr. Evans'
Shakespearean plays. We have received thousands of complimentary
letters from viewers and so has Mr. Evans. So many of them asked that
we do Macbeth next chat it seemed a logical choice, especially in view
of the great success Mr. Evans and Miss Anderson enjoyed with it in the
theater.32

George Schaefer again staged the show with Hudson Faussett as the
television director that year. The show was as critically successful as the
first two and collected an even larger audience.33

Thunder on Sycamore Street

There had not been much thunder on or about Studio One in its
post-Worthington Miner years-and then Reginald Rose came along.
With Felix Jackson as the producer and Paul Nickell and Franklin
Schaffner alternating as directors Studio One had continued in 1953 its
"classy" adaptations such as the Orwell novel 1984, and Camille, and
the series was regaining its former luster.34 Studio One had had a
pioneering nature under Miner and it had had a serious tone to its im­
age. And so when it came their time to turn to original playwrights,
Rose was a natural.
Reginald Rose's first television play, The Bus to Nowhere, ap­
peared on Studio One in 1951. From that time until 1953 he was busy
doing adaptations for Studio One. Then in 1953-54 he burst forth with
 7. The 1953-54 and 1954-55 Seasons 91

Thunder on Sycamore Street and the following season with 12 Angry

Men, Cr£me £n the Streets, and An Almanac ofLiberty-two of which
were made into movies. 3) Rose was live television drama's controversial
social-thesis playwright. His "message" in Thunder on Sycamore Street
defends the individual family's right to be "different" from its neigh­
bors and protests unthinking conformity that can lead to mob violence.
It is the story of an ex-convict who with his family has moved into "a
fine old neighborhood" to start his life anew. One of his neighbors
organizes the community to force this family to move out. Among the
group is Arthur Hayes, who seems to be a weakling, yet is intuitively
against mob law.
The story is told in three episodes, each beginning at the same
time-a few moments before a march on the ex-convict's home. The
television viewer was shown, in turn, the animal-like behavior of the
ringleader, the pathetic Hayes, and the desperate determination of the
ex-convict to stay put. It reaches a climax that reviewers described as
having "virtually a religious poignancy." After stones have been thrown
at the ex-convict, making him bleed, the weakling, Hayes, steps for­
ward and says the next stone must be thrown at him. The mob disperses
and Hayes turns to his wife, who had previously dominated him, and
says: "What are you standing there for? My neighbor's head is bleed­
ing."36 The story line seems to strain credibility but all of the reviewers
found the characters vivid and interesting. The show was a great
success.
What was most interesting about this production were Rose's com­
ments about his censorship problems with CBS:

Originally Thunder on Sycamore Street was conceived as the story of

a Negro who moves into a white community. This was unpalatable to
the networks ... I felt that a compromise would weaken the play but
I decided to make one anyway ... The selection of an ex-convict as the
protagonist was the obvious choice, since this could offend no known
organized pressure groups.
It was variously felt by viewers with whom I discussed the show that
Joseph Blake [the ex-convict] was meant to symbolize a Negro, a Jew,
a Catholic, a Pueno Rican, a Japanese or Chinese, etc. This was ex­
tremely gratifying to me.37

An interesti ng side note was the casting of Kenny Utt, the Studio
One stage manager, as the ex-convict. Rose described his performance
as "one of the most moving experiences of my life":
92 Live Television

I don't think I'll ever forget hearing and seeing Kenny Utt thunder
out the lines, "I own this house and God gave me the right co live in
it. The man who tries co take it away from me is going to have co climb
over a pile of my bones co do it," and then watching him walk off the
floor minutes later as the play ended, tears flowing down his cheeks.38
The next season, 1954-55, was the Reginald Rose season on Studio
One. CBS had produced two new dramatic series that season, Climax
and Best ofBroadway, and at the end of the year lured U.S. Steel away
from ABC, but the only thing on CBS that was not overshadowed by
NBC's spectaculars was Reginald Rose's playwriting. With Felix Jackson
still producing and Paul Nickell and Franklin Schaffner still directing,
Studio One added new laurels to its long history of quality program­
ming. Rose's 12 Angry Men won the Emmy award as the best dramatic
script, and Variety cited him with "a special Writer Award" in its an­
nual Show Management Review.Listing "his magnum opus" 12 Angry
Men, plus 12:32 a. m., An Almanac ofLiberty, and Crime in the Streets
as examples of unusually superior drama, it stated:
The Rose saga as a man of conscience and integrity was sneaking up
the season before ....In a business where the blurbs are easy co bounce,
Reginald Rose stands out as the conscience of television.39
The drama 12 Angry Men was the season opener for Studio One.
It also won a Sylvania award for its camera direction and was highly suc­
cessful as a motion piccure.40 An interesting sidelight is that it was
based on an actual experience of the author:
A month or so before I began the play I sat on the jury of a
manslaughter case ... I thought then that a play taking place entirely
within a jury might be an exciting and possibly moving experience for
an audience.41
The play is rather difficult to read because the jurors are only
designated by number. Rose seems rather artificial again as he pits one
man against eleven in order to create a conflict that will make his point.
The jury has been called in to sit on a murder trial.Juror number eight
holds out for an acquittal, and it boils down to a grapple between him
and juror number three in an hour of heated debate. Juror number
eight is described as "quiet, thoughtful ... a man of strength tempered
with compassion" in comparison to juror number three as "strong, very
forceful ... with a streak of sadism." 42 Everyone agreed the play was
"a wallop on all main counts."43
 7. The 19.53-.54 and 19.54-.5.5 Seasons 93

Perhaps Rose's scripts seem anificial these days and the plots
somewhat contrived, but in retrospect he and Studio One must be ad­
mired. In 1954 these themes were daring and his plays are obviously a
more vigorous type ofdrama with more apparent plot and a more posi­
tive view of humanity than some of the realistic characters that were
associated with the Philco Playhouse.
Rose, as did the other writers, gave much credit to his directors:
"I have met, worked with, and learned a great deal from brilliant, im­
aginative directors like Franklin Schaffner, Sidney Lumet, and Paul
Nickell. "44

Some Others on CBS

A comparison between the origins of a new CBS show and the

early series such as Kraft and Philco reveals what a tremendous change
had come over prime time broadcasting by that time. Variety shows
such as the indefatigable Ed Sullivan's would come and go but the big
bucks and the big ratings were in story telling, then and now. This was
big business, infinitely complex in its organization, and involving
months of careful planning. Let us look at the binh of a show:
In the fall of1953 and the spring of1954, the hour between 8:30
and 9:30 on CBS on Thursdays was occupied by two half-hour pro­
grams. These two programs had an average weekly audience ofless than
11,000,000, or only 29.3 percent of the total audience. The sponsors
were dissatisfied, and one issued a notice of cancellation in the spring
of1954. Although the situation was crystallized by the cancellation, ac­
tual planning of a new program by the CBS program department had
begun in March of1953 in order to utilize CBS's new studios in Televi­
sion City in Hollywood, and as part of CBS's general program
philosophy of competing with the successful shows on NBC. By that
tim e it was evident that the half-hour format was insufficient for live
drama, so the program depanment began preparation of Climax as an
hourly show, although there was no decision as to what time period the
program might fill. Actually, at that period of television's growth, slots
in prime time on the networks were at a great premium, as was seen
in Wonhington Miner's unsuccessful attempts to get a show on the air.
So when an opening appeared on Thursday, it was quickly expanded
into an hour, and the program depanment acquired the rights to 13
94 Live Television

stories, representing an investment of $40,000; $15,000 was spent

reducing eight of these to the form of a first draft of a television script.
In this shape, the show was sold by the advertising sales deparunent to
the Chrysler Corporation in May 1954. From May until the fall of 1954,
the creative preparation was done by the production department and
a producer, Martin Manulis, and several directors were hired. Also the
CBS Affiliates Division was busy clearing time on CBS stations across
the country, and on October 7, 1954, the first program was broadcast. 4,
And the results? Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye got them off
to a flying stan and The New York Times sent this series "right to the
head of the class. "46
The author did a comparison between reviews and ratings. These
are not selected reviews but represent almost the total critical comment
available for the Climax series from The New York Times, Variety, and
Broadcasting-Telecasting:
Flight 951- "exceeded the weight allowance for plot."
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde- "several megacycles away from the Stevenson
classic."
Sorry, Wrong Number- "assoned visual gimmicks that were disuaa­
ing."
A Farewell to Arms- "spiritless."
The Climax series itself-Season's Summary in Vanety: "A clinker."47

Yet public acceptance of Climax was in sharp contrast. The Chrysler

Corporation was happy and renewed it the next season as its Nielsen
ratings reached as high as 40.9. Several times it placed in the top ten
in terms of number of viewers. 48

Curtain Call at ABC, the U.S. Steel Hour

ABC would be the first network to discontinue live series drama.
But in 1953 it joined with the Theater Guild and introduced to televi­
sion the United States Steel Hour. This was one of the most exciting
and noble experiments in early television. The famed series would soon
be lured away by CBS and thereafter ABC would challenge the leaders,
NBC and CBS, with filmed Westerns. And ABC would eventually set
them both back on their heels. But for now it was competing with live
drama from New York.
The United States Steel Hour became one of television's most
 7. The 1953-54 and 1954-55 Seasons 95

distinguished and long-lived institutions. It is quite disturbing,

although cenainly understandable, that current media writers and
commentators ignore these series dramas so completely. When it pre­
sented its last taped story on television almost ten years later, it would
truly be the end ofthe era. It might seem strange to begin with its end­
ing but it should be mentioned that it did not leave the scene with a
whimper but with a bang! The play was Sir James M. Barrie's classic,
The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, and the stars were Alfred Lunt and
Lynn Fontanne. The exquisite Fontanne enacted the old charwoman
who pretended she had a soldier son and Lunt acted as narrator and
described some of the Steel Hours highlights during its decade of
production.
And Steel Hour also started with a bang! This was the Theater
Guild's second attempt to produce live drama on a biweekly basis. The
Guild's first attempt had occurred in 1947-48 when they produced six
plays on NBC with Edward Sobel as the producer. Alex Segal held the
directorial assignment on the new series and resumed where he left off
with Celanese Theater two seasons before. The premiere, P. 0. W., an
original by David Davidson, was an inspired opening performance,
with Gary Merrill in the leading role. 49 It dealt with the problem of
communist brainwashing ofG .Ls and was described as a production of
superior quality "that would do credit to a Broadway legiter." Only
actors "inspired by a play and director, could have performed with such
depth offeeling and understanding." Everyone seemed moved and ex­
cited about the performance. 50 Newsweek commented: "If it can keep
up this quality ... video audiences will have two 60 minute shows of
top calibre (the other: Television Playhouse)." 51
This new series and its quality productions attracted a lot ofatten­
tion. The U.S. Steel Hour won the Emmy award as the best dramatic
series in its first season and the Look award for "the most consistently
presented plays of high merit."s2 Among its productions of note was
The Last Notch, an original by Frank Gilroy, described as "one of the
finest Westerns yet done on live television." It was later produced as a
motion picture. 53 One production, Fearful Decision, was unusual with
its theme about kidnapping. It broke the television code which suggests
that references to kidnapping ofchildren are improper. An adaptation
of Hedda Gabler had Tallulah Bankhead's performance severely
criticized as "distracting and wanting" and "too concerned with her per­
formance for its own sake." Perhaps Tallulah was too large for the small
96 Live Television

screen for where there should have been "a sense of forbidding
uagedy," there were "flamboyance, the grand gesture, and the toss of
the hair."54 If one has seen Tallulah on the stage or screen, it is not hard
to imagine.
The ABC card files contained no more information than the start­
ing and stopping dates of this magnificent achievement, the U.S. Steel
Hour, and Segal did not reply to a request for an interview.55 The
evidence on hand, however, safely indicates that Segal's talents and
organizing genius were a big factor in the series' success, and the fact
that he had the backing and prestige of the powerful and experienced
Theatre Guild, plus a large budget from the United States Steel Com­
pany.
One of the provisions of the U.S. Steel Hour entry on ABC was
that the network supply a dramatic series of comparable stature to fill
the alternate week time slot. ABC chose its old ABC Album production
unit headed by Herben Brodkin and sustained a series known as the
Television Hour until the Motorola Corporation picked up the sponsor­
sb� December and it became the Motorola Television Hour. The
series hacJ-amoderate success, getting fair ratings but very little atten­
tion in contrast to its partner.56
The season 1954-55 was U.S. Steel's second and last on ABC and
was ABC's last attempt to compete with the "big boys" at this level. No
Time for Sergeants by Mac Hyman and The Rack by Rod Serling were
the two most interesting productions. The Rack told the story of an
Army captain charged with collaborating with the enemy in Korea. It
was similar to P. 0. W., which had premiered the U.S. Steel Hour in
1953, and also concerned brainwashing prisoners of war. This one, The
Rack, was submitted in rough draft to the Theatre Guild as a kind of
coumoom drama which posed the problem: "Was it morally right to
punish men for breaking under a form of duress which was not physical
when they were exposed to an enemy whose frame of moral reference
was totally unlike our own?" On the basis of that draft, Serliog was
given an option payment and asked to go down to Washington and talk
to some of the Pentagon personnel. About the show he had this re­
action:
Among the hundred or so television dramas that I have written and
produced, The Rack holds a number of distinctions. It was nineteen
months in creation, which is the most time I have ever given to any
single play; it took the most number of rewrites-seven-and when it
 7. The 1953-54 and 1954-55 Seasons 97

was finally produced it was the closest to what I had imagined it would
be of any other play I had ever written. Add to these technical distinc­
tions an almost universally favorable audience and critical reaction.H
Serling was quite delighted with his play, also describing it as "one
of the most honest things I have ever written." He admitted that in his
first draft he had found the officer guilty but presented the verdict as
basically unjust and incorrect. After talking with the officers at the Pen­
tagon, he attempted to picture the guilty verdict as the correct one.)8
In a lucky break that season, the producers of U.S. Steel got the
television rights to the book No Time for Sergeants for $1,500 before
Broadway and the motion pictures began to bid for it. Its production
was the debut of Andy Griffith, who up to that time had been playing
Sir Walter Raleigh in The Lost Colony for seven summers at Manteo,
North Carolina. Gould described it as "good, rowdy fun.") 9
The alternate week show to the U.S. Steel Hour in its second
season was called the Elgin Hour. This is an example of how the same
producing unit under Herben Brodkin moved on with a different show
title when, as in this case, the sponsor had felt "the price tag was too
big." ABC had also felt the price tag was too big, for U.S. Steel had
stayed on the air during the summer and ABC had had to sustain the
alternate show because no sponsor could be found.
This minor series had a major hit with Reginald Rose's topical
drama about teenage hoodlums, Crime in the Streets. Rose's comments
about its preproduction problems seem hard to believe in this day and
age!

It was turned down by the sponsors or advertising agencies of three

major network shows for precisely the same reason. It dealt sym­
pathetically with juvenile delinquency at a time when juvenile delin­
quents were considered to be eminently unpopular.60
Rose took issue with a point of view "popular on Madison A venue"
that the function of the emenainmem portion of the show "is simply
to keep viewe!s at their sets spellbound ... so that they will be available
to see and hear the ad pitch." Rose argued that simply because a par­
ticular show was controversial "it does not necessarily follow that sales
of the sponsor's product will drop." As for Crime in the Streets, he said
he "couldn't for the life of me see what was controversial about it to
begin with, and still don't."61 The Elgin production got high racings,
won eno rmous praise, and the Elgin Company did not go out of
98 Live Television

business until quartz and digital watches came along. Even then, its
name was good enough to be purchased by a Japanese company.

Creativity-Spectacular and Otherwise

The surge of creativity in live television that had begun in the

1950-51 season lasted through the two seasons from 1953 to 1955.
Perhaps 1954-55 was live television's most distinguished season. Prime
television and big bucks were then and now fully devoted to storytell­
ing. There were successful variety shows, news was getting more atten­
tion, and everybody remembers Howdy Doody. Bue 1954-55 saw the
"spectaculars" on NBC and CBS rise to great prominence and thank­
fully demolish forever the sacred cow of regular programming on regu­
lar days at regular hours with regular sponsors. It also saw the television
writer rise to ever greater prominence as a regular new creative force in
our society.
In one sense live drama lacked excitement in the 1953-54 season
because most of the "spectaculars" on both networks were content to
produce repetitious adaptations of renowned Broadway successes; too
much money was involved to take chances. The only changes from the
earlier seasons therefore were a more elaborate production in color and
more expensive stars. In another sense that season's most "spectacular"
successes in many ways were Kraft Theaters relatively inexpensive pro­
duction of Rod Serling's Patterns, and Studio One's series of Reginald
Rose dramas.
Jack Gould at the end of that season complained about too much
of the "starkly realistic drama," and too many themes dealing with
failure:

There's only one dominant theme on television: Life is hell ...

Television is becoming dour and unentertaining ... The Little Person
in a Little Job in a Little Office who lives in a Little Home with a Little
Wife and Little Children. He lives in a Little Neighborhood where there
are Little Minds.62

The mass media's programming cycles that flooded the networks

with imitations of more successful types had evidently caught up with
the hour long dramas. All branches of the entenainment and com­
munications industries have always had uouble with what has been
 7. The 1953-54 and 1954-55 Seasons 99

dubbed "follow-the-leader" cycles. Any successful type of book,

magazine, play, program, movie or song is quickly followed by hordes
of imitations, capitalizing on the success of the original creation. While
many of the imitations may be well conceived and executed, as Ed­
mund Rice of Kraft Theater commented, "too much of a good thing
was no good either." Thus it is seen in a year-end article that Variety
was concerned with the quantity of morbid, realistic plays, stating that
series "are currently at a new high in quantity and a new low in quality."
Variety's reporter contended that the older dramatic shows were "still
maintaining their standards," pointed to Lux Video Theater, Climax,
and Front Row Center(a summer show that alternated with U.S. Steel
on CBS) as "clinkers," and listed Best of Broadway and the Elgin and
Ponds efforts as quality shows that were casualties of the cycle. The arti­
cle accused the "clinkers" of substituting name stars and name stories
for quality. Here is the lineup of the top shows as Variety pictured
them:
Studio One and Philco-Goodyear are in a dead heat for the best in
their class, with CBS's Monday Nighter combatting Philco's general
superiority in scripts with the slickest producing-directing on television.
Kraft Television Theater is a strong third, turning out some occasional
dull shows but always maintaining a high quality of scripts, production,
and integrity. U.S. Steel is next but slipping badly of late. Robert
Montgomery Presents is a tolerable fifth, sometimes turning out top­
notch productions but generally falling shon of the mark. 63
The fascinating thing about the first pan of the above quotation
is that it was as true in 1948-49 as it was in 1954-55, and that it has
never happened in broadcasting since and probably never will.
 8
The Finale, 1955-58:
Major Players

Sunset in New York

In 195 7 television would be available to almost every man,

woman, and child in the United States. By that time there were 496
television stations in the United States and these stations were beaming
programs to approximately 42,000,000 receivers. T devision advertising
income had passed the $1. 3 billion mark. 1 Television's period of fast
and furious growth was over. It had reached a leveling-off point.
Television production would soon disappear in New York. It
would leave behind television's period of daring and experimentation,
and with it, live television drama. Competition, commercial considera­
tions, racings, and Hollywood were the keys to television's future. Pro­
duction costs were up; profits had leveled off as growth had leveled off;
and live dramatic series audience ratings were down. Robert W. Sarnoff
gave one explanation of the situation at a meeting of the NBC affiliates
in 1958:
For television has become a vast and complex business-far bigger
than radio ever was, with higher stakes, greater risks and larger areas of
conflict.
Because of the variety of conflicting interests and the size of the
stakes, television has generated fierce and widespread competition,
perhaps unparalleled in American enterprise. Its cost level is very high,
calling for large-scale resources. Its total profit-combining all ele­
ments- is also high, even though spread unevenly across the industry.

101
 102 Live Television

Some of the highest risk enterprises, such as networking, have relatively

low profit margins...2

Interesting it is chat chis explanation and the young Sarnoff's reign

as chief at NBC, accompanied the period of NBC's longest period of
turmoil, lowest ratings, and lowest comparable earnings.
Certainly the introduction of magnetic cape recording at chis time
had a tremendous effect and eventually negated the idea of "live"
television production. Several tape recording devices had been demon­
strated previously. Bing Crosby enterprises, for example, had made the
first demonstration in November 1951.3 In April of 1956 the Ampex
Corporation demonstrated a system chat was ready for commercial use
in which there was no visible difference between the taped and live pic­
ture. The previous capes were narrow and in order to gee all the elec­
trical impulses recorded had to move so fast chat a reel the size of a
manhole cover was needed. Ampex used a wide cape and several record­
ing heads so a one hour show could be taped on a 14-inch reel. CBS
and NBC immediately ordered three each at $75,000 a unit, and the
following season they began, without much publicity, taping portions
of their shows.4
A look at several sample weeks of programming would not seem
to indicate that live television was declining. Playwrights '56 and the
fabulous five-days-a-week Matinee Theater were new arrivals on NBC
in the 1955-56 season and Armstrong Circle Theater expanded to a full
hour. Max Liebman presented only a few "spectaculars," but Hallmark
Hall of Fame was now a 90-minute show once a month, Producer's
Showcase was in its second season, and CBS introduced its first once-a­
monch, 90-minute "spectacular," Ford Star Jubilee. It was followed by
I one of CBS's most famous and successful undertakings-Playhouse 90.
On the other hand the Lux Video Theater dispensed with live
drama in December of 1956, and at the end of chat season, Alcoa­
Goodyear, Kaiser Aluminum, Robert Montgomery Presents, and Pro­
ducer's Showcase were eliminated from NBC. The end was in sight- In­
dustry personnel were predicting the two-hour drama as a regular series
was just around the corner. However, Ford bowed out of its commit­
ment to Ford Starjubilee at season's end and the industry re-evaluated
its rush into live 90-minute programming. Very few of the "spec­
taculars" had cracked the lists of the ten most popular shows, and,
perhaps, the fabulously successful Peter Pan had led some producers to
 8. The Finale, 1955-.58: Major Players 103

expect more than they could get. Kraft, Phzlco Playhouse (now also
Alcoa), Studio One and several live variety shows maintained steady
ratings and satisfied the sponsors. In fact, 1956 was a great year for Ed
Sullivan. He was in high gear, introducing Elvis Presley (from the waist
up) to immortality that year.
Llve television drama had been the pacesetter in terms of quality
for the first ten years of television. The format had withstood the flood
of situation comedies, mysteries, feature films, quiz and variety shows.
Yet in the next two short years the filmed Western would do what all
the other mediocre forms of entertainment had failed to do.
Some of the external reasons for live television's demise have been
mentioned but it is also true there was a goodly amount of internal
suangulation. At the time of the 1956-57 season either the quality of
the drama had fallen off or the reviewers were getting harder to please.
In an industry that tends to flamboyance, the reviewers had fewer kind
things to say about the series dramas than ever before. For example, a
series of eight reviews in the New York Times gave eight Kraft Televi­
sion Theater productions bad or barely mediocre reviews. The produc­
tions, all in 1955, were:
Woman for Tony, June 2
Someone to Hang, June 9
Truckers Welcome, October 13
I, Mrs. Bibb, October 20
Ticket and Tempest, November 10
Summers End, November 17
Once a Genius, December l
A Nugget from the Sunrise, December 15

It was true that the exodus of the television writer to the lucrative
field of motion pictures was a factor but there was no evidence of the
creative climate that had fostered writers such as Rose, Chayefsky,
Mosel and Serling. Playhouse 90 was brilliant during these final seasons
and maybe the rest of them were just plain worn out. For example, the
use of topical drama increased in the attempt to find good script
material. Armstrong Circle Theater in 1955 devoted itself to finding
drama in the current scene; a typical Armstrong title was "S.O.S. from
the Andrea Doria." In 1956-57 Kraft did Mickey Mantle's life story,
and the Hungarian revolt stimulated scripts on Studio One, Arm­
strong, and the Hall of Fame's revival of Sherwood's "There Shall Be
No Night."
104 Live Television

High Noon in Hollywood

In contrast to the bright, if not big, successes of films on television,

live drama television was unexciting. In 1955-56 Playhouse 90 and
Matinee Theater were still to come, but the success of CBS's Gunsmoke
and ABC's Wyatt Earp had everyone in Hollywood looking for an adult
Western to do. As Hal Humphrey said in The Los Angeles Mi"or, "It
was more frantic than the old Oklahoma land rush of 1889," and "by
the following season adult Westerns had multiplied like jackrabbits... ,
The towering success of the Western series Gunsmoke provided
the stimulus for the domination of film on prime time television. As
usual in the mass media, the maiden creative effon had more quality
than its imitators. And in this case it is fitting that the original idea
came from the broadcasting industry, a marvelous old radio show called
Gunsmoke that started in 1952 and ran until 1961. This radio version
of Gunsmoke was acclaimed critically right from the start but CBS
could not get it sponsored until it had been on the air for a year. Drama
had had a long and successful tradition when radio was the magic
medium and a number of radio dramas moved directly over to live
television, including Lux Video Theater and Armstrong Circle Theater.
This first radio drama to move to film on television was created in 1952
by a CBS radio producer named Norman Macdonnell, who, with writer
John Meston, is given credit by Hal Humphrey in the Los Angeles Mir­
ror for fighting valiantly to retain on television the simple plots and
adult flavor they had created on radio. 6
Huber Ellinswonh in a delightful essay in a media textbook com­
pared the radio and television versions:

Cenainly the best adult Western, and perhaps the most aniscically
superior radio series ever produced, was Gunsmoke. Marshal Dillon
(William Conrad) stayed alive by shooting first and talking later. And
when he rode into Dodge after days on the trail and growled, "Where's
Kitty?", listeners knew why he was asking. Kitty (Georgia Ellis) ran a
tough saloon, the Long Branch, with rooms upstairs definitely not
operated by Sheraton. Life was hard and violent and people died of
wounds, starvation, freezing, and childbirth, sometimes aided by hard­
drinking Doc Adams. A later TV version of this program ponrayed
Dillon as a gun-toeing frontier psychiatrist who brought order and men­
tal health to the snow-capped mountain region of central Kansas. The
TV Dillon hung out at the Long Branch YMCA, which inexplicably
served liquor but was kept respectable by housemother Miss Kitty. 7
 8. The Finale, 1955-58: Major Players 105

Films made for television had been increasing slowly over the years
and mostly were the "here today and gone tomorrow" sitcoms. All of
a sudden fi l m was a glut as the networks carried an impressive 1,151
hours of film, an increase of 286 hours in 1955-56.8 The major portion
of the increase was the Westerns. The television screen had never lacked
for Western drama in the form of old feature films. But whereas in
prime evening time in 1954 there was only one Western series especially
made for television, The Lone Ranger; in 1958-59 there were 23! In six
months in 1956 eleven new Western series were started on the three
networks. 9
"Trend?" said one NBC Los Angeles head. "It's an avalanche."
The "follow the leader" cycle of all mass media was carried to one of
its most notable extremes ever.
The avalanche (or stampede) to Western films was the prime re­
sponsibility of the American Broadcasting Company. ABC had con­
stantly failed in its efforts to compete on the same level with the "big"
networks. It has been shown how CBS "stole" Studio One from ABC.
Finally in 1954 ABC had the first big success that was not lured away
by the bigger networks-the late afternoon Walt Disney show on film.
Thereupon, ABC made another challenge that season to CBS-NBC
leadership. Clearance for live schedules had always been a great prob­
lem to ABC, and film was an obvious answer. In the fall of 1955, ABC
put Wyatt Earp and Cheyenne on the air, they were moderately suc­
cessful, and the die was cast.
We indicated that the starting gun for the great rush was fired by
Gunsmoke on CBS and it was an instantaneous and much-heralded
success. It was quickly followed by Frontier and Fury in 1955-56,Jim
Bowie , Wells Fargo, Broken A1row and Zane Grey Theater in 1956-57
and Have Gun Will Travel, Trackdown, Maverick, Sugarfoot, Tomb­
stone, Colt '45, Restless Gun, Wagon Train, The Caltfornians, and
Union Pacific in 1957-58. Nine of these were ABC shows as compared
with four each for the other networks. Live television drama by no
means bore the full brunt of the onslaught. The comedians who had
been having such success on television began to pass out of the picture.
Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, and George Gobel were
among the fatalities. CB S placed Gunsmoke opposite George Gobel,
and his Saturday evening show was cancelled. The sponsors were im­
pres sed with ABC's ratings. In 1953 ABC nighttime programs had led
th e networks in only two half-hours. In the fall of 1956 ABC led in ten
lo6 Live Television

nighttime half-hours, in comparison with NBC's nine half-hours and

CBS's 23 half-hours. 10 The Madison Avenue merchants were winning
the battle for control of broadcasting. The producers and creators
would become their servants and the ad agencies' modes of operation
would bear little relationship to the tradition of creative production
established by the ad agency pioneer, J. Walter Thompson.

Feature Films, Front and Center

If it was Gunsmoke that fired the gun, then it was the Hollywood
feature film that put the nails in New York television's coffin. An ex­
amination of the television schedules of 195 7-58 reveals the results of
the many multimillion dollar motion picture deals that had been an­
nounced in 1955 and 1956. Live drama faced the dual threat of old and
new films. The economic boycott of television by the filmmakers was
past history. Hollywood had been holding back on its great reservoir of
entertainment, and when it let go there was a deluge of proven enter­
tainment. Part of the reason for holding back was what was known as
the feature film bottleneck of 1948. That date marked the time after
which additional payments must be made to certain personnel
associated with a picture if it was re-run on television. Also the last of
the pre-1948 films were being released. The scope of those operations
was indicated by one sale of 750 Paramount pictures to the Music Cor­
poration of America for $50 million. Some of the fine old films dis­
covered on television for the first time that season were: Mutiny on the
Bounty, David Copperfield, The Yearling, several Greta Garbo films,
The Foxes of Ha"ow, Les Miserables, The Ox-Bow Incident, Cham­
pion, Notorious, Hamlet, and Cry, the Beloved Country.
The live network dramas now faced a stiffer film competition than
ever before. One aspect of this situation was that Hollywood, through
companies such as National Telefilms, was selling pictures to indepen­
dent stations in the major markets such as New York and Los Angeles.
Thus a proven and highly publicized feature film was competing with
a one hour drama of unknown qualiry. The viewer was no longer passing
up the independent station. For example, WOR, the DuMont station
in New York, had a huge rating increase as a result of its Million Dollar
Movie series, and local stations in cities all across the country were selling
advertising on a scale that began to worry the national sponsors. 11
 8. The Finale, 19JJ-J8: Major Players 107

The Erosion of Network Leadership

Symptomatic of live television's troubles was the resignation in

1956 of Pat Weaver from NBC because of "policy differences." During
Weaver's tenure, CBS ovenook NBC in nighttime program ratings and
stayed ahead. Under the new Robert Kintner-Robert Lewine program­
ming regime, "spectaculars" became "specials" on NBC, and live
drama was dropped in order to compete with the Westerns. 12 In April
of 195 7 Pat Weaver's announcement of his temporary re-entrance into
broadcasting was accompanied by thrusts at the networks, alleging they
were not able to do their jobs for the public "because of inter-network
warfare based on program ratings and high costs .... " He accused them
of mediocre programming aimed at "moppets, morons, and idiots,
who will look at anything." 13 Robert Austin Smith in an article in For­
tune magazine, "Television, the Light That Failed," looked back over
the "increasing mediocrity" in television and cited "a score of seemingly
unrelated happenings" that were causes: "The exodus of creative talent
from television; the erosion of the network leadership in the East; and
the coming of age of the film packagers." But more than anything else
he flattered Weaver by citing his departure from the chairmanship of
NBC as "the precipitating incident." He stated Weaver was looked
upon by many "as a son of personification of television's potential
scope, dynamism and audaciry," and accused NBC of "playing it safe
and small." 14
The charge of "erosion of network leadership" in New York was
made repeatedly in the press from 1955 on. It was true that the Lux
Video, Hall ofFame, Climax, Playhouse 90, and eventually the Studio
One series would emanate from Hollywood. However, most producers
and executives interviewed failed to see this as a significant aspect of live
television drama's decline. Robert Sarnoff, in an open letter to news­
paper editors, answered the charges that the whole television industry
was shifting to the West Coast:

The NBC headquaners is in New York, and will remain here. Our
New York scudios are being used to capacity. Our yardstick for deciding
on East or West Coast origination for any panicular program is avail­
ability of talent and production facilities. Right now we have a good
balance between tbe two coasts and I expect it will remain in reasonable
balance. n
108 Live Television

That pan of the programming upheaval that received the most

publicity was the audience ratings services. Florence Britton, in the last
edition of Best Television Plays, sorrowfully complained about the low
ratings of the series dramas as the basic cause of the decline:
Nineteen fifty-six-fifty-seven was not a vintage year in television.
Perhaps chis is understandable in a medium chat is still trying to find
a compromise among creativity, audience appeal, and omnipresenc fact
chat it is in business primarily due to the modern Medici, the adver­
tiser.16

David Suskind, a Harvard graduate who became an agent and

then a producer for Talent Associates, rose to great prominence in these
years through his vigorous defense of live drama when everyone had
written it off. He had worked on the Philco show, the Kaiser
Aluminum Hour, the DuPont Show of the Month, and others. When
interviewed in Broadcasting-Telecasting in 1957 he said:
The only exciting TV I've ever seen has been live. I am unerly unable
to remember any distinguished filmed TV. All the filmed TV I've seen
has been distinguished by a kind of uniform mediocrity and by an
economy of shooting and production which make it pretty lacklustre as
encenainmenc. On the other hand, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Marty, The
Rainmaker, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Helen Keller Story, A
Night to Remember- the list of live distinguished accomplishments in
TV -is extremely long.
I also have the feeling chat there is a different philosophy governing
the doing of live shows. Filmed shows are being made, for the most
part, by "get-rich-quick" people who regard television not as an art form
or an area for creative expression, but as an opponunity (like a gold
mine or an oil well) to accomplish endless residuals, to be able to live
unto the fourth generation on the income from fast and cheap produc­
tion. I find chis shocking and I loathe it ...
The real film giants are not the men making TV film. The TV films
of today are made by has-beens and never-weres in the film business­
by people hell bent for capital gains deals. When you see a film chat
says "George Stevens directed and produced" -you can bet your money
it's going to be a good show. These people are above and beyond televi­
sion films now and the people who are doing TV films are noc equipped
by God or talent to do the job. What you're gening are lacklustre exten­
sions of their feeble talents.17

In an address in Ithaca, New York, in 1958, Robert Lewine, vice

president in charge of programming at NBC, answered some of the
charges being made about film:
 8. The Finale, 19.5.5-.58: Major Players 109

There is the complaint that the television industry is switching in­

creasingly from live shows to film, and accordingly, from the invigorat­
ing intellectual climate of New York co the arid wastes of Hollywood.
Well, it just isn't so. It is true chat over the years, the use of film has
increased. I can't see anything wrong with that.
Live television h as an irreplaceable quality of its own. By the same
token, film gives the storyteller a range, flexibility and variety of visual
power that cannot be achieved in any other way. There are certain
stories-any outdoor story is an obvious example-that are more effec­
tive on film. But I do not see any danger that film will crowd live TV
off the home screen ...18

Playhouse 90 and Hubbell Robinson, Jr.

It was not all over yet and Sarnoff's defense of live television
seemed reasonable at that time. Many new provocative and impressive
things continued to happen on live television and most were live televi­
sion drama-even if they were out of the mainstream. The most ex­
uaordinary of these was Playhouse 90. It was only mid-course in live
television's decline, and CBS, with Manin Manulis as the producer,
undenook one of television's most ambitious undertakings, Playhouse
90. They sought to present a 90-mioute drama every week using Pat
Weaver's magazine concept to finance it. CBS President Frank Stanton
reasoned: "One trouble with the 'specials' is that people haven't known
where they are." 19
Hubbell Robinson,Jr. was a distinguished executive at CBS in the
creative tradition ofNBC's Pat Weaver. When interviewed he took full
credit for creating Playhouse 90:

I thought it up. We had done a series, Best of Broadway, chat was

one hour, and we couldn't adapt Broadway plays successfully to the one
hour format.
I thought chat 90 minutes would open us up to more material. I sent
a two page memo recommending it to Paley [CBS Chairman]. We had
a hell of a time getting it started. They said we couldn't do it. They said
we could never sell it. We took 15 months preparing ic. 20

Hubbell Robinson had played a major role in creating shows for

CBS. He stated "I was very close to Playhouse 90 all throughout. I
found the first property- the show we opened with. "21 This show was
Rod Serling's adaptation of a Pat Frank novel, Forbidden Area. Most
llO Live Television

of the reviewers felt it was not "a very auspicious debut," 22 but they
returned the following week with a smash hit, Requiem for a
Heavyweight, also by Rod Serling.
Requiem for a Heavyweight won five of the major prizes in the
Emmy awards, the first Peabody Award for script writing, and the
Sylvania award as the best play of the year-all of the major honors in
broadcasting.23 Rod Serling and most of the reviewers felt that Jack
Palance gave "a performance of indescribable poignancy" in the role of
an inarticulate, has-been prize fighter who is cold by his physician that
he cannot continue fighting. His avaricious manager then cries to use
him as a wrestling clown to pay his own gambling debts. However, his
compassionate uainer and a social worker arrange for him to go home,
and it ends with a vision of his finding another life for himself. 24
Playhouse 90 in a live and then a caped version was the quality
dramatic feature of network broadcasting for the next three seasons and
most television audiences remember it better than shows such a5 Philco
and Kraft because it la5ted so long into broadcasting's film era. One
CBS public relations vice president, Leonard Spinrad, pointed to Play­
house 90 and stated that many of the live shows that passed away
"simply were not comparable in terms of quality." He concluded,
"We're better off without so many; we had Studio One, now we have
Playhouse 90. "2s Lester Bernstein, NBC vice president, agreed that
Playhouse 90 on CBS was an excellent show: "We had too many, and
now it's an only outlet."26 This cenainly was a factor in Playhouse 90's
success in succeeding years. For example, in November of 1957 Fred
Coe resigned from NBC on the grounds he was not being given any­
thing to do. Hubbell Robinson immediately signed him up for CBS to
produce part of the Playhouse 90 series with Herben Brodkin and Joh n
Houseman. Manin Manulis had relinquished his producing role at the
end of the 1957-58 season to do films for 20th Century-Fox.27
In just one month, March of 195 7, Playhouse 90 staned on March
7 with Gilben Roland, Hugh O'Brien, Ann Bancroft and Ray Collins
in Invitation to a Gunfighter. This was followed on March 14 with Jack
Palance, VivecaLindfors, PeterLorre and Keenan Wynn in The Last Ty­
coon. Then they came up with an unusual cast and a hit performance
of Hostess with the Mostest with Perle Mesta, Shirley Booth and Hedda
Hopper on March 21. There was no letdown as they concluded the
month on the 28th with An Carney, Jeanette MacDonald and Jackie
Cooper in Charley's Aunt.
 8. The Finale, 19.5.5-.58: Major Players lll

Hubbell Robinson felt that the fuse two years of Playhouse 90 were
the very best television he had seen and "Marcin Manulis agrees with
me." He grumbled a little that "In the third year we had some good
shows with Brodkin and Coe but there were some bad ones." And then
he somewhat sadly reminisced:

The founh year was Playhouse's worse year. No one was sitting on it,
guiding it, working for quality. The producers were doing the things
they always wanted to do. Also there was a tremendous rash of specials
that year and it did not stand out as much as it had in the past. Also
actors were getting more money for specials and we couldn't afford them
on that budget. 28

Albert McCleery commenced that its producers became com­

petitive, started "bidding against one another and it collapsed." 29
Hubbell Robinson.Jr. was the ocher "missing" executive chat jour­
nalists point co when they bewail the face of television over the next ten
years. He seated, "I left CBS because I was given the opportunity co set
up my own company and own my own programs." He was very definite
that he liked "working directly with Paley and it was a happy relation­
ship." His break with CBS did not parallel the explosive outbursts
about the Sarnoffs and Weaver. But he was glum in thinking about ic:
"I created all those shows and all I got was a salary and a pension and
I might not live long enough to collect the pension. "3°
Albert McCleery indicated co this writer that the decline of live
television was rather simple: "It was the victim of the racings systems
as they reflect cost per thousand." So as we move to look at McCleery's
monumental achievement in Matinee Theater it is appropriate to note
that he felt "Playhouse 90 killed live drama by making it so expensive,"
claiming "Martin Manulis' prices were astronomical, an average of
$175,000 per show." "Of course," McCleery said, "you can't do Marty
on film anyway-no scope, no glamour-just beauty. "31

Matinee Theater, the "Most Formidable" Undertaking

If Playhouse 90 was the most extraordinary show in live television's

last years, then Matinee Theater was the most formidable. Jane Murray,
the talented casting director for chat series and many more, shared her
50 page outline of its accomplishments. She began it:
lU Live Television

12 noon in Hollywood and 3 p.m. in New York.

Opening drum roll and NBC peacock film.
JOHN CONTE voice over: "The folJowing program is brought to you in
living color by NBC."
MATINEE theme music up synchronized with MATINEE kaleidoscope
pattern.
MATINEE logos. CONTE voice over: "MATINEE THEATER" ...
(flip card)
"devised and produced for NBC by ALBERT McCLEERY" ...
(flip card)
"presenrs" ... title of show, author and adapter ... audio credit to
stars of show.
Slowly dissolve into teaser.
End of teaser, kaleidoscope pattern, CONTE host set.
CONTE: "Hello, everyone. Welcome once again to NBC MATINEE
THEATER for another hour-long presentation brought to you live
and in living color. I am your host, John Conte. "32

This same opening with very slight variations greeted viewers five
days a week from October 31, 1955, untilJune 27, 1958, through a total
of 666 shows. This was an enormous accomplishment in the history of
drama, of all story-telling through the ages. NBC's Matinee Theater
amassed that staggering total of 666 hour-long dramatic shows live, in
color, from Hollywood, in the shon space of 36 months! They did
classics, original drama, Broadway, and stories on current events, with
many good reviews from the most sophisticated critics and with a large
audience and a profit for the network. McCleery described how the idea
developed:
I have about ten memos on show ideas that I reissue annually. One
of these memos dealt with an idea for a daily midnight mysteries. I had
been sending out numerous memos on it. On the 15th of June 1955,
Pat Weaver sent for me and said: "Do you think you can do an hour
show every day at three p.m.?" I said "yes." Then later in New York,
Pat Weaver dictated a thirty page memo of what he wanted Matinee
Theater to be. It was a beautiful thing. We did not fully understand
it but it called for the birth of a great new theater, a springboard for
the great actors, directors, and playwrighrs of the furure.33

Laurels are again due to Pat Weaver. Pans of this memo are in­
cluded in an Appendix to the present work (see pages 129-145). He
mentions in it that soap operas "began to rear their ugly heads" and
transfer from radio to television. This series was to be different, to have
each performance as complete in itself in order to set it apan.
 8. The Finale, 1955-58: Major Players 113

There are again special laurels for Alben McCleery. He joked that
"General Sarnoff used to introduce me as the only man on the staff
who's making more money than him." The evidence and the comments
of his staff indicate he worked hard for it. Everyone connected with
Matinee Theater came off as "inspired by McCleery's leadership." There
was a unique "kinship with the show" among everyone, the writers,
directors, actors and production personnel. Jane Murray explained,
"The selection of the man was crucial-an organizational genius and
a genius in his production techniques." She was excited about what
they had accomplished and said ten years later that actors have been
coming into her office ever since and saying, "Oh, remember, that
Matinee Theater show we did." 34
Of course, most actors found live television to be more rewarding
than film. In live television, as Jane Murray said, actors found them­
selves closer to the final result. The contributions were their own in con­
trast to film or video tape, which "can be recut and scored." These
media "deemphasize the faults of actors and they know it." So
Hollywood actors, the famous and successful included, came in droves
with special eagerness to be a part of Matinee Theater. It was such an
"unusual experiment" and McCleery gave it a special "cohesive spirit."
"I look back and am glad to have been a part of it," said Jane Murray;
"there was something alive about everything he [McCleery] did. The
big thing was the excitement. Can you imagine the difficulties-five
live dramas a week, every week. We did it-a son of camaraderie in­
fused by McCleery overcame the difficulties." This was an interesting
interview. This lady was inspired by a sense of personal accomplishment
by having been a pan of Matinee Theater. 35
No doubt Matinee Theater had its share of "potboilers," but
overall it received good critical notices. McCleery explained:

I've been very lucky in this way. I have worked on a quantity basis
and I have outstanding shows that people point to. If I suspected ahead
that I was about to do something good then I could go to bat for it. I
could publicize it. The bad ones I could hide. Someone like Coe has
to go to bat every time, so I have the better batting average on reviews.36

No doubt, also, that McCleery's organizational genius was a factor

in their success. He assembled a group of talented personnel and de­
vised new and simplified working methods to keep the operation
efficient. He focused on his old "cameo" style of production and rather
114 Live Television

than five competing producers for the five weekly shows, he used three:
a script producer, a casting producer, and a technical producer.
There are many interesting stories to come out of the 666 shows;
for example, a show was never cancelled for internal reasons. In one in­
stance an actor called up seriously ill the morning of the performance.
The director, Dennis Patrick, called McCleery and suggested cancella­
tion. "Dennis, do you know the lines?" He was not sure, but McCleery
suggested he "try it on the first dress rehearsal." The idea had not oc­
curred to Patrick but in the best tradition of the theater, the show went
on-"without a hitch."
Also, in the best tradition of the theater, the show eventually
closed. In its third year Matinee Theater started to lose money and was
replaced by two Proctor and Gamble soap operas. A novel effort was
made to save the show by appealing for public financial support-"a
dollar a year per viewer." Mrs. Ruth Conte, wife ofJohn Conte, the host
of the series, was the initiator of this plea. Executives at NBC expressed
distress at the efforts, stating they would only end in embarrassment for
the network. They said they invested $12 million in the show and that
it was showing a $3 million net loss.37 McCleery commented:
Conte thought he could force NBC into retaining it. This is
ridiculous. Three hundred twenty-five thousand did come in voluntari­
ly and not one donation more than five dollars. It could have been
millions if NBC had publicly asked for it. This was a stillborn version
of pay TV. If you don't believe it was popular, ask my wife. There was
also an enormous male audience-men who worked at night. And the
captive type audiences, such as hospitals. One Superintendent of Nurs­
ing wrote in and let them know her patients demanded not to be
disturbed with needles and meals during Matinee Theater. We did
about 200 classics and schools came to a dead halt as the kids met in
the auditorium and watched ic.'8
 9
The Finale, 1955-58:
Supporting Cast

The Alcoa-Goodyear Playhouse

Although one of Phzko-Goodyear Playhouse's sponsors returned

in 1955, the Sunday night drama on NBC was produced by an entirely
new organization. Thus the Philco Corporation was not associated with
the declining years of live television drama. The new producing
organization was Showcase Productions and Herben Brodkin of the
ABC Motorola and Elgin hours was hired as producer. He deprecated
any attempts to link the show with its predecessor: "It's a new show. " 1
Ir produced several interesting originals by Reginald Rose, and its more
successful writers, such as John Gay, moved quickly to Hollywood.
This series had only a moderate success and lasted only two
seasons. It arrived at the end of live television drama's "golden years"
and passed quickly out of the picture with the older series. Most writers
and the NBC Press Department misleadingly pictured it as simply a
continuation of the Philco-Goodyear show in its declining years. No,
the honored live dramatic series ended quickly and quietly, a class act
to the very end.

Kraft Television Theater, the Lone Survivor

The]. Walter Thompson Agency had its first indication in 1955

that live television drama was in its last big year. For the first time in

115
116 Live Television

eight years the Kraft Television Theater found its audience ratings
below the CBS competition, I've Got a Secret and Masquerade Party. 2
Kraft also got an indication of how the demand for scripts had grown
steadily in the past few years. After a suggestion by Ed Rice, Kraft
offered $50,000 to the author of the best original play of their season.
A number of other organizations were by that time giving cash awards
to television scripts. Four of the more imponant ones, the Fund for the
Republic, the Roben E. Sherwood Award, the B'nai B'rith Award, and
the Christopher Award, had propaganda mocivations. 3
The announced purpose of the Kraft award was "to give proper
recognition to distinguished achievement in the field of dramatic
television writing. "4 A number of writers complained in letters to the
editor that they would like it better if Kraft raised the price for every
script instead of overpaying for one. Edmund Rice stated that "ic was
very difficult" to tell whether the award amacted new writers to Kraft
or gained them any scripts, but "I believe it did get us some very good
scripts that we would not otherwise have gotten; but it is impossible to
tell." He felt there was a serious shonage of"good scripts" at that time,
but then "there always was and always will be a shortage of 'good' an
in any creative endeavor."' The winning play, Snapfinger Creek, by
William Noble, was chosen by Helen Hayes, Maxwell Anderson and
Walter Kerr. Script editor Florence Britton said of it: "In my opinion,
Snapfinger Creek is pure television; it could not possibly be realized in
any other medium."6 In many ways the play does seem typical of live
television scripts. It has a minimum of plot incident and is centered on
an intimate revelation of the family life of Southern farm folk. It was
based on a Georgia legend that if you can snap your fingers three times
while running "lickety-split" over the shon Snapfinger Creek bridge,
any wish will come true. Farming cotton has left the family portrayed
as poor but not without pride and abiding love for each other. When
the daughter falls in love with a young man whom she feels is beyond
her reach, her family rallies to her side to make her dream pos­
sible. 7
Kraft achieved a major event in the history of live television drama
that season with its production of an adaptation of the Walter Lord
book, A Night to Remember. This re-enactment of the last hours of the
Titanic was chosen by Rice as the Kraft play that "stands out so much
over all the others. "8 It received great critical acclaim and the largest
number of complimentary letters in the history of the dramatic series.
 9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 117

Its kinescope was replayed on May 2 to celebrate the start of Kraft's

centh year on NBC. It had a cast of 107 and used 31 different sets.John
Crosby in the Herald Tribune described it as "far and away the most
complex production in television's history":

The greatest single thing about Kraft's marvelous production ..., was
simply that it was done at all on live television ... I bring up all of this
technical detail because it contributed enormously to the show's
impacr.9

AndJack Gould wrote:

The production was an extraordinary demonstration of staging tech­

nique rhat imparted a magnificent sense of physical dimension to the
home screen ... The emotional tension and terrifying suspense were
effectively introduced and for the most part well sustained.10

Variety, too, was delighted:

A brilliant feat from any angle. If any show rated the spectacular tag,
this was it.11

Edmund Rice remarked about the replay of the kinescope film that
they wouldn't have dared to attempt it over again live, as they had Pat­
terns the season before. He told how the production came about:

The book was wrinen by a man at J. Walter Thompson-a copy

writer.We thought the book was great. We had no idea how we would
do it-it seemed impossible. The manner of presenting it that struck
us as we often sat around talking about it was to use the form of a court
investigation-after the fact. This enabled us to logically select in­
cidents we would use. The book had hundreds and hundreds of tiny in­
cidents and as we got more and more wrapped up in it, it was a job se­
lectin g what incidents to include.
I think George Roy Hill [ the director] is the only one who could have
done it, and I doubt if he could do it again. Everything was perfect.
Hundreds of cues and not a single one missed.
It was a major production job and extremely expensive.We were way
over our budget. It just had to be a success. We took a great chance;
so were so far over [ the budget] that we could not get a check from Kraft
until after the performance when they saw if it was worth it.12

When asked what Kraft productions stood out in his memory, Rice
also mentioned two other plays produced that season. The plays were
Death ls a Spanish Dancer and No Riders by Wendall Mayes and by
an unusual coincidence they were the two Kraft plays cited by Florence
118 Live Television

Britton in the appendix to her book, Best Television Plays, 195 7, as

"television plays worthy of note." 13 Rice told how Death Is a Spanish
Dancer was a play that came to them unsolicited:

But it was coo poetical. We couldn't do it but I got hold of the writer
co get something else from him. So he wrote other plays for us. It was
Wendall Mayes. He was getting good critical notices and attention, so
we decided we would take a chance on the first script he had submitted
[Death Is a Spanish Dancer].
I was really unhappy with the production it received. I think that it
is the most beautiful play we ever did.
Wendall Mayes is now in Hollywood. They [the television
playwrights) left us fast. He's doing the screen play for Anatomy of a
Murder. 14

The play was inspired by Mexican legend that "death may take the
attractive form of a Spanish dancer." Kim Stanley portrayed the girl of
the legend, who was irresistibly drawn to a Spanish dancer she sees in
a night club. She is in delicate health, and her family seeks to protect
her. They have the club closed, but she leaves home and finds her fatal
love again. 15 It seems strange that Rice was unhappy with the produc­
tion. Perhaps it was the script or actress Stanley, but it was delightful
for the viewer.
By 195 7-58, Kraft Television Theater was the lone survivor of the
live weekly series in New York. In April of 1958 J. Walter Thompson
handed over the production reins to Talent Associates, and for several
weeks it looked as if Kraft was headed for new glories. Under producer
Robert T. Herridge, a bill of one-act plays by Tennessee Williams and
a two-part adaptation of All the King's Men received excellent
reviews. 16 But the word was let out in early May that Kraft would not
be back in 1958-59. Part of the reason expressed had to do with the pur­
chase of Kraft Foods Corporation by National Dairy Products Corpora­
tion. Although the newspapers claimed other divisions of National
Dairy Products wanted to use that time for setting up their own shows.
undoubtedly the fact that Kraft did not enjoy as high ratings as it once
had was the major reason.17
In June 1958, the show became Kraft Mystery Theater and in Oc­
tober, after 11 years and five months, Kraft Theater closed its doors with
its 650th drama, Presumption of Innocence. It was replaced by two
half-hour shows, Milton Berle and Bat Masterson. 18 Since the first Kraft
show, Double Door on May 7, 1947, the series had been off the air only
 9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 119

rw-ice-inJune of1948 and 1952 when it was pre-empted by presiden­

tial conventions. The Kraft Foods Corporation also deserved much
credit. Kraft producer Maury Holland said in 1957:

Our sponsor is more undemanding than others, allows us to make

a cemun number of mistakes ... We're judged on over-all performance
rather than one show. As sponsors go this is unique. 1 9

Fred Coe and Playwnghts '56

Fred Coe was not associated wirh Producer's Showcase that season.
He opened a new series, Playwnghts '56, that alternated wirh rhe Arm­
Itrong Circle Theater. In it Coe continued rhe work he had been doing
with playwrights on rhe Philco Playhouse. His staff for rhe new series
were his Philco Playhouse associates, including directors Arthur Penn
and Vincent Donahue. In Coe's past work he had shown his recognition
of the imponance of rhe writer as a basic ingredient to success. In rhis
series the NBC files credit him_as having "held out for rhe inclusion of
'playwright' in the title," an indication of his continuing concentration
on the writer. 20
When Alben McCleery was asked about "commerical intrusion"
and "censorship" of television drama he mentioned Playwrights '56:

They've [the sponsors] got their rights and they exercise them. If you
let an artist go undisciplined there is bound to be an asceticism set in.
For example, with Playwnghts '..56 Coe had a contract with Pontiac that
gave him complete freedom. But an artist given his head will not con­
sider, for example, the atmosphere in which the commercial will suc­
ceed. That is, we must create an attitude that will be favorable to the
commercial. When that lipstick was my sponsor I couldn't do a bloody
scene right before the commercial on a color show. I did a show about
a gangster who had a girl friend who was dying of TB. This girl coughed
all thro ugh the show and the cigarette sponsor complained. I had just
completely forgotten the tie-up with cigarettes. I felt the sponsor was
right. 21

When asked if his contract on Playwrights '56 gave him carte blanche,
Coe replied:
That's a silly thing to say. It's much more complicated than that.
Nobody has carte blanche in television; that's not the way it is done.
After you reach a certain stage they [the sponsors] have faith in you
120 Live Television

and respect you. They will stand by you on what you think is
right.22

Evidently Coe did have a good bit of freedom of operation with

Playwrights '56. It was of the same type of freedom that Rice described
when speaking of Kraft Theater:

From a personal point of view we never had any trouble. You have
to take a firm stand. We had the respect of our client. They respected
our ability and our caste. They had to believe we had these if we were
going to succeed in the long run with any kind of working relation­
ship.23

At the end of the season Pontiac announced it had asked to be

relieved of the sponsorship of Playwnghts '56 and was switching its
budget to Wide Wide World. When asked what was the basis of Pon­
tiac's decision to switch its advertising budget, Coe replied:

Playwrights '.56 was an hour show every ocher week alternating with
Armstrong Circle Theater. Each show had a very specific problem; each
had different advenising aims and the rwo shows were very opposite in
their aims. Pontiac wanted a very distinct sales message co a large au­
dience. Armstrong Circle had in mind sponsor identification with a
special type of show. The rwo shows did not go together. For Pontiac
ratings were coo low and it withdrew.24

In its one season Playwnghts '56 produced a number of distinctive

new dramas though most were not as critically successful as the Phzko
dramas had been. The Waiting Place by Tad Mosel in December was
described by the author as his best play. Kim Stanley played the central
character, a 14-year-old girl. "I wanted it to be a play about people who
wait." For the young girl the waiting place is a ravine where she waits
for things to happen and acts out the things she imagines should hap­
pen. For her father it is the mill; for her grandmother it is the wheel­
chair; and for her future stepmother it is the kitchen. The conflict
evolves around the overpossessiveness of the young girl for her widowed
father and his desire to remarry. 25 Van·ety wrote about Coe's casting:

For about the first ten minutes ... it looked as if Producer Fred Coe
had flipped his lid. Imagine casting Kim Stanley as a 14-year-old. But
after those fuse few minutes they could have called him Canny Coe, for
Miss Stanley was not only completely believable in the pan, bur de­
livered one of the stunning vinuoso performances of this or any ocher
season.26
 9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 121

Producer's Showcase, Hallmark Hall of Fame,

Ford Star jubilee
After a production of a musical version of Our Town with Frank
Sinatra, Eva Marie Saint, and Paul Newman, Fred Coe left Producer's
Showcase to do the new Playwnghts '56 series. The Sinatra, Saint and
Newman production was described by reviewers as "90 minutes of
magnificent entertainment." It was a risky gamble adding music to an
established modern classic "but it lost none of its charm. "27
Donald Davis and his wife Dorothy Mathews became the new pro­
ducers for Producer's Showcase. Some productions of interest that
season were Cyrano de Bergerac with Jose Ferrar and Claire Bloom,
Caesar and Cleopatra with Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Claire Bloom, and
The Bamtts of Wimpole Street with Anthony Quayle and Katherine
Cornell. Peter Pan was repeated on January 9, 1956, to an estimated 55
million viewers. 28 Indicative of the importance of Fred Coe to the
original production was the insistence of Mary Martin and her husband
that Coe be the producer of the repeat performance. To win their
point, a "we love Coe" advertisement was printed in the New York
Times at their expense. At that point Jerome Robbins, who had staged
the show originally, threatened to walk out on the repeat production.
NBC mollified everyone by issuing a denial that Coe would produce
and gave him an unofficial "advisory" status. 29 At the end of that season
Producer's Showcase was given an Emmy and a Peabody Award for
dramatic entertainment.3°
NBC's second 90-minute dramatic series, Hall of Fame, changed
its facade that season. For this one season it was called Maurice Evans
Presents the Hallmark Hall ofFame. Maurice Evans was host for their
eight monthly productions, starred in two productions, and was listed
as producer of the series. Jack Raye! was NBC executive producer,
George Schaefer directed, and Mildred Freed Albert was associate pro­
duc er.31 The scuttlebutt was that Maurice Evans was just the host and
a performer and that the creative work was done byJack Raye!. The two
shows that Evans starred in were Shaw's The Devil's Disciple and
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Cradle Song in May with Judith
Anderson, Anthony Franciosa, and Siobhan McKenna received un­
usually flowery notices: "To have missed The Cradle Song yesterday
afternoon was to have missed one of the most beautiful and deeply stir­
ring programs that television has ever offered."32
122 Live Television

CBS played broadcasting's "follow-the-leader" and came up with

its own ten different 90-minute color "spectaculars." Jack Gould seated
simply: "The historic pattern of broadcasting is now all but junked."33
The premiere production in the Ford Star Jubilee was The Caine
Mutiny Court Martial. It was the most successful of the group. Ochers
such as High Tor, a filmed musical version with Bing Crosby, and
Blithe Spirit with Noel Coward received mixed reviews and for the
sponsor, disappointing audience racings.H In The Caine Mutiny Court
Martial Lloyd Nolan recreated his honored interpretation of Cap­
tain Queeg and "it gained magnificence on television." It was de­
scribed in the Times as "ninety minutes of brilliant television
theater," 3 5 and "one of the most arresting and rewarding dramas of the
season." 36
From the very beginning of this series the newspapers and maga­
zines were full ofarticles on one wrangle after another between the Ford
Motor Company and CBS over the selection ofplays and casting of chis
series. Once such example was the casting of Noel Coward in his two
plays, Blithe Spirit and This Happy Breed. Vanety had described the
first as "a lackluster performance."3 7 Hubbell Robinson commenced
chat "Ford didn't feel we were giving them big enough shows with big
enough stars." He stated "they did not want dramas, they wanted
musicals, but there was not enough money for lavish musicals." So Ford
cancelled out at the end of the season.

Worthington Miner and Kaiser Aluminum Hour

Worthington Miner finally got his chance to do hourly series

drama that season. Since Pac Wcaver brought him to NBC in the spring
ofl952 his only assignments had been several half-hour series-Medic,
dramatizations of medical case histories, and Frontier, a realistic type
ofWestern drama about average people who went West. InJuly of 195 6
he launched the Kaiser Aluminum Hour as the replacement for Play­
wrights '56. The show was produced by Unit Four Productions, of
which Miner was the executive producer with three producer-direccors
who alternated in production: Fielder Cook of Kraft Television Theater
and Patterns fame; George Roy Hill, also of Kraft Television Theater.
known for his A Night to Remember; and Franklin Schaffner, formerly
 9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 123

as.sociated with Studio One. The series had a rather stormy life. On
December 2 it was announced that Worthington Miner had resigned
as executive producer of Unit Four Productions and by the end of
January, Unit Four was officially ejected as the producing unit of the
Ka11er Aluminum Hour. There had been public displays of differences
between the sponsors and producers for several months. The Unit
charged that the sponsor disapproved of several plays it wanted to pro­
duce.38 In turn, the sponsor, through the Young and Rubicam Agency,
indicated dissatisfaction with the plays that were produced. Some of
the scripts that caused arguments were John Galsworthy's Loyalties; a
topical drama on the Poznan trials; Memphis by Morning by Robert
Alan Aurthur, dealing with Northern and Southern racial attitudes in
an accident concerning a white driver and a black victim; The Healer
by Loring Mandel, the story of a faith healer who loses and regains his
faith; and The Gathering by Reginald Rose, which dealt with a family
in an air raid with an 0. Henry twist when it was discovered that the
family ponrayed was Russian and the air raid was in Moscow. Miner ex­
plained:
We had a contract for an autonomous operation. But Mr. Kaiser
wanted a happy show-everything comes out in the end. For example,
after the Poznan Trials show he came into New York and raised hell and
NBC backed us up. He then threatened to go to Washington-this was
the beginning of some Senate investigations. You can't buck Henry
Kaiser. He was going to have the kind of show he wanted.39
In resigning, Miner stated, "I realized then that network broad­
casting of dram atic shows was doomed. I quit. Once the networks
sacrificed control to advertisers, live drama was doomed." "Henry
Kaiser," said Miner, "didn't want plays on topics such as the semitic
problem." In contrast, he said "one of the things that made Studio One
possible was that 90 percent of the disputes with Westingthouse were
decided in favor of me." He exclaimed, "I could not have created that
sho w otherwise!"40
At a meeting with the Young and Rubicam Agency and with
Henry Kaiser himself, the Unit Four producers were told "to stay in the
American non-controversial format. "41 Talent Associates, which pro­
duced the Armstrong Circle Theater, took over, but in the spring both
Kaiser and the Armstrong accounts walked out on NBC. They
theoretically did not wish to compete with CBS's $64,000 Question
without a half-hour lead.
124 Live Television

The Last Hurrahs

In December 1957 when Studio One joined Climax and Playhouse
90 at CBS's Television City in Hollywood, television types in New York
were desuoyed by the news, and the opening production, "Brother­
hood of the Bell," brought this New York Times comment: "Appre­
hensions over the fate of Studio One were fully justified . . . the show
was pretentious mediocrity." By April Westinghouse announced it was
replacing it with a filmed show after ten consecutive years on the air,
and two days later NBC announced that Kraft Television Theater was
cancelled. Alcoa-Goodyear and Robert Montgomery Presents had given
up earlier. 42 An article on the eight year run of Robert Montgomery
Presents in the New Republic in September 1957 claimed television
had been wasting away for two years and had "suddenly given up the
ghost." The author, Manin Luray, quoted Robert Montgomery in a de­
pressing statement:

Fifty-two productions a year is hard manual labor, but I have no feel­

ing of relief that it is over. I feel kind of empty about the whole situa•
tion.43

While the 195 7-58 season was the end for New York, Pat Weaver's
"spectacular" concept still provided network programming with its
chief claim to quality entertainment. The new DuPont Show of the
Month on CBS, produced by Talent Associates, had several successes,
the most exciting of which was an adaptation of The Bridge ofSan Luis
Rey. 44 Playhouse 90 returned on CBS, but it was the six Hall of Fame
specials on NBC that captured the big headlines. Hall of Fame
premiered with Marc Connelly's adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize play,
The Green Pastures. There was an all-Negro cast of 60, headed by
William Warfield as De Lawd, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as Noah,
and Cab Calloway as the King of Babylon. It was described as a mag­
nificent achievement, done with taste, humor, and reverence.45 The
Hall a/Fame production in March of an original, Little Moon ofAlbans
by James Costigan, starringJulie Harris and Christopher Plummer, was
also significant and won most of the Sylvania and Emmy awards, and
the Hallmark series received the Peabody Award for the best television
entertainment that season.46
One aspect of the change in network programming was that live
television was no longer associated with "just" entertainment but with
 9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 125

h
"quality" encenainment. Tis was unfortunate in terms of survival. It
is best illustrated by Producer's Showcase's most interesting perfor­
mance of an Old Vic production of Romeo and Juliet, starring Claire
Bloom and John Neville. It was a glorious 90 minutes and the Times
review the morning after excitedly said: "To know that such supreme
theaue was enjoyed in every city and village should give all concerned
reason for pride and satisfaction."47 But the following week the
Trendex audience ratings for the show and its CBS competition were
as follows:

8-8:30 8:30-9 9-9:30

Romeo and Juliet 15.6 14.8 10.9
Burns and Allen 20.8
Talent Scouts (Godfrey) 26.3
I Love Lucy 41.6

The interpretation of these results was that Romeo and Juliet had
had very few viewers in contrast to the rivals' attractions. Variety com­
menced two days later: "Shakespeare doesn't pay off on television. "48
Gould was shocked at the attitude that NBC presumably had goofed
in the competitive business of broadcasting and stated:
I can't believe that anyone at NBC had expected Romeo andJuliet
co make a good showing against Gracie Allen, Arthur Godfrey, and
Lucille Ball.The rating services, however, make it appear as if NBC was
defic ient .... In their total impact they [ the racings] pose the ridiculous
notion that Romeo andJuliet muse be equated with I Love Lucy in terms
of mass popularity. We do noc equate Shakespeare in any other
medium, as literature, as legitimate theatre (even in Classic Comics)
with the popularity of Mike Hammer.49
For years, the networks, the critics, the producers and directors,
had all pre ached that the immediacy, the spontaneiry of live television
was its most important characteristic. The errors on a taped or filmed
show can be rectified. Thus to many of the people involved, film was
a more technical medium, less artistic, less satisfying. And in the end
it was a mis take to equate live broadcast with quality. Talk shows are
still successful on television because they give the illusion of immediacy
a nd spontaneity.
The published lamentations coming out of New York when live
television died would fill several volumes. But some of the comments
126 Live Television

in interviews with the major players were more interesting. Miner was
brutal and blunt:

Hollywood meant bad crap. It meant stars and bad scripts and
money. You practically have to get out of Holl ywood to make a fine pic­
ture. If they can foul their own nest, they cenainly can ruin television. ' 0

Edmund Rice was also specific:

Yes, film was ruled our by the economies of broadcasting. If it had

been kept out we could have developed something really great- now
it is a bastard medium.H

Alben McCleery has already been quoted on the film magnates'

boycott of television, and while he was a convert co Hollywood produc­
tion facilities, he was no fan of Hollywood producers:

It would be interesting if someone would do a psychological srudy o f

what was happening in Hollywood. They thought i t was a fad! These
were the same people that goofed up on the talkies and cried to hold
back radio.
There's an arrogance about the networks that's frightening. They are
like the feudal lords on the hill. I've got it-no one else can have it­
King of the Mountain! They look askance at the idea that this is a public
urility.
When you look at it-what is a network? No industry ever had such
a small capital outlay with such a large profit.
The nets say they give the people what they want. We had slavery- it
was the will of the majority. But it wasn't good for us.
Sarnoff and the networks resent the performers and producers. They
brag about balance in programming. This is the devil's excuse-a cover
for crap. They point to the news. We will end up the best informed,
uncultured slobs in the worldP 2

Fred Coe blamed ABC:

Ironically, you would think the more competition you got would
help. But ABC jumped in and did not compete at the level of CBS and
NBC. They were like the Giants and the Dodgers and ABC was a bush
leaguer. Both of the big networks had third rate shows, but both were
conscious of their public responsibility. They were going to make televi­
sion artistically important-even while competing with one another.
ABC came in and rook advantage of this competition and introduced
what I call their "horse-ass" operas, their 42nd Street side shows, their
Disneyland public relations shows; and they lowered television. Thev
made it into a side show. They didn't care about anything bur th�
ratings. NBC and CBS had had enough pride to attempt co do
 9. The Finale, 1955-58: Supporting Cast 127

something worthwhile. ABC entered at the cheapest level of competi­

tion.H

The commercial intrusion of the advertiser has always received the

bulk of television's criticism. Hubbell Robinson put it this way:

If it is a morass of mediocrity, a weekly shambles of violence and

villainy, a belt-line assemblage of repetitive inanity, it is because a vast
number of those Americans passively accept it that way.They watch it;
they buy the products it peddles.)4
We quoted the eminent critic and novelist John Crosby early in
this book, as he "bid farewell to TV" in a column in the Los Angeles
Mirror. He stated "Television isn't awful. Awful things are fun to write
about .... But Rawhide isn't really that awful. It's a bore." He con­
tinues in this same column in 1960 with a point of view that is quite
different from Hubbell Robinson's:
I am appalled that this great medium of information and education
is so totally dedicated to utter vacuity. Don't be misled by the profes­
sional apologists that this is all television can afford to do or all the
public wants of it. The people want and deserve something much better
than they 're getting. As for what TV can afford, all I know is that it an­
nually grosses $600,000,000 and for that kind of money it ought to do
better than "Pete and Gladys."n

Last Words

Television is a broadc ast medium. Unlike the producing agencies

of motion pictures, television stations lease their privilege to broadcast
only as long as they "broadcas t in the public interest, convenience and
necessity." The fundamental concept remains that broadcas ting has a
basic purpose of which entertainment is only a part. But the reality is
that entertainment is its proximate purpose. The ultimate reality is that
the idea behind television is not to entertain, but to sell sponsors'
products.
In 1961 a 35-year-old Chicago law partner of Adlai Stevenson's
named Newton Minow, became FCC chairman. This courageous man
dared to stand up before the moguls of the broadc ast industty and the
bosses of Madison Avenue and tell them to their faces what was wrong
with television. His castigation of the industty was unprecedented. It
128 Live Television

had never been done before. He described the majority of television

shows as a "vast wasteland." "I did not come to Washington to idly
observe the squandering of the public's air waves," he said, describing
them as a "precious natural resource. "S6
Though it is true that the networks immediately began mending
their political fences and public image and featured more news and in­
formation programs, the prime viewing hours were slow to change. The
viewing audiences appeared to get more sophisticated in the 1970s and
miniseries such as Roots were tremendously successful. Cable and
satellites brought more choice to the audiences of the 1980s but because
of the twin pressures of time and money, the melancholy fact is that
television is seldom as good as it could be.
 Appendix I
Memorandum from NBC's
Pat Weaver, 1955*

MEMORANDUM ON NBC MATINEE

TO: Jane Murray
FROM: Pac Weaver

July 4, 1955

This is a memorandum to all concerned based on our decision to

go ahead this fall with hour dramas, different each day, from 3:00 to
4:00 on NBC under the over-all direction of Al McCleery.
This latest drama plan has a lot of predecessor ideas which can
enrich and stimulate the new final NBC matinee pattern and I want to
recap some of them and also point out why I agreed to make this ue­
mcndous gamble on the 3- to 4-hour plan.
First of all we have some immediate difficulties like the P&G
acceptance of the plan which if not handled properly can really

*This is dictated matenal provided byJane Murray, and reprinted here by per­
mission. It is typical of the rambling, .free-wheeling memo style of the creative
genius, Pat Weaver. As president of NBC, he was responsible for much of
television as we know it today-the Today Show, the Tonight Show,program­
ming of specuzls, the magazine concept of advertising, and so on. Albert
McC/ee ry, who produced Matinee Theater, said of this memo: "It was a
beautiful thing. We did not fully understand it but it called for the birth of
a gre at new theater, a springboard for the great actors, directors and playwrights
of the future. "

129
130 Appendix I

jeopardize the possibility of going ahead. We also have problems of

handling our talent and we have the problems of budget that are still
being estimated with a high degree of hunch. In other words, the pres­
ent figure for five hour dramas a week, in color from Holl ywood under
Al's direction, are not as precise as we would like to have them.
More important, however, is my feeling that the five hours a week
are valuable in part in themselves but more so because of the tremen­
dous control they give NBC over the planned development of dramatic
production in television. I think that the possibilities as I will outline
them that can be done once a great drama machine is underway, are
so exhilarating that we must go forward with the plan.
Many of the points made require individuals in NBC to use judg­
ment and common sense as they figure out how they can best fit into
this over-all philosophy, and how their present assignment can be ex­
tended or changed to make them helpful in the new dramatic proj­
ect.
It is hard to spell out the impact of any new project on each
member of NBC and even each department. It is presumed by me char
the various executives responsible· will, themselves, attempt to analyze
the effect of the project on themselves and their departments in an
effort to modify their practices so that they can be more helpful to the
new project. As an example, Sales and Legal know that che whole trend
of the business is toward the right of way of NBC to take back time
periods for occasional broadcasts and for regularly scheduled monthly
broadcasts and, therefore, everything they should be doing should be
making it more easy for us to accomplish an end which will see 15 or
20 percent of our time each week given over to special broadcasts. This
is an example of what I mean of departments thinking ahead to the im­
pact of what we are doing on what they should be doing.
As you will see when we get to drama, the impact is particularly
directed at the whole program development operation, and the writing
development plan. But it does include talent and all nighttime pro­
ducers really are affected by some of the possibilities, as outlined
below.
Originally, when we started in television, and soaps began to rear
their ugly heads, there was a big conflict between some of us who felt
that television was going to be different enough from radio so that the
old technique would not work; the old soap opera radio technique
would not work, and that we should try for stories more complete in
- - - ---- - --

Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 131

themselves from day to day because of the higher absorption and the
tension demands of television over radio. And the group who felt
strongly that the radio formula in daytime soap operas, as in other
entenainment, would be effective in television. Because of the great ex­
perience that the latter group had, in general we have gone along with
them. Funhermore, in the case of CBS, from twelve to one, over a long
period of time and aided greatly by bad shows on NBC, the soap opera
block has been effective. However, even there, we are told by P&G,
that the difference in hit quality in the individual attractions is far far
more imponant than it ever was in radio, and that a bad show, or one
that does not catch hold after a hit, will not carry its audience as it did
in radio.
Meanwhile, a soap opera block on NBC from 11 to 12 did not get
off the ground. After P&G swung the famous double four to five or ten
million dollars worth of business to CBS, at the beginning of '54, we
countered with a three to five soap opera block to see if we could hold
their business and were successful in holding a pan of it with this new
plan, which represented a straight concession to their thinking on our
part. This, as you know, has not been successful, although 4:00 to 5:00
is not unsuccessful as 3:00 to 4:00. The soaps finally gave way, earlier
this year, to entertainment programs, personalities, and we are still
testing them. In the case of Ted Mack and the new Bill Goodwin show
we will be placing hit personality shows in time periods other than 3:00
to 4:00 and if these shows have impact we will keep them. In other
words, there is no reason to feel that Bill Goodwin is thrown off before
he starts because we have time periods in the daytime which are not suc­
cessfully programmed and we have time periods that the stations would
give us if we had successful programming to put in - at least many of
them have told us so and this includes the 2:00 to 3:00 afternoon time
period.
Following, however, the soaps not taking off too strongly, even on
CBS, the next move of the daytime drama argument was to find a mid­
dle way between the soap opera technique of continuing stories and the
technique of a story complete in itself each day, which was the com­
petitor. This is going way back five years when the proposal was made
to do five half-hour shows with a story complete in itself each day, as
against two soap operas back-to-back. This was followed by a com­
promise in which the five half-hours each day would all revolve around
characters that were firm for the whole locale of the shows - in other
132 Appendix I

words, there would be one doctor and one drugstore and one lawyer,
and so forth, who would appear in different stories, but the stories
themselves would be individual.
This compromise was succeeded by another one called Home
Town, where four soap operas to take care of conventional buying
demands were put back-to-back but within a framework of a town, as
in the half-hour strip, with the same characters running through. This
was an exciting plan-an excellent plan-and with proper backing
probably would have worked. However, in the time between Home
Town and Today there has been a turn away from conventional soap
opera and today we would have to evaluate Home Town as against the
new five-hour plan and the new dimensions of television-and it cer­
tainly has great advantages to go with the present new hour-drama­
daily plan.
The most recent of a number of other dramatic programs was the
idea of running movies, either the same movie-a great A picture-re­
presented to the public for the first time out of theatres and on
television-the same picture to be played five days a week to get the
cumulative audience so that everybody, in effect, in America would see
the movie. This plan, and many variations which included five different
pictures a week and repeats and all the other combinations and per­
mutations, was finally abandoned for money reasons about six weeks
ago.
Additional plans, including two projects outlined by Joey Chester
a few weeks ago, brought up the final creative catalyzation(?) which
ended in the proposals by McCleery for the five hours once a week.
The important thing to remember when you have a project finally
agreed upon that has a real long history, is that many different values
are present here and they must all be taken in to consideration and
made to work for the over-all project. If we play our cards right this
project can not only be a great success that returns to NBC its three
o'clock leadership and therefore takes care of us for the afternoon,
because a 3:00 to 4:00 success means a 4:00 to 5:00 success and helps
us even in our new conflicts with the Mouse at fi v e o'clock.
But it is unlikely that five cameo-style stories, done with the
budget that we have discussed, will turn this trick on sheer merit. It's
possible that this could happen but it is certainly not what we will gam­
ble on. The money is too great to let Al, without help, attempt to solve
the problem by the sheer genius of his creative powers.
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 133

Rather, we should consider NBC and its enterprises as a funnel

through which will flow to rhe 3:00 to 4:00 daytime five-hours-a-week,
a flood of properties, artists, stories, ideas, opportunities and advan­
tages which will give Al a range of powers far beyond anyrhing rhat he
could afford or could have harnessed into his own immediate producing
organization. I will be more specific about this on rhe orher side.
First of all, Al will have a studio in Hollywood where, as I under­
stand it, only rhe Milton Berle color programs will dispossess him, bar­
ring urgent and imponant operations not now foreseen.
I firmly believe rhat norhing is better looking rhan big faces in
color and that from 3:00 to 4:00 across the country if the color sets are
showing heads-that rhere will be a tremendously good reaction in our
over-all color problems. As a matter of fact, the show that I will never
forget as rhe one that really made me believe in color, was Vice Presi­
dent Barkley being interviewed by Earl Godwin. That was rhe early
color show rhat made me really get sent on color, because I had not
realized until rhat time that rhe real impact of color was showing you
real people as they really are. I had rhought of it more as a technicolor
device that would show Mounties riding in wirh red coats on, and all
the rest rhat's really rhe superficial aspects of color presentation. The
real secret of color as a powerful weapon is that it shows you rhe real
world as it really is. This includes rheatre too, but rheatre is only a part
of it.
This studio should be organized and rehearsal schedules set up in
such a way rhat the basic hour shows are done on a schedule rhat makes
sense economically in terms of the union calls for rhe crews, and so
fonh, and the shows should, in general, be developed to fit rhat com­
mercial pattern. I know Al understands this because I've already
discussed it wirh him and he has plans for certain kinds of lighting posi­
tions, and so forth, which, in the big studio, he can handle and leave
standing, so that we will be able to do this tremendously complicated
and expensive job wirhout any feeling rhat it is being done on an
economical scale. This also brings up rhe size of the studio which, in
any kind of camera work rhat wants space attributes, can get the
tremendous deep shots available in the new color studio in Burbank.
And for those frankly experimental dramas rhat will be done from time
to time in any such volume project as we're discussing here-rhe Bur­
bank color studio will really challenge the ingenuity and imaginations
of writers and producers.
134 Appendix I

Without in any way attempting to give priority I will now describe

in item forms things that should be done and harnessed into the over­
all NBC matinee.
When major stars are approached for big deals that involve
substantial commitments on our side, and this involves not only our
spectaculars but even the hour-dramas and as a matter of coordination
through Len Hole's program and talent development operation, of the
buying practices of the Robert Montgomery, Fred Coe, Kraft Theater,
Lux Theater, Pontiac, Armstrong Theater axis (access?). When a star
makes a deal for a show, every effort should be made to get the star to
agree to do one daytime show, perhaps with a rerun right so that we
would get two uses out of it. This brings up bookkeeping and until we
know more about the possibility of getting the star, it is hard to be
specific. The reason that we give to the stars is frankly that we are trying
to upgrade dramatic entertainment in the daytime for women and that
their name will add prestige and lustre to the operation and do a good
thing for themselves and for us and for the theatre and television
generally. This sell may fall on deaf ears with the agents, bur I think
it can be done, certainly in enough cases, to make it worthwhile. Again
the premise would be that artist A signs for a Monday night spectacular
and agrees to do a daytime cameo-type one-hour drama with a single
repeat right included in the original deal by kinescope and this is to be
in at the convenience and with script approval, etc. Obviously here we
are trying to get, over the course of the year, enough big names with
enough appearances to have a quality feeling to the series.
In the writing development plan, certain basic stories and myths
and classics and properties in the public domain can be selected, either
by Al or by others in the development operation, and assigned to young
writers, giving the specifications needed from our production point of
view. As for instance largely cameo-style and with limitations on the
number of actors, etc. The adaptations written by these people, and
perhaps 10 or 20 could write an adaptation of the same show, would
be available for Al's use. It would give an immediate exposure position
for the writing development plan to have as great a need of material
as will be forthcoming with NBC Matinee.
The elements of theatre that have been successful from time to
time should be studied carefully by all of us with the hope that we could
take semi-risks on the NBC Matinee by trying things that we would
never wish to try over all, but as part of the operation we are not afraid
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 135

to try. For instance, back before the first World War the matinee idol
was a great feature of the legitimate stage and later in silent movies
there were a number of men who achieved the status of matinee idols.
This has more or less gone out with the talkies and the theatre of late
but as I believe Walter Kerr once outlined in one of his provocative col­
urnns, the matinee idol still has a lot of power left in him. If we were
to go through all of the actors available to us and pick the one that we
thought could be made into a matinee idol, because of personal
magnetism and personality and so forth, and if we were to work on his
personal style, accentuating it in degree and nuances in order to ac­
rually tailor-make for ourselves a matinee idol, and if we were then to
have vehicles written that would bring out these qualities in the way
and the swagger, if that is the quality, or lack of diction if that is the
quality, that this kind of star-building operation requires. The matinee
idol is a good three-show attempt over a 2- or 3-month period to see
if we have anything either in the plan or in the particular idol that we
get-we may have to clast that idol and get a new one. It reminds me
that iconoclast means image-destroyer, so this is an idolclast, an idol­
desuoyer.
This is a little bit different from star-building in general but cer­
tainly with five hours a week of presentation together with the six hour
nighttime dramas we now have enough production under our control
or where we can make it in self interest worth the while of J. Walter
Thompson and others to cooperate with us in getting stars and material
and so forth. We can now move out really on a star-building basis.
When we put Grace Kelly on the air in the Michael Arlen show Cads
and Scoundrels back five years and some months ago, it was obvious
that she was really something. But if we signed her it would do us very
little good, as CBS found out when it signed some dramatic stars of
great promise and then really could do nothing with them. But that's
quite a different thing from today when we will have direct control of
five hours a week, very close control of a few more, and certainly per­
suasive power over a few more. A new Grace Kelly comes along and we
should be able, through the NBC Talent Department, to sign her on
a guarantee basis of some kind with agreements by the nighttime hours
as well as Al, to use the girl often enough to make her guarantee and
of course she gains by the promotion and the exploitation that we will
give her to make her a star as rapidly as possible and that is far faster
than is available to movies.
136 Appendix I

When I say a girl I mean a girl or boy or old man or anything else
that anybody believes can be made into a star.
I also mean of course that the same type of operation that you use
for making stars is available for writers. There is no reason to believe
that as we find good writers that we cannot, with some sort of a base
guarantee, have them exclusively available to us. There is enough range
between our nighttime and daytime dramas to keep them busy.
Similarly when we get to program development of shows we have
now suddenly a new situation with five hours of dramatic production
a week directly controlled by us. We can go out and purchase a novel
that we know would be a good television show and have two or three
adaptations written because we now have a place to play that show if
we do not place it in our nighttime presentations. The whole question
of buying material and having properties developed for television takes
on an entirely different prospect with the beginning of the NBC
Matinee. All people in production, in talent, in program development,
should think about this new prospect and devise ways and means that
the additional production that will be going out on our facilities be
harnessed for the good of developing better material, better writers,
giving actors more of a chance to become stars, etc.
I mentioned the matinee idol as a line of attack. A similar one ...
[end of record].
If you were to think about somebody who could do this, like
Spencer Tracy, or somebody who would do this, like Hume Cronyn,
and could, as well, you will follow my thought. You would write at
least six, or perhaps more, different characterizations for the actor. He
wouldn't be made up in each of the characterizations and a motion pic­
ture made of a montage of these as a sort of promotion plan and
device- an actor-building device emphasizing the actor's ability to act
in various characterizations, as against appealing as a matinee idol does.
Each of the shows would be Tracy or Cronin or whoever in a role that
is precisely defined in some way. The shows themselves would of course
be character delineations in large part but then a great deal of television
is going to be that anyway. The power of the actor in the big hit form
is without any question overpowering. This again gets down to writing
by direction. In other words, you get writers in and you say "Writer,
I want you to write me a story about Spencer Tracy in a character in each
succeeding generation from the time of the beginning of the United
States until now, or roughly, let us say, 3 to 100 years so that you would
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 137

have six characterizations including one that would be slightly in the

future." Theo the writer would come back and say I have them here.
The fuse one is one of the founding fathers of the country, the second
one is a pioneer in the early days of the move to the Ohio Valley, the
third one is a southern gentleman in the pre-Civil War period, the
fourth one is in the war, and so forth- and you would pick-you would
then build something that would have real meat for the star and would
uap the star into being willing to do the plan. You would also give an
exciting over-all pattern for the public and the people, something to
talk about, something to look forward to. This kind of attempt is quite
separate from the matinee idol or even the star-building attempts, but
again indicates the uemendous flood of new thinking that can emanate
from mass production of drama.
One of the things that I have been suongly urging for some time
but without too much success, is to attempt to take a great basic attrac­
tion such as a play or a book or a movie or a public domain theme and
instead of deciding to do a series-the old idea-or to do a one-shot -
which is our new idea and we are now getting pretty well into the
firmament-that we take the middle way, which is to say that
Showboat or Gone with the Wind or Roger's Rangers or Captain
Horatio Hornblower- any major attraction already known largely to
the American public-but instead of doing a series or instead of doing
a one-shot, one plans to do a series of episodic one-shots but with the
same characters, locale, feeling and style, except that each one has a
sub-plot chat becomes complete in itself in the single hour. For in­
stance, if one were doing in these daytime dramas, stories about Scarlett
O'Hara, each of the episodes would not have to follow the original book
at all but would merely be based upon the characters, the locale, the
spirit and style of the book and would be complete-in-themselves shows
without any cliff-hanger techniques. This obviously couldn't be an
older idea. Movies have been running Hardy families and Maisie stories
from the beginning. Before them came books who kept presenting new
adventures of the similar artist or a succeeding episode of a family's life,
etc. Nonetheless, I don't believe that we are consciously attempting to
find good basic characterizations and locales of stories and then think­
ing noc in terms of an adaptation but as a series of let us say a dozen
hour shows based upon Mama, if it hadn't been made into a serial, or
Gone with the Wind or any of the basic attractions as mentioned
above.
138 Appendix I

This again merely indicates another approach to the whole field of

material, another approach to the whole field of roles for stars.
This also brings up the possibility of Al doing a stock company
idea such as we have discussed elsewhere, but again where the possibili­
ties of the stock company not being as good as it should have always
held us back from doing very much about it. The closest to it being
done is the Montgomery summer show.
But if one of the five days a week for a 13 week period, at some
given time, was to be devoted to the NBC repertory theatre, with seven
or eight good actors agreeing to take a 13 week job, Al could then pre­
sent a real rep-theatre type presentation which is, of course, tremen­
dously helpful, particularly to the actors. How good it is for audience
is a question that would depend upon the actors and the material and
the production. There is no reason to believe that it could not be ex­
cellent theatre, and, therefore, get big audiences. But, it again, in my
thinking, is mainly as an extremely valuable weapon in developing our
medium; training actors; broadening the range of product offered the
public, finding a way in which classics can be adapted for television and
used successfully, even though presented individually and by them­
selves and without explanation they might not be fully understandable
to the great audiences.
I cannot dtop the classics without mentioning one long-time hope
that I only submit for the record. If we have the color remote unit in
California it is just possible that Al might want to do an adaptation of
one of the classics in his series and, of course, the Greek Theatre in
Griffith Park would be an ideal location for such a dtama. Again, in
the kind of a project that I can foresee, being behind the actual NBC
matinee, I can easily foresee this not only being done, but being so pro­
moted that it would become a highly reported and looked forward to
and done with a large audience in great success. This is because I believe
that the people will always watch something that they are not interested
in if they have been sold on the idea that it is valuable or rewarding
or inherently good, or in general have a feeling of prestige associated
with it, a feeling that if they do like it it reflects credit on them, and
if they don't like it it reflects lack of knowledge on their side. In any
event, in a range of products such as can be offered on NBC Matinee,
including classics presented outside the Burbank Studio, can be con­
sidered. The money is something else again. I don't know about the
cost of doing a Greek Theatre presentation with the outside unit. But
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 139

here again I recommend to the financial men, as I have always, and as

I know they have responded to nobly in many parts, it does us no good
co have expensive equipment that is not being used because the price
placed upon it is so high that none of our own producers will use it.
The proper thing to do is to get the actual cost of the use in order to
get it used and made into an indispensable tool by the producers and
then eventually the cost of the optional instrument will become more
and more non-optional and basic.
I am saying that if the color remote unit is priced at full price and
is not used, the mistake is not in the Program Department, but in the
department that puts the price on it.
Cenainly, the purchase of stories for television, either already
published or one-page originals, as the movies did for so long and has
been recommended to us from time to time, is a must that should be
harnessed in at once in the program development operations of the net­
work now that Al is going ahead with the five hours a week. Originals,
a couple of pages long should be set up on some basis, announcements
should be made, stories should come in in which the writer of the
original gets a small fee and a second payment if used, and a percentage
of the residuals with the adapter. This is most important. The use of
shon originals in Hollywood was extremely successful and it can be even
more successful to us. This, again, is something that must be set up
organizationally, but the responsibility of it first of all is in Len Hole's
depanment, because he is supposed to be coordinating all of the ac­
tivities in the procurement and development of programs and talent
and material.
When it comes to writer development, one of the great areas where
you can find out whether somebody has imagination and knowledge
and insight is to assign classics for adaptation. If you take the works of
any of the lesser known classical writers, including the writers of an­
tiquity, and have young writers take a whirl at adaptations, I think it will
be demonstrated whether or not they have major talent or whether they
are not really ready for the major challenge. I am thinking of Terrence
and then the earlier European writers, but not, of course, Shakespeare.
I'm not at all sure that some of the great classics that nobody sees any­
more couldn't be used for adaptation. But if you take writers, par­
ticularly if you have a young team of writers, then you give them
Marlowe or Moliere or an early novel by Dodge and set them to work,
bringing in an hour show adaptation built on the character and plot
140 Appendix I

that has been delivered to them, I think it will be remarkable what you
may find. Both ways.
Despite the fact that the budget may preclude music in a conven­
tional sense, I think we should seriously consider the possibility of using
music on these shows that is distinctive, like the "Third Man" music
with the zither. I don't know quite how we could handle this but it is
a question for us to seriously work on. It might be well worth the money
to have even an unusual 6-piece combo that would have available to
it recorded music as well as their own live compositions and work out
a 5-day-week scoring arrangement that would get the style of music in
to help carry the drama and give it the feeling of freshness and in­
dividuality that I know it can have.
On music, one obvious line of thought is to take the instrumenta­
tion that we generally associate with the period. If you're doing histori­
cal drama and use that, thus the harpsichord takes care of whole period
and you can get to the classics with a lute-like presentation and the East
comes up with a flute and Africa with a drum, etc., etc. In modern
times you have a muted trumpet for the '20s and for the story about
a child you have a harmonica and for the story about a young artist you
can have a recorder, and so forth. If it's the story about an engineer you
can even have a music that really was an instrument pretending to be
sound, as a sort of music synthesizer-noise.
Music is one of the corollary attributes of this over-all project that
will give it the feeling of importance and size and scope and excitement
that we want. We don't want to sneak hour-dramas and get the word
out that they're cameo-styled to save money and that the whole thing
is something other than it is. What it is is a tremendous and ex­
hilarating dramatic project that has more promise in it than anything
we have ever done, as far as bringing maturity and scope and range to
the story-telling pan of our medium. This feeling should also be pres­
ent in the finalization of the name and in the presentation of the open­
ing and the close. Here, space, scope, sweep, mobility, bigness, stature,
_prestige-these are the qualities that we want to get as we go to what
then becomes good drama done largely in big heads because it is the
story of people and we are stressing people in the kind of material that
we will deliver. We must get cracking on real projection, particularly
if color is going to bring up some problems, because that is one of the
ways that Al can get more extension in his presentation.
One of the avenues for volume production of drama is the subject
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 141

matter pattern which directs again the kind of material you try to find,
the kind you try to have written for you and kind that you try to pro­
mote as an entity so that the individual dramas are aided and supported
by something bigger than themselves.
I am dictating this on the Fourth of July, so naturally I think of
patriotism as a basic thought. One could, during this particular week,
run five hour-dramas that take five variations on the theme of either the
founding of our Republic, or the theme of patriotism or something.
Similarly at Christmas one can do five Christmas stories during the week
and by proper long-range planning and projection and the obtaining
of a title and an idea and a trailer, that can be used for promotion in
radio and television, one can make a real event of this series of presenta­
tions on the Christmas theme. This again is another avenue to
demonstrate the kind of thinking that all of us can do to provide further
richness and body to this essentially great plan.
In the program development side I think that we would have an
interesting project if we went out to the amateur dramatic, or profes­
sional dramatic, groups across the country and we said that if they
would send in a story outline for a show that they believe would make
a good one-hour drama on film, and if they would point out why they
could handle that story-in other words, if the University of Denver or
Utah, or someplace in the Rockies, had a story that would be shot on
location with horses or in the mines or on the ski slopes, and if they laid
out a story that, in other words, had a real grass roots Americana feel­
ing, we would consider sending to the stories we selected, say the two
leads, a director and a cameraman who would complete the job with
the local community. In other words, a 50-minute motion picture
would be made having in mind the NBC Matinee theatre as the
distribution point and we would do one from Taos, New Mexico and
we would do one from La Jolla, California and we would do one from
Buffalo, New York and so forth, but each would be particularly impor­
tant to do on location because of some values and that they would be
essentially the product of the local area but in order to give positive
smooth performance we would step in with a couple of the leading roles
and a couple of creative people and the funds to carry it through to a
conclusion. However, even in this case we might make exceptions and
let groups carry the whole thing through, if they require it. But this is
again another field now not being touched that could provide a rich flow
of material to us or at least there is a chance that this could happen.
142 Appendix I

It is planned of course that the television series be live for NBC

Matinee. Nonetheless, we must remember the possibility of replaying
nighnime kinescopes and figure out how much this would cost and see
if we can plan for precontracting with rights to get those costs down so
that they could be used in this series. This is in addition to getting script
rights for use, specifically where possible for a second run in conjunc­
tion with the first run at a lower price on the basis that it would either
help the first run or build the property to do a second version of it in
the period before or after the nighttime show.
We must also remember that five hours a week is a lot of hours and
that it may well be for budget and other reasons that four would be
preferable with the fifth being a motion picture production or kine­
scope production. It might even be that Al would want to have one
show a week taken out of production and being supplied to him or that
a backlog be built for vacation of his entire troupe and staff by having
two weeks of filmed programs at some point. In any event, this is not
the time to decide to cut down on any possible sources of hour-shows
when we are about to add five daytime to our already-added-to night­
time list.
Therefore, such ideas as could be done in kinescope even though
in black and white and even though not in Hollywood, should b e
worked on and considered. But I am thinking less of our NBC people
doing additional shows for Al, than I am thinking of the opportunities
to use our development money to bring new products in and to experi­
ment with hours, which, if they do not turn out, we throw in the
ashcan, but if they do turn out we have a place to use them on the NBC
Matinee. Along the lines of the above suggestion of community groups
there are also small task force groups who could do pictures on a shoe­
suing. This is particularly uue where the pictures really are based on
either locale or basic job or a historical period or something. For in­
stance, one could do a complete Indian story in the woods with Indians
if it were a suong personal story and done in a semi-documentary way
and done by a little group of three or four people who were devoted
to their mission and took their equipment and a small amount of
money and just went and came back with a 50-minute story about In­
dians. This could be the Indian story with the big "I wish I'd said that"
finish.
The Kon-Tiki film is in a way an example of what I'm talking
about. Here we sit in New York with our program development money
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 143

and in romps John Sutherland with an idea and a young writer­

photographer which involves chanering a two-masted schooner for a
month in the Bahamas to do a story to be shot on the boat and one tired
cay. Providing this is not very much money that they're talking about,
it seems to me that we could very well finance it, hope for the best,
because we know that if it is a good result we can use it on NBC
Matinee. If we were to do it today with only the nighttime shows as
availabilities, we would probably give them a great deal more money
but we would expect a great deal more picture. If they're doing it on
a shoestring I think that the chances are that it would be either a good
picture or not, not because of funds but because of the essential idea
and the people doing it. The difference between a $10,000 advance and
a $50,000 advance to a group of zealots who are going to come back
with footage is more in the quality of the zealots and their idea than
in the difference of $40,000. I think.
This has another great advantage in that if you had little foreign­
intrigue-type companies romping around the world doing stories on
location in which most of the story that was shot outside with 16 with
voice-over and narrative technique and in which your basic sound-on­
film footage was kept to a very low part of the over-all, to save money,
you might come up with an occasional show which would be a source
of real extension for the series because of being originals shot in the
faraway places with all of the glamour and romance that one gets from
that son of thing. I am sure, for instance, that any good photographer
and writer could go to the Himalayan Massif with Tenczig and do a
story that was essentially a narration of the mountains with stock
footage and the footage that he would shoot, but yet had enough in
it to make a good 50-minute show that would appeal to the people.
Whether this could be done for a few thousand dollars or not, I have
no idea. But between the Indian movie companies and desire of the
other governments to help, and our government to help, it seems to
me that ingenuity and good management could make a few hard
dollars and a great promotion device go a long way toward bringing ex­
citing film material to this country where the real star is the foreign
country rather than the story or the actors. This, again, falls into the
Len Hole development area primarily.
In the other version of movies, I was thinking of the success those
fellows in Hollywood had who made very cheap pictures by concen­
trating on a profession or a vocation that was exciting and had a lot of
144 Appendix I

nuts and bolts. Pictures that were at least full of character for people
who had never seen them before. It is a way of escaping the necessity
for having a strong story and even good characterizations. Locale makes
up for a lot.
If we were to take the strangest occupations, like Fred Allen used
to have on his program. If you build a story about a man who puts boats
in bottles, you have something going for you almost from the begin­
ning. You may even have a finish in which you're in the bottle looking
out.
Revivals of great amactions is an obvious part of our overall plan
that should be under consideration. So should an extension of the great
success that Al had with biographies on Hallmark.
If we're going for women we must have ratings or we are not suc­
cessful. And, therefore, it seems to me that somebody who really knows
not only good drama, but good soap opera, should sit down or be
added to Al's group or in an advisory capaciry to it to talk to the great
all time daytime soap writers with the thought of having them use their
25 years of material to single out the strongest sequences that they used
to run over a 15 week period, with the thought that those could be con­
structed into single dramas, perhaps even starring the same cast that
originally played out the role. I'm saying here that the form of the soap
opera, since the characterizations are well established and the plots are
extensive, could lend itself to the occasional hour production form
mentioned above. Irma Philips might well become a ten-show-a-year
writer, starting out with the basic shows that she has already written,
now adapted and revised for our television shows, using, to begin with,
the basic characters that she used before and as she becomes familiar
with what's cooking, moving on to new triumphs of sentiment.
We must remember of course that our shows basically muse have
the same kind of appeal that, in large part, we find in the soap operas
and the original Kate Smith show and in the other shows that we do
have. I believe that nighttime quality will get huge audiences but I also
believe that when we go for some of the specialized things I have been
discussing we can only do so on the basis that our substantial diet from
day to day is strong stories of interest to women, well written and well
done. That is the basic stratum on which we will build our project. This
is of course obvious but I'm repeating it because I'm about to close, I
hope.
Even as we talk about star-building with this project, let us not
 Pat Weaver Memorandum (NBC) 145

forget that we have a vehicle for star-using here. We have rights with
the Phil Harris' and Imogene Cocas and the Paul Gilberts, the younger
element who are coming up, all of whom will learn from work in televi­
sion and all of whom probably can be persuaded that performances in
this kind of a show will be good for them in the sense that they will
learn a lot and yet they are not taking the gamble of being sure that
they were very strong, as they would have to be if they went on at
night.
Also in the star-maker field, we have the advantage with volume
of being able to get exclusive deals with major movie and theauical
talent. Incidentally, an extension of this would get us back to one of
the old hometown-prehometown plans, which was that we would
sign up seven or eight well-known stars, movie and theatrical stars, who
would agree to be in an NBC stock company, and who would support
each other in minor roles because they would be supported in major
roles in an agreed-upon series of plays before any of them signed up.
This is to take care of billing and jealousy and the rest of ic. It's possible
that a nighttime-daytime parlay could be worked out where this could
then be accomplished. Needless to say, it would be a great promotion
project and is well worth, again, the study of the coordinating commit­
tee.
Motion picture scripts which stack the files and originals in all the
srudios and in all the agents' offices suddenly have a new box office from
NBC with the need for five hour-dramas a week. Let us remember
however that our stuff is as good as theirs, in general, and that we don't
need to buy their "Ivanhoe" when you can buy Scott for 25 cents in any
drugstore. This goes for nearly all the really great material that's
available. Most of the other stuff is actually filler that they use just as
we do and there's no use buying their filler-we can buy their hits and
they can buy our hits but we might easily develop our own filler, on
both sides. Nonetheless, we should not avoid the embrace of Holly­
wood, if they are willing to deal on a reasonable basis. [END OF
RECORDS]
 Appendix II
A Sample of the
Growth and Demise of
Live Television Drama

The following lists of live television drama present two sample

weeks of network drama: the first full week of December and the first
full week of March in 1948-49, 1955-56 and the &nal two seasons,
1957-58 and 1958-59.
These lists show that in 1948-49 there were five or six live dramas
a week. By 1955-56 the count had risen to 15 or so, and the format
dominated prime time television. In 1957-58 there were still eight live
shows a week but when the five-times-a-week Matinee Theater went off
the air the numbers dropped to two shows a week and one of them,
Playhouse 90, was occasionally on tape. By the fall of 1959 they were
gone forever.

The 1948-49 Season

December 3-9, 1948
SUNDAY
ABC:Actor's Studio ( ½ hour), "The Night the Ghost Got In"
with Nydia Weston.
CBS: (Film Theater this week alternates with Ford Theatre.)
NBC: Philco Television Playhouse (hour), "Suspect" with Ruth
Chattenon.

147
148 Appendix II

MONDAY
NBC: Chevrolet Tele-Theater ( ½ hour), "Close Quarters" with
Barry Nelson.

WEDNESDAY
NBC: Kraft Television Theater (hour), "The Flashing Stream."

March 4-10, 1949

SUNDAY
ABC: Actor's Studio ( ½ hour), ''.Joe McMiveen's Atomic Machine"
with Don Hammer, Billy Redfield.
CBS: Studio One (hour), ''.Julius Caesar" with William Post, Jr.,
Philip Bourneuf (alternates with Ford Theater).
NBC: Philco Television Playhouse (hour), "The Druid Circle"
with Leo J. Carroll.

MONDAY
NBC: Chevrolet Tele-Theater ( ½ hour), "Mr. Bell's Creation"
with Janet Blair.
Colgate Theater ( ½ hour), "The Florist Shop" with Ruch
Gilbert.

WEDNESDAY
NBC: Kraft Television Theater (hour), "Arrival of Kitty" with
Gage Clarke.

The 1955-56 Season

December 4-10, 1955
SUNDAY
NBC: Alcoa-Goodyear Hour (hour), "The Trees" by Jerome Ross.

MONDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "Arrowsmith" by Sinclair Lewis.
Robert Montgomery Presents (hour), "Lucifer" by J.H.
Howells.
CBS: Studio One (hour), "Blow-Up at Cortland."
 A Sample of the Growth and Demise of Live Television Drama 149

TUESDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "Passing Strange" by E. Jack
Neuman.
Playwnghts '56 (hour), "The Sound and the Fury" by
William Faulkner; alternates with Armstrong Circle
Theater.
WEDNESDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "For These Services."
Kraft Television Theater (hour), "Lady Ruth" by Jack Paritz.
CBS: U.S. Steel Hour (hour), "Edward, My Son" by Robert
Morley.
THURSDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "Cordially with Bombs."
Lux Video Theater (hour), "Suspicion" with Kim Hunter.
CBS: Climax (hour), "The Passport."
ABC: Star Tonight (½ hour), "Nightmare by Day."
FRIDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "The Whiteoak."

March 4-10, 1956

SUNDAY
NBC: Alcoa-Goodyear Hour (hour), "Man on Fire" by Melvin
Wald and Jack Jacobs starring Tom Ewell and Ed Begley.
CBS: Front Row Center(hour), "Innocent Witness" with Margaret
O'Brien and Dean Stockwell.
(That Sunday the ABC Film Festival featured George Bernard
Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" with Vivian Leigh and Claude Rains. It
was also produced that week on Producer's Showcase- see immediately
below.)
MONDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "Dinner at Antoine's" adapted by
Samuel Taylor from the novel by Frances P. Keyes.
Producer's Showcase (1 ½ hours), "Caesar and Cleopatra" by
George Bernard Shaw, starring Claire Bloom, Sir Cedric
Hardwicke, Judith Anderson, and Cyril Ritchard.
Robert Montgomery Presents (hour), "Son of Adam" with
Raymond Massey.
 150 Appendix II

Studio One (hour), "A Favor for Sam" with James Whit­
more.
TUESDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater(hour), "The Mating of Watkins Tottle" by
Charles Dickens.
Armstrong Circle Theater (hour), "Man in Shadow" by
David Padwa; alternates with Playwnghts '56.
WEDNESDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater(hour), "Her Son's Wife" with Hope Lange.
Kraft Television Theater (hour), 'The Fool Killer" adapted
by Dale Wasserman from the novel by Helen Eustis.
THURSDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "The Shining Palace" by Peggy
Phillips.
Lux Video Theater (hour), "Criminal Code" by Marcin
Flavin.
CBS: Climax (hour), "The Louella Parsons Story" with Theresa
Wright.
ABC: Star Tonight ( ½ hour), "Night Escape" by Abby Mann.
FRIDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour), "The Odd Ones" by Betty Ulius.
SATURDAY
CBS: Ford StarJubilee (1 ½ hours), "High Tor," a musical version
of Maxwell Anderson's play with Bing Crosby, Julie An­
drews, Everett Sloane, Nancy Olson, and Hans Conreid.

The 1957-58 and 1958-59 Seasons

1957-58
MONDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour).
CBS: Studio One (hour).
TUESDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour).

• g
 A Sample of the Growth and Demise of Live Television Drama 151

WEDNESDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour).
Kraft Television Theater (hour).
CBS: U.S. Steel Hour (hour); alternates with Armstrong Circle
Theater (hour).
THURSDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour).
FRIDAY
NBC: Matinee Theater (hour).

1958-59
WEDNESDAY
CBS: U.S. Steel Hour (hour); alternates with Armstrong Circle
Theater (hour).
THURSDAY
CBS: Playhouse 90 (1 ½ hours; often on tape).
 Chapter Notes

Preface
1. Jack Gould, New York Times, March 8, 1955, p. 36.

Chapter 1
1. John Crosby, Los Angeles Mi"or, November 1, 1960, II, p. 7.
2. NBC files, Remarks at a NBC Affiliates Meeting, October 23, 1960.
3. Hubbell Robinson, Jr., was interviewed twice by the author: in 1959 in a
lengthy telephone conversation and in 1961 in Los Angeles. Robinson
was quite eloquent; he spoke as well as he wrote.
4. Pac Weaver gave the author a three hour interview in 1959 in the manner
of his brilliant and lengthy NBC memos (see Appendix I above).
5. New York Times, November 5, 1961, II, p. 19.
6. Ibid.
7. Hubbell Robinson, Jr., interview with the author, 1961.
8. Pac Weaver, interview with the author, 1959.
9. Giraud Chester and Gamet T. Garrison, Television and Radio (New York:
Appleton, Century and Crofts, 1956), p. 59.
10. "Rohen W. Sarnoff, an Interview," Broadcasting, September 8, 1957, p.
125.
11. New York Times, September 12, 1928, p. 1.
12. Orrin E. Dunlap, The Outlook for Television (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1932), p. 88.
13. Kenneth K. Jones, "A Survey of Television" (unpublished M.A. Thesis,
Dept. of Theater Arcs, Stanford University, 1949), p. 7.
14. In 1939 a far more light sensitive pickup rube was developed called the im­
age onhicon cube. It replaced the iconoscope rube in the television
camera.
15. Chester and Garrison, op. cit., p. 42.

153
154 Notes-Chapter 2

16. The World Almanac and Book of Facts (New York: World Telegram.
1939), p. 428.
17. New York Times, April 8, 1927, p. 1.
18. Richard Hubbell, Television (New York: Murray Hill Books, 1945 ), p. 97.
19. New York Times, April 27, 1931, p. 24.
20. "Television, 1939," a clipping folder, Theatre Collection, New York Public
Library.
21. Life, June 20, 1938, pp. 22-23.
22. New York Times, June 12, 1938, X, p. 10.
23. "Television, 1938," a clipping folder, Theatre Collection, New York Public
Library.
24. William C. Eddy, Television, The Eyes ofTomo"ow (New York: Prentice­
Hall, 1945), p. 4.
25. New York Times, May 22, 1938, XI, p. 10.
26. Thomas H. Hutchins, Here Is Television (New York: Hastings House.
1946), p. 158.
27. Orrin Dunlap, New York Times, September 3, 1939, IX, p. 8.
28. New York Times, July 23, 1939, p. 4l;June 7, 1940, IX, p. 12.
29. Chester and Garrison, op. cit., p. 42.
30. Televiser, November-December, 1945, p. 14. General Electric in Schenec­
tady and DuMont in New York also tested television program service in
chis period.
31. Orrin E. Dunlap, The Future of Television (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1947), p. 186.
32. New York Times, July 6, 1941, X, p. 10.
33. New York Times, October 11, 1942, VIII, p. 10.
34. "What Happened co Television?" Saturday Review, February 21, 1942,
p. 17.
35. Gilben Seldes, Saturday Review, March 14, 1942, p. 13.
36. George Norford, interview with the author, 1958.

Chapter 2
1. Broadcasting, April 16, 1941, p. 13.
2. The growth of the nerworks was a natural and inevitable phenomenon.
The idea was similar to the radio nerworks already in operation and they
jumped right in. In addition, a new nerwork was developed under the
leadership of Dr. Allen B. DuMont. It ceased operation on September
15, 1955, although continuing co own a few stations. CBS and NBC
record a growth co 1956 of 158 and 200 directly connected stations respec­
tively (Broadcasting Yearbook [Washington: Broadcast Publications,
1958), pp. A-446, A-453). In those days NBC and CBS had large pro­
duction facilities in contrast co ABC, which relied heavily on film and
remote pick-ups. For example, CBS in 1956 had 29 broadcast studios:
 Notes-Chapter 2 155

22 in New York, 5 in Hollywood, and 2 in Chicago-a $28 million

investment in program production facilities (U.S. Congress, Senate,
Part W, Network Practices, Hearings before the Committee on In­
terstate and Foreign Commerce [Washington: U.S. Gov. Printing
Office, 1957], pp. 24-28).
3. LetterfromAT&TtoNBC. New York, AT&T, November, 1945, pp. 1-7.
The alternate to the use of coaxial cable, which was an elecuical intercon­
nection between cities, was kinescoped film, or kinescopes, as they came
to be called. Recordings of television programs were photographed from
the face of a kinescope tube and shipped from city to city. The poor
quality of the reproduced picture was a serious defect of this system.
4. Broadcasting, February 12, 1945, p. 70.
5. New York Times, June 13, 1947, p. 34.
6. Broadcasting, January 4, 1947, p. 15.
7. Broadcasting, May 20, 1947, p. 28. It was not until May, 1948 that the FCC
provided a graduated scale allowing new stations to broadcast less in
their early months of operation (Broadcasting, May 10, 1948, p. 22).
8. "What Happened to TV?" Saturday Review, February 21, 1942, pp. 15ff.
When radio and talking pictures came along Hollywood had also tried
to delay or prevent their growth for fear they would kill the in­
dustry.
9. On this one the filmmakers temporarily succeeded. In the early 1960s the
film theater chains in California spearheaded a "Proposition 13" method
to halt ex-NBC executive Pat Weaver's massive subscription television
operation. Eventually the California Supreme Court reversed them.
They waged a sick, reactionary campaign and slowed down Weaver's
efforts until it became too late to save this pioneering attempt at pay
television on cable.
10. Director-Producer Albert McCleety was very cooperative. He was exten­
sively interviewed in New York in 1959 and again in 1961 in Los Angeles.
11. Philip Gustafson, "Nickelodeon Days of Television," Nation's Business,
July 1947, p. 36.
12. Follow-Up, a CBS brochure, 1952.
13. In an interview with the author, Robert Lewine, publicity director at NBC
in the late fifties, declared: "Drama was an obvious form. It was sort of
a little theater club. It was easy to put on plays and there were many plays
available at first. It was just a very easy form to do- back in
1945-46-47 -for five or six thousand dollars. This was about all the
medium could stand."Jack Gould in The New York Timescommented,
"video art is seriously deficient ... the finished show frequently bears
too close a resemblance to the uncertain efforts of a summer theatre ap­
prentice group" (November 10, 1948, Sec. II, p. 9).
14. Much was written about Fred Coe by his stable of playwrights and he is
relatively easy to document, which is just as well since he was very
difficult to schedule for an interview. He did submit to several telephone
incerviews and was unusually accurate in remembering what happened.
156 Notes-Chapter 2

(Researchers will verify that accounts vary considerably when different

subjects look back several years on what happened.)
15. Fred Coe studied at the Yale School of Drama in 1938-40. He directed the
Civic Theater in Columbia, South Carolina, for four years and in April,
1945, was hired as a production assistant by NBC. He directed the
Theatre Guild, ANTA and Kraft shows and became the producer, as
well as occasional director and writer, of the famed Philco Television
Playhouse, the Producer's Showcase series, Playwnghts '56, and in
1958-59, Playhouse 90 for CBS (This compilation comes from a number
of sources, including the Dictionary of National Biography, the NBC
Files, and The New York Times).
16. Televiser, May, 1946, see front cover; and Variety, January 22, 1947, p. 31.
17. Bob Stahl, Van·ety, April 30, 1947, p. 36;Judy Dupuy, Televiser, May-
June, 1947, p. 36.
18. Kraft Television Theater, NBC files.
19. Television, October, 1946, p. 12.
20. Edmund Rice, NBC files.
21. Bob Stahl, Variety, May 14, 1947, p. 38. The production was housed in
a tiny studio on a side corridor in Radio City and broadcast to an au­
dience of less than 40,000. There were only slightly more than 43,000
sets in the nation at this time-Kraft Television Theater, NBC files.
22. Variety, May 14, 1947, p. 38; Televiser, May-June, 1947, p. 36; and Van·­
ety, May 21, 1947, p. 42.
23. Van·ety, May 7, 1957, p. 50.
24. J. Walter Thompson Agency, "Television First," a company handout and
company publicity files.
25. Edmund Rice, Best Television Plays, ed. by William I. Kaufman (New
York: Merlin Press, 1950), Vol. I, p. 94.
26. Maury Holland, ibid., pp. 3ff.
27. Broadcasting, March 8, 1948, p. 17; and New York Times, March 18, 1948,
p. 54.
28. Broadcasting, April 5, 1947, p. 30; ibid., April 12, 1948, p. 29.
29. New York Times, March 29, 1948, p. 48; ibid., April 12, 1948, p. 40.
30. Broadcasting, February 16, 1948, p. 15.
31. New York Times, December 29, 1947, p. 27; ibid., July 13, 1948, X, p. 1.
32. Vanety, October 20, 1947, p. 1.
33. Joe Laurie, Jr., and Abel Green, Show Biz, from Vaude to Video (New
York: Henry Holt, 1951), pp. 532ff.
34. Ben Gross, I Looked and I Listened (New York: Random House, 1954),
p. 281.
35. New York Times, October 25, 1947, p. 30.
36. Ibid., p. 19.
37. Bob Stahl, Vanety, November 12, 1947, p. 34. It is true that the play has
a mortgaged homestead, a villain, a ravished daughter and a brother
who avenges her honor (St. John Ervine, 'John Ferguson," Bn"tish and
American Plays [New York: Oxford Press, 1949], pp. 380-473).
 Notes-Chapter 2 157

38. Gould criticized the Guild for allowing sentiment to influence the choice
of production, stating that Ervine was the "daddy of the soap-opera
writers" (New York Times, November 16, 1947, II, p. 11).
39. Variety, April 7, 1948, p. 29.
40. New York Times, December 2, 1947, p. 58.
41. Chester and Garrison, Television and Radio (1950), op. cit., p. 43.
42. New York Times, April 24, 1949, X, pp. 1-3; ibid., January 1, 1950, II,
p. 9.
43. Robert Nimmo, "An Analysis of Network Television Programming" (un­
published M.S. Thesis, Boston University, 1956), p. 22.
44. Nimmo, op. cit., p. 19.
45. The Philco Corporation, Ford Motor Company and later dramatic series
sponsors such as U.S. Steel, Hallmark Cards, and Lever Brothers (Lux
Soap) all had previously sponsored drama on radio.
46. A result of this uend was the large number of masters' theses on television
at this time which concerned themselves with the adaptation of stage
plays to television. See the Speech Monograph and the American Educa­
tional Theater journal.
47. New York Times, October 24, 1948, p. 11.
48. Variety, December 18, 1947, p. 41.
49. For example, Gould's comments on Philco's Angel in the Wings, in con­
uast to his praise of Dinner at Eight, and Counsellor-at-Law for their
"fresh perspective" (New York Times, October 31, 1948, II, p. 11).
50. Jack Gould, ibid., March 12, 1948, p. 46, and Variety, April 14, 1948, p.
26.
51. Ibid., October, 1949, p. 29.
52. Variety, August 25, 1948, p. 11.
B. Ibid., November 17, 1948, p. 28.
54. New York Times, May 26, 1949, p. 58.
55. Van'ety, June 14, 1950, p. 41.
56. Time, May, 1950, p. 63.
57. This biographical information is compiled from a number of sources, in­
cluding the Dictionary of National Biography, New York Times, the
NBC files and several interviews.
58. George Rosen, Vanety, November 10, 1948, p. 35.
59. Worthington Miner, interview with the author, 1959.
60. Jack Gould, New York Times, February 15, 1949, p. 41.
61. Variety, March 9, 1949, p. 33.
62. Phillip Miller, Consumer Reports, April 1949, p. 187; Flora Schreiber,
"Television, A New Idiom," Hollywood Quarterly, Winter, 1949, p.
184.
63. Miner interview.
64. Jack Gould, New York Times, October 26, 1950, p. 50. The pioneering
nature of the settings designed by Don Gilman can be verified by com­
paring the floor plans with those of other productions in The Best Televi­
sion Plays of the Year (New York: Merlin Press, 1950), pp. 5, 56, 80,
158 Notes-Chapter 3

112, 137, 167, 193, 221, 254. There were approximately six or seven set­
tings of the various places on the battleship: the bridge, quaners, con­
trol rower, turrets, etc. Cut-outs were used extensively and rear screen
projections provided backgrounds. Tilting platforms suggested the ship
was sinking and film clips and models were used co suggest the battle.
65. Maurice Valency, "Battleship Bismarck," The Best Television Plays of the
Year, ed. by William Kaufman (New York: Merlin Press, 1950), pp.
254-310.
66. Ibid., pp. 252ff.
67. Miner interview.
68. Ibid.
69. Jack Gould, New York Times, October 24, 1951.
70. Vanety, February 6, 1952, pp. 27, 41. Weaver's activities at chis time went
under the ride "Operation Frontal Lobe," and received considerable
ridicule in the press. Among these activities were NBC's fuse attempts
co gee writers and actors under long term conuacc for the dramatic series
(ibid., February 13, 1952, p. 29). Variety reponed of Miner in 1952-53,
however, that he was "despairing of idleness" and was now trying co sell
shows to advertisers himself because NBC was not giving him work
(Vanety, March 12, 1953, p. 33).
71. Rod Serling, op. cit., p. 8.
72. Miner interview.
73. Ibid.
74. Variety, September 20, 1950, p. 31; Val Adams, New York Times,
September 30, 1950, p. 30;Jack Gould, zbid., October 11, 1950, p. 66.

Chapter 3
1. Variety, September 29, 1948, p. 46.
2. "Chevrolet Tele-Theater," NBC files.
3. "Colgate Theater," NBC files.
4. Vanety, July 13, 1949, p. 49.
5. Ibid., and "Lights Out," NBC files.
6. Fred Coe, "Something in the Wind," The Best Television Plays for the
Year, ed. by William Kaufman (New York: Merlin Press, 1951), pp.
197-215.
7. "Lights Out," NBC files.
8. Vanety, February 22, 1950, p. 29.
9. Jack Gould, New York Times, October 3, 1950, p. 63.
10. R.L. Shayoo, Saturday Review, April 21, 1951, p. 31. Some other
Maugham novels which were dramatized were Theatre, The Moon and
Sixpence, and Cakes and Ale.
11. R.L. Shayon, ibid., March 24, 1951, pp. 28ff.
12. R.L. Shayon, ibid., October 28, 1950, p. 48 and November 18, 1950,
p. 34. Of the Rohen Montgomery show Shayon caustically remarked,
 Notes-Chapter 4 159

"Even Academy Award winners turn out to be hardly more than stage­
waits for the bouncy, bubbly, gay, delightful, sparking routine of the
'Be Happy Go Lucky' troupe of singers ... "
13. Rohen Lewine, interview with the author, 1958.
14. New York Times, October 7, 1950, p. 32.
1). Phillip Miller, Consumer Reports, April 1949, p. 187.
16. Broadcasting, April 25, 1949, p. 85. The Peabody Broadcasting Awards
were established in 1940 to honor a benefactor of the University of
Georgia, the late George Foster Peabody. They were jointly adminis­
tered by the University of Georgia School of Journalism and the
N.A.R.T.B.
17. The Best Television Plays of the Year, 1950 (New York: Merlin Press,
1952), p.78. Their premiere, however, was Tennessee Williams' Portrait
of a Madonna, produced by Hume Cronyn and starring Jessica Tandy.
lt is a one-act mood piece about a mentally deranged Southern belle and
Tandy was praised for a "powerful, poignant picture" in "a thiny minute
monologue" (Bronson, Variety, September 29, 1948, p. 46).
18. New York Times, October 7, 1950, p. 32.
19. A producer, director and writer who came to prominence with his defense
of live television drama in the late 1950s.
20. Variety, September 26, 1951, p. 23.
21. "Masterpiece Playhouse," NBC files.
22. New York Times, May 6, 1951, Il, p. 9.
23. "Rohen Montgomery Presents," NBC files.
24. Fred Coe, " Television Drama's Declaration of Independence," Theatre
Arts, June, 1954, pp. 31-32, p. 80.

Chapter 4
1. The World Almanac, 1952, p. 506.
2. New York Times, April 14, 1952, p. 52.
3. Broadcasting-Telecasting Yearbook, 1954-55 (Washington: Broadcasting­
Telecasting, 1956), p. 15.
4. Chester and Garrison, op. cit., p. 45.
5. Rohen D. Swezy, "Give the 1V Code a Chance," Quarterly ofFilm, Radio
and Television, VU, Fall, 1952, p. 24.
6. New York Times, June 25, 1951, p. 1.
7. Green and Laurie, Jr., op. cit.
8. Van"ety, July 16, 1952, pp. 1, 57; and July 2, 1952, p. 24.
9. New York Times, November 23, 1952, 11, p. 13.
1 0. Jack Gould, ibid.
1 1. Ibid.
12. The arguments about live versus filmed drama persisted from 1952-53 on,
until filmed drama superseded live entirely. While he was decrying the
film's first splurge as "the colossal boner of the year," Jack Gould
160 Notes-Chapter 4

surveyed the arguments for live television drama: 1. The picrures on

film are "just plain bad." The visual and aural aspects of film lack that
"intangible sense of depth and trueness." 2. The films are most un­
satisfactory in terms of content; they are mostly "pedestrian little half­
hour quickies chat are cluttering up the networks." 3. The vase majority
have little more panorama than the live shows produced in New
York. 4. The perfection of film is anificial and is achieved only at the
price of the reality and spontaneity that are "part and parcel of the 'live,'
continuous performance." 5. The lasting magic of television is that ic
employs a mechanical means to achieve an unmechanical end. Oack
Gould, New York Times, December 14, 1952, p. 13.)
13. Variety, October 10, 1951, p. 25; and July 11, 1951, p. 33.
14. Ibid., October 10, 1951, p. 25.
15. Jack Gould, New York Times, December 23, 1951, II, p. 11.
16. New York Times, May 2, 1952, p. 27. The ocher was Actor's Srudio.
17. Variety, April 9, 1952, p. 35. The Celanese revivals of past Broadway suc­
cesses were quite distinguished. It premiered with Thomas Mitchell in
Eugene O'Neill's Oh Wilderness; this was followed by S.N. Behrman's
No Time for Comedy with Jean-Pierre Aumont and his Brief Moment
with Veronica Lake; Elmer Rice's Counsellor-at-Law with Aldred Drake;
Street Scene, Anna Chnstie, Reunion in Vienna, Saturday Children and
so on.
18. Van"ety, October 10, 1951, p. 25.
19. New York Times, December 11, 1951, p. 51.
20. Ibid., April 11, 1952, p. 38.
21. Van·ety, April 16, 1952, p. 27.
22. Rod Serling, Patterns (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), pp. 5ff.
23. Ibid., p. 7.
24. Ibid., p. 9.
25. Ring Lardner, Jr., "Television's New Realism," The Nation, August 13,
1955, p. 131.
26. New York Times, October 8, 1951, p. 28.
27. Van·ety, September 23, 1953, p. 23.
28. Paddy Chayefsky, "Holiday Song," Television Plays (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1955), pp. 3-37.
29. Variety, September 23, 1952, p. 36.
30. Chayefsky, "Printer's Measure," op. cit., pp. 43-81.
31. Chayefsky, "Many," op. cit., pp. 135-172.
32. Jack Gould, New York Times, May 25, 1953, p. 43.
33. "The Mother" was produced on Philco Television Playhouse in May, 1954.
34. Chayefsky, "Many," op. cit., pp. 173-4.
35. Chayefsky, "The Big Deal," op. cit., pp. 91-125.
36. Vanety, July 22, 1953, p. 31.
37. Quoted in Saturday Review, April 16, 1955, p. 13.
38. Horton Foote, "The Trip to Bountiful," Hamson Texas (New York: Har­
court, Brace, 1956), pp. 189-218.
 Notes-Chapter 4 161

39. Foote, "A Young Lady of Propeny," ibid., pp. 3-40.

40. The premiere was Rohen Alan Aurthur's Cafe Society, with Rod Steiger
as the camera's voice (Variety, July 18, 1953, p. 35).
41. Foote, "Tears of My Sister," ibid., pp. 77-97.
42. Tad Mosel, "Ernie Barger Is Fifty," Other People's Houses (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1958), pp. 5-37.
43. Variety, August 12, 1953, p. 24.
44. Mosel, op. cit., p. xi.
45. Ibid., p. ix.
46. Edmund Rice, Best Television Plays, ed. by William J. Kaufman (New
York: Merlin Press, 1950), I, p. 94; and interview with the author, 1959.
47. Mosel, op. cit., pp. 115ff.
48. "Philco Television Playhouse," NBC files.
49. Rod Serling, Patterns (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), pp. 12-14.
50. Jack Gould, New York Times, February 2, 1953, p. 31.
51. Serling, op. cit., pp. 14ff.
52. Jack Gould, New York Times, April 12, 1953, II, p. 11.
53. Vanety, April 8, 1953, p. 25.
54. New York Times, January 31, 1954, II, p. 13.
55. Serling, op. cit., pp. 183-240.
56. "Kraft Television Theater," NBC files.
57. Serling, op. cit., p. 242.
58. Ibid., p. 178.
59. Ibid., pp. 179ff.
60. Variety, August 12, 1953, p. 24.
61. Serling, op. cit., pp. 143-177.
62. "Edmund Rice," NBC files.
63. Variety, April 22, 1953, p. 23.
64. "Kraft Television Theater," NBC files.
65. "Television" clipping folder, New York Public Library Theater Collecrion.
66. Jack Gould, New York Times, May 13, 1953, p. 40.
67. George Norford, who was publicity director for NBC in these years, men­
tioned Hamlet in an interview as among great network achievements.
Also "Hallmark Hall of Fame," NBC files.
68. Time, May 2, 1953, p. 59.
69. Jack Gould, New York Times, April 27, 1953, p. 29.
70. Flora Schreibner, "Television's Hamlet," Quarterly of Film, Radio and
Television, Winter, 1953, Vol. Vlll, No. 2, p. 150.
71. R.L. Shayon, Saturday Review, May 16, 1953, p. 33.
72. Maurice Evans, "Hallmark Hall of Fame," NBC files.
73. Ibid.
74. New York Times, April 27, 1953, p. 29.
75. Albert McCleery, interview with the author, 1961.
76. Variety, April 8, 1953, p. 26.
77. McCleery interview.
78. New York Times, November 4, 1952, p. 1.
162 Notes-Chapter 5

79. Ibid., December 17, 1952, p. 29.

80. Val Adams, New York Times, September 22, 1954, p. 40.
81. R.L. Shayon, Saturday Review, January 16, 1954, p. 34.
82. George Rosen, Variety, September 22, 1954, p. 29. An attempt has been
made to locate these two dramas but they were not in the NBC files or
the New York Public library and no one remembered them.
83. New York Times, February 18, 1955, p. 28.
84. Variety, October 29, 1952, p. 33.
85. Jack Gould, New York Times, December 5, 1952, p. 42.
86. George Rosen, Vanety, December 3, 1952, p. 24.

Chapter 5
l. Van·ety, September 30, 1953, p. 27. Perhaps the biggest headlines and the
widest use of television occurred during the Army-McCanhy hearings
from April to June of that season.
2. Broadcasting-Telecasting, January 11, 1954, p. 89.
3. Television's "follow-the-leader" program cycles are described often
throughout. Television is no more notorious in this respect than any of
the mass media but since it quickly became "the" mass media it also
receives more criticism for this kind of programming.
4. New York Times, September 7, 1955, p. 63.
5. Chester and Garrison, op. cit., p. 48. The color controversy 1s ably
chronicled by Kenneth R. Jones, op. cit., pp. 55-65.
6. Broadcasting-Telecasting, December 21, 1953, p. 21.
7. Chester and Garrison, op. cit., p. 49.
8. Broadcasting-Telecasting Yearbook, 1954-55, op. cit., p. 15.
9. Broadcasting-Telecasting Yearbook 1955-56, op. cit., p. 15.
10. "Sylvester L. 'Pat' Weaver," NBC files.
ll. Pat Weaver, "Opportunities in Television," Van·ety, January 16, 1952,
pp. 25, 38.
12. Vanety, February 6, 1952, p. 27.
13. Variety, October 1, 1954, p. 1.
14. Max Liebman, "Variety and Television," Television in the Making, ed. by
Paul Rothan (New York: Hastings House, 1956), p. 77.
15. Jack Gould, New York Times, September 15, 1954, p. 44.
16. Broadcasting-Telecasting, September 20, 1954, p. 16.
17. John Crosby, New York Herald Tnbune, September 15, 1954, p. 30.
18. Jack Gould, New York Times, September 26, 1954, p. 44.
19. Variety, October 1, 1954, p. 1.
20. New York Times, October 21, 1954, p. 39.
21. Variety, October 21, 1954, p. 23.
22. Ibid., November 3, 1954, p. 31.
23. Ibid., February 2, 1955, p. 33.
24. Broadcasting-Telecasting Yearbook, 1955-56, op. cit., p. 32.
 Notes-Chapter 6 163

25. Robert Lewine, interview with the author, 1958.

26. Pat Weaver, interview with the author, 1959.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. See Chapter VIII, when CBS under the creative leadership of Hubbell
Robinson, Jr., produces the Playhouse 90 series et al.
30. New York Times, December 20, 1954, p. 29.
31. Pat Weaver, Van·ety, October 13, 1954, p. 29.
32. Ibid.
33. Max Liebman, op. cit., p. 77.
34. Weaver interview, 1959.
35. Lester Bernstein, interview with the author, 1958; and "Television's Lords
of Creation," Harpers, November, 1956, and December, 1956.
36. George Rosen, Variety, October 20, 1954, p. 25.
37. Jack Gould, New York Times, November 17, 1954, p. 45.
38. James M. Barrie, Peter Pan (New York: Scribner's, 1950), pp. 3-162.
39. Jack Gould, New York Times, March 8, 1955, p. 33.
40. George Rosen, Van'ety, March 9, 1955, p. 33.
41. Weaver interview.
42. Ibid.

Chapter 6
l. New York Times, April 15, 1954, p. 43.
2. "Philco Television Playhouse," NBC files.
3. Variety, September 2, 1953, p. 26.
4. Tad Mosel, op. cit., p. 38.
5. Mosel, Other People's Houses, ibid., pp. 40-73.
6. Mosel, "The Haven," ibid., pp. 77-113.
7. Ibid., p. 75.
8. Serling, op. cit., p. 19.
9. Variety, October 14, 1953, p. 34.
10. Chayefsky, op. cit., pp. 259-263.
1 l.Patricia O'Connor, "An Analysis of Selected Original Television Dramas"
{Unpublished M.A. thesis, Department of Speech and Drama, Catholic
University of America, 1958), p. 53.
12. Chayefsky, op. cit., p. 178.
13. Chayefsky, "The Mother," op. cit., pp. 183-218. Vanety said of this play:
"Paddy Chayefsky is undoubtedly one of the outstanding writing talents
in the television business today, and he proved it again with a bang"
(April 7, 1954, p. 36).
14. Gore Vidal (ed.), "Best Television Plays of the Year," op. cit., p. 220.
15. Gilbert Seldes wrote in November of 1955: "This predilection for the
'down beat' or sad ending got Mr. Coe into trouble last season, but these

•
164 Notes-Chapter 7

writers are still writing the kinJ of television plays which have this special
quality." (Gilben Seldes, New York Times, November 28, 1955, VI, p.
55.)
16. J.P. Miller, "The Rabbit Trap," Best Television Plays of the Year, op. cit.,
pp. 191-220.
17. Vanety, December 1, 1954, p. 27.
18. Roben Alan Aunhur, "Man on a Mountain Top," Best Television Plays of
the Year, op. cit., pp. 110-134.
19. Gore Vidal, Visit to a Small Planet (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956), pp. 221-
248.
20. Vidal, op. cit., p. 170.
21. Van·ety, May 17, 1950, p. 27.
22. Paddy Chayefsky, "Good Theaue in Television," How to Wn'te for Televi­
sion, ed. by William I. Kaufman (New York: Hastings House, 1955),
p. 44.
23. Chayefsky, op. cit., p. xi.
24. Ibid., p. xii.
25. Honon Foote, Vanety, May 23, 1956, p. 31.
26. Vincent Donehue, Variety, May 23, 1956, p. 31.
27. Delben Mann, ibid., p. 32.
28. Mosel, op. cit., p. 74.

Chapter 7
1. George Rosen, Van·ety, October 24, 1953, p. 33.
2. Edmund Rice, NBC files.
3. Ibid.
4. New York Times, June 10, 1955, p. 45.
5. Edmund Rice, interview with the author, 1959.
6. Jack Gould, New York Times, May 7, 1954, p. 33.
7. "Kraft Television Theater," NBC files.
8. Variety, June 16, 1954, p. 23.
9. New York Times, January 20, 1954, p. 30.
10. Ibid., November 30, 1955, p. 67.
11. Rod Serling, op. cit., pp. 84ff.
12. Ibid., pp. 48-85.
13. Jack Gould, New York Times, January 17, 1955, p. 45.
14. Time, February 9, 1955, p. 60.
15. Roben Chandler, Variety, February 16, 1955, p. 34.
16. John Crosby, New York Herald Tribune, February 9, 1955.
17. Ben Radim, "A Seacoast in Bohemia," The Best Television Plays, ed. by
William I. Kaufman (New York: Merlin Press, 1954), (Vol. III), pp.
9-55.
18. Dale Wasserman and Jack Balch, "Elisha and the Long Knives," Top
 Notes-Chapter 7 165

Television Shows of the Year, 1954-55, ed. by Irving Settel (New York:
Hastings House, 1955), p. 30.
19. "The revival was distressingly inept" - "An exercise in frenzy" Oack
Gould, New York Times, February 25, 1955, p. 28). "It didn't come off
with continuity and impact" (Robert Chandler, Variety, March 2, 1955,
p. 30).
20. Variety, March 2, 1955, p. 25.
21. Ibid., April 13, 1955, p. 32.
22. Ibid., September 30, 1953, p. 27.
23. New York Times, January 10, 1954, II, p. 5.
24. Variety, August 12, 1953, p. 23.
25. Bob Hull, Los Angeles Herald F.xaminer, October 21, 1964, A-17.
26. Alben McCleery, interview with the author, 1959.
27. Jack Gould, New York Times,January 27, 1954, p. 25.John Crosby in The
Herald Tribune agreed with Gould but George Rosen in Variety de­
scribed it as a triumph for all ... with the major laurels going to the
production .. . Oohn Crosby, New York Herald Tribune, January 29,
1954, p. 48; and George Rosen, Variety, January 27, 1954, p. 37.)
28. McCleery interview.
29. Ibid.
30. Maurice Evans, "Hallmark Hall of Fame," NBC files.
31. McCleery interview; Vanety, May 19, 1954, p. 33.
32. "Hallmark Hall of Fame," NBC Jiles.
33. Newsweek, December 13, 1954, p. 62; Broadcasting-Telecasting,
December 16, 1954, p. 14; and New York Times, November 29, 1954,
p. 32.
34. Jack Gould, New York Times, September 23, 1953, p. 44 and December
13, 1953, ll, p. 19; Roben Chandler, Variety, September 23, 1953, p. 33.
35. Gore Vidal (ed.), Best Television Plays (New York: Ballantine Books, Inc.,
1956), p. 68.
36. Reginald Rose, "Thunder on Sycamore Street," Six Television Plays (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1947), pp. 59-104.
37. Rose, op. cit., pp. 107ff.
38. Ibid., p. 109.
39. Variety, April 13, 1955, p. 32.
40. Variety, December 1, 1954, p. 27.
41. Rose, op. cit., pp. 155ff.
42. Rose, "12 Angry Men," op. cit., pp. 113-153.
43. Leonard Traube, Variety, September 22, 1954, p. 31. A second "superior
dramatic work" by Rose was An Almanac ofLiberty, suggested by a book
by Supreme Coun Justice William 0. Douglas. Broadcasting-Telecast­
ing felt that "Mr. Douglas' treatment was academic" in comparison to
the television play, and Rose himself regards it as "one of the few dramas
that might be classified as 'controversial' which has appeared on a na­
tional television show ... " (Broadcasting-Telecasting, November 15,
1954, p. 14; Rose, "An Almanac of Libeny," op. cit., p. 206).

c6
166 Notes-Chapter 8

44. Rose, op. cit., p. xii.

45. U.S. Congress, Senate, Part IV, Network Practices, Hearings before the
Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Gov. Printing Office, 1957}, pp. 1736-1752.
46. New York Times, November 14, 1954, II, p. 11.
47. Leonard Traube, Variety, October 13, 1954, p. 31;Jack Gould, New York
Times, April 25, 1955, p. 30; ibid.,July 29, 1955, p. 35; Gould, ibid.,
November 14, 1954, II, p. 11; ibid., May 27, 1955, p. 36.
48. Variety, July 6, 1955, p. 28; Broadcasting-Telecasting, October 10, 1955,
p. 40.
49. " ... [O]ne of the season's notable achievements, a vigorous yet sensitive
insight into the repair of the minds of troubled G.I.'s who were sub­
jected to Commie 'brain washing.' Superbly directed and beautifully
played, it was topical theatre of both pertinency and power " (Jack
Gould, New York Times, October 25, 1953, p. 13).
50. Van'ety, October 25, 1953, p. 36.
51. Newsweek, November 11, 1953, p. 70.
52. Broadcasting-Telecasting Yearbook, 1955-56, op. cit.; Look, December
28, 1954, p. 101.
53.Jack Gould, New York Times, April 4, 1954, Sec. II, p. 13; Variety, April
7, 1954, p. 29.
54. Gould, New York Times, January 10, 1954, II, p. 15.
55. Statement by Ellen Heageny, ABC personnel relations, in an interview
with the author, 1958. Heageny explained that the American Broad­
casting Company maintained "no records of its achievements."
56. New York Times, January 3, 1954, Sec. II, p. 11 and May 21, 1954, p. 23.
57. Rose Serling, "The Rack," op. cit., pp. 99-138.
58. Ibid.
59. Jack Gould, New York Times, March 18, 1955, p. 39.
60. Rose, op. cit., p. 253.
61. Ibid., pp. 253ff.
62. Jack Gould, New York Times, August 7, 1955, II, p. 11.
63. Variety, July 20, 1955, pp. 27, 36.

Chapter 8
1. RobertW.Sarnoff, "Letter toRadio-TelevisionEditors," August 22, 1957,
NBC files.
2. Sarnoff, "Address at theNBC Affiliates Meeting" (New York: October 23,
1958).
3. Broadcasting-Telecasting, November 19, 1951, p. 13.
4. New York Times, April 2, 1957, p. 69.
5. Hal Humphry, Los Angeles MiTTor, circa 1960. This writer collected Hurn­
phry's columns for his personal file and many are not annotated.
 Notes-Chapter 9 167

6. Ibid., July 1, 1961, p. 9.

7. Huber Ellingsworth, "Entertainment Radio in the 1950s: More Than
Afterglow of the Golden Age," Edward Jay Wheunore, Mediamenca
(Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1987), p. 103.
8. New York Times, October 28, 1956, II, p. 13.
9. See the New York Times program schedules from September, 1956 co
February, 1957.
10. New York Times, October 28, 1956, II, p. 13.
11. Ibid.; Broadcasting-Telecasting, August 13, 1956, p. 38.
12. Variety, February 20, 1957, p. 21.
13. Broadcasting-Telecasting, April 15, 1957, p. 31.
14. Robert Austin Smith, "Television: The Light That Failed," Fortune,
December, 1958, p. 161.
15. Robert W. Sarnoff, "Letter to Radio-Television Editors," December 2,
1957, NBC files.
16. Florence Britton, ed., Best Television Plays, 1957 (New York: Ballentine
Books, 1957), p. 7.
17. Broadcasting-Telecasting, December 30, 1957, pp. 68, 70.
18. Robert W. Lewine, "Television's New Generation," an address, Ithaca,
New York, October 11, 1958, NBC files.
19. New York Times, October 5, 1956, p. 53.
20. Hubbell Robinson, Jr., interview with the author, 1961.
21. Ibid.
22. Jack Gould, New York Times, March 10, 1957, Sec. II, p. 11.
23. New York Times, December 7, 1957, p. 55.
24. Serling, "Requiem for a Heavyweight," op. cit., pp. 181-240.
25. Leonard Spinrad, interview with the author, 1958.
26. Lester Bernstein, interview with the author, 1958.
27. Vanety, December 4, 1957, p. 29.
28. Robinson interview.
29. Albert McCleery, interview with the author, 1961.
30. Robinson, personal interview.
31. McCleery, personal interview.
32. Jane Murray, personal notes circa 1960 given to the author.
33. McCleery interview.
34. Jane Murray, interview with the author, 1961.
35. Ibid.
36. McCleery interview.
37. Jack Gould, New York Times, May 21, 1958, p. 67.
38. McCleery interview.

Chapter 9
l. Variety, October 12, 1955, p. 38.
2. Ibid., December 21, 1955, p. 19.
168 Notes-Chapter 9

3. The Fund for the Republic, for example, offered that season $20,000 to
Armstrong Circle Theater's I Was Accused and $20,000 to Alcoa Hour's
Tragedy in a Temporary Town. In each case the prize money was divided
among the producer, director and writer (New York Times, July 22,
1956, p. 37}.
4. "Kraft Television Theater," NBC files.
5. "Edmund Rice," NBC files.
6. Florence Britton, ed., op. cit., p. 68.
7. William Noble, "Snapfinger Creek," Best Television Plays, op. cit., pp.
69-98.
8. Edmund Rice, interview with the author, 1959.
9. John Crosby, New York Herald Tnbune, April 2, 1956, p. 56.
10. Jack Gould, New York Times, March 29, 1956, p. 55.
11. Vanety, April 4, 1956, p. 29.
12. Rice interview; NBC files.
13. Two other plays that Britton cited that season were Even the Weanest River
by Alvin Sapinsley on the Alcoa Hour and The Boarding House by Will
Lorin on the U.S. Steel Hour (Florence Britton, editor, op. cit.,
pp. 222ff.)
14. Rice interview.
15. "Kraft Television Theater," NBC files.
16. New York Times, April 17, 1958, p. 63; May 25, 1958, II, p. 11.
17. Jack Gould, New York Times, April 27, 1958, II, p. 11.
18. "Kraft Television Theater," NBC files.
19. Newsweek, June 29, 1957, p. 82.
20. "Playwrights '56," NBC files.
21. Albert McCleery, interview with the author, 1961.
22. Fred Coe, interview with the author, 1958; "Playwrights '56," NBC files.
23. Rice interview.
24. Coe interview; NBC files.
25. Ted Mosel, "The Waiting Place," op. cit., pp. 203-242.
26. Vanety, December 22, 1955, p. 28.
27. Jack Gould, New York.Times, September 20, 1955, p. 62.
28. New York Times, January 10, 1956, p. 63.
29. Vanety, December 21, 1955, p. 19.
30. New York Times, April 12, 1956, p. 63.
31. "Hallmark Hall of Fame," NBC files.
32. New York Times, May 7, 1956, p. 53.
33. Gould, New York Times, May 22, 1955, p. 13.
34. Variety,January 18, 1956, p. 33; New York Times, Mardi 12, 1956; ibid.,
May 7, 1956, p. 53.
35. Ibid., November 21, 1955, p. 55.
36. George Rosen, Vanety, November 23, 1955, p. 34.
37. Ibid., January 18, 1956, p. 33.
38. New York Times, November 10, 1956, p. 63.
39. Wotthingron Miner, interview with the author, 1959.

-
 Notes-Chapter 9 169

40. Ibid.
41. Van'ety, January 23, 1957, p. 36.
42. "Alcoa-Goodyear Hour," NBC files.
43. Manin Luray, "As the Life Goes Out of the Show," New Republic,
September 16, 1957, p. 22.
44. New York Times, January 26, 1958, 11, p. 13.
45. Jack Gould, ibid., October 18, 1957, p. 49.
46. Ibid., April 2, 1958, p. 63.
47. Ibid., March 5, 1957, p. 62.
48. Van·ety, March 5, 1957, p. 1.
49. Jack Gould, New York Times, March 10, 1957, 11, p. 11.
50. Miner interview.
51. Edmund Rice, interview with the author, 1959.
52. Albert McCleery, interview with the author, 1961.
53. "Fred Coe," NBC files.
54. Hubbell Robinson, Jr., "You, the Public Are to Blame!" Los Angeles
Times, television guide, June 6, 1961, p. 14.
55. John Crosby, Los Angeles Mirror, November 1, 1960, II, p. 7.
56. Ibid., September 21, 1961, p. 8.

-----
 Index
Entries denoted "(ill.)" are depicted in the plates between pages 82 and 83

Abbott and Costello 43 Balch, Jack 86

ABC Album Productions 96 Ball, Lucille 125
Actor's Studio 37-38 Bancroft, Anne 110
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet 44 Bankhead, Tallulah 95-96
Alberg, Mildred Freed 57, 59, 121 The Ba"etts of Wimpole Street 121
Alcoa Co. 17 Barrie, Sir James M. 72, 95
Alcoa-Goodyear Playhouse 72, Barry, Philip 45
102-103, ll5, 124 Bat Masterson 118
Alice in Wonderland 65, 84 Battleship Bismarck (ill.) 29
All Star Review 70 Begley, Ed 51
All the King's Men 118 Behrman, S.N. 32, 45
Allen, Gracie 125 Ben Casey 70
An Almanac ofliberty 91-92 Benet, Steven Vincent 18, 54
The Ambassadors 30 Benny, Jack 16
American National Theam: and Bergen, Edgar 84
Academy (ANTA) 21-23 Bergman, Ingrid 26
American Tobacco Company 26 Berle, Milton 20-21, 32, 66, 118, 133
Ampex Corporation 102 Bernstein, Lester 110
Anatomy of a Murder 118 Best of Broadway 64, 90, 109
Anderson, Eddie (Rochester) 124 Beulah 43
Anderson, Maxwell 36, 45, 60, 116 The Bicycle Thief 50
Anna Christie 86 The Big Deal 48, 50
Appointment in Sama"a 56-57 Big Story 33-35
Argonauts 3 Billy Budd 64
Arlen, Michael 135 Bing Crosby Enterprises 102
Armstrong Circle Theater 33-35, Biography 32
102-103, 119-120, 123, 134 Blithe Spirit 122
Army-McCarthy Hearings 64 Bloom, Claire 121, 125
AT&T 6, 7, 13-14, 24 B'nai B'rith Award 116
Aurthur, Robert Alan 40, 44, 48, 79, Booth, Shirley ll0
123 Borden Co. 17
Boss Lady 43
Babes in Toy/and 85 The Bndge of San Luis Rey 124
Bachelor Party 49, 63, 77, 81 Britton, Florence 108, ll6-118
The Backbone of America 60 Broadway Theater 46
Bailey, Joseph 56 Brodkin, Herbert 96-97, llO-lll, 115

171
172 Index

Broken A1row 105 Cook, Fielder 85-86, 122

The Brooch 54 Cooper, Jackie 110
Brother Rae 9 Cornell, Katherine 121
Brotherhood of the Bell 124 Corrigan, William 88
Burns and Allen see George Bums and Cosmopolitan magazine 46
Gracie Allen Cosmopolitan Theater 46
Bus to Nowhere 90 Costigan, James 124
Coward, Noel 72, 122
Caesar, Sid 105 Cradle Song 121
Caesar and Cleopatra 121 Crime in the Streets 63-64, 91-92, 97
The Caine Mutiny Court Martial 122 Crosby, John 2, 3, 14, 36, 50, 68, 86,
The Californians 105 117, 127
Calloway, Cab 124 Cross, Ben 21
Cameo Theater 33 Cry, the Beloved Country 106
Camille 26, 90 Cyrano de Bergerac 121
Canfield, Curtis 39
Captain Horatio Hornblower 137 Dallas IO
Carney, Arc 110 Danger 35
Catch My Boys on Sunday 80 Daniels, Marc 26-27
The Catered Affeir 80 Date with Judy 43
Caufield, Joan 36 Dave and Charley 43
CBS Television Workshop 67 David Copperfield 106
CBS Symphony Orchesua 25 Davidson, David 95
Celanese Theater 38, 43, 45, 72, 95 Davis, Donald 31, 37, 121
Champion 106 Davis, Owen, Jr. 33
Chandler, Raymond 94 Death of a Salesman 49
Charley's Aunt 110 The Death of the Old Man 47
Chase and Sanborn 18 Death ls a Spanish Dancer 117
Chayefsky, Paddy 3, 40, 44, 48-50, DeMaupassant, Guy 17, 48
52, 77-81, 103 The Devil's Disciple 57, 65, 121
Chekhov, Anton 39 Dial M for Murder 59
Chester, Joey 132 Diary (ill.) 60
Chevrolet Tele-Theater 24, 33-34 Dinner at Eight (ill.)
Cheyenne 105 Doc Corde 44
Christopher Award 116 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 94
Chrysler Corporation 94 A Doll's House 87
Churchill, Sara 57 Donahue, Vincent 3, 50, 52, 81, 119
Cinderella 108 Double Door (ill.) 18, 19, 118
Climax 32, 64, 90, 93-94, 99, 107, 124 Drake, Alfred 87
Coca, Imogene 105, 145 Duff, Gordon 48, 52, 78, 81
Coe, Fred 1, 2, 3, 16-17, 27, 31, Dulcy 9
34-35, 38-39, 40, 48-53, 72, 75-82, DuMont 10, 11, 46
110-lll, 113, 119-121, 126, 134 Dunlap, Orrin 6, 9
Cohen, Fairfax 59 Dunsany, Lord 18
Colgate Comedy Hour 71 DuPont Show of the Month 108, 124
Colgate Theater 24, 33-34
Collins, Ray 110 F.asy Aces 43
Colt 45 105 Ed Sullivan Show 27, 67, 93
Connecticut Yankee 64 Edward, My Son 26
Connelly, Marc 9, 124 Eisenhower, Dwight 72
Conrad, William 104 Elgin Hour 97-99, 115
The Constant Husband 65 Elisha and the Long Knives 86
Come, John 112, 114 Ellingsworrh, Haber 104
Come, Ruth 114 Elliott, Sumner Locke 30
 Index 173

Ellis, Georgia 104 Gobel, George 105

Emmy Awards 56, 72, 75, 85, 92, 110, Godfrey, Anhur 67, 125
121, 124 Godwin, Earl 133
Emperor Jones 86 The Goldbergs 27
Ernie Barger Is Fifty 47 Goldenson, Leonard H. 4
Evans, Maurice 57-60, 90, 121 Gone with the Wind 137
Evelyn, Judith 26 Goodwin, Bill 131
Executive Suite 85-86 Goodyear Tire Company 17, 78
Expectant Relations 47 Gould, Jack v, x, 14, 22, 25, 28, 29,
36, 43, 45, 50, 54, 58, 61, 70, 72,
Fanfare 68 84-85, 97-98, 117, 122, 125
The FanlaJticks 87 Grand Central Terminal 9
Farewell Supper 18 Green, Abel 42
A Farewell lo Arms 94 Green Pastures 87, 89, 124
Faulkner, William 54 Griffith, Andy 97
Faussett, Hudson 35, 90 Gunsmoke 104-106
Fearful Decision 95 Gustafson, Philip 15-16
Federal Communication Commission
(FCC) 3, 4, 10, 14-15, 21, 23, 38, Hallmark Card Company 59, 87, 88
41-42, 65-66, 127-128 Hallmark Hall of Fame I, 45, 57-60,
Felton, Norman 56 87-90, 102-103, 107, 121, 124, 144
Ferrer, Jose 121 Hamlet l, 57-60, 87-88, 106
First Person 51 Hammer, Mike 125
Flight 951 94 Hank McCune Show 43
Follies of Susy 68 Hardwicke, Sir Cedric 121
Fontaine, Lynn 95 Harris, Julie 87, 124
Foote, Honon 40, 44, 47-48, 50, 51, Harris, Phil 145
81 Harrison, Texas 51
Forbidden Area 108 Harrity, Richard 33
Ford Foundation 42 Hart, Richard 20
Ford Motor Company 122 Have Gun, Will Travel 105
Ford Star jubilee 102, 121-122 The Haven (ill.) 76
Ford Theater 23-24, 26-27 Hayes, Helen 116
Fortune Magazine 107 Hazel Bishop 69
The Foxes ofHarrow 106 The Healer 123
Ftanciosa, Anthony 121 Heaven for Betsy 44
Frank, Pat 109 Hecht, Ben 60
Frankenheimer, John 3 Heckart, Eileen 75-76, 80
Front Row Center 99 Hedda Gabler 39, 95
Fronh'er 122 The Helen Keller Story 108
The Fugitive 70 Herridge, Robert T. 118
Fund for the Republic Award 116 Heyward, Leland 72
Furness, Betty (ill.) Hicken, Nat 32
High Tor 81, 122
Galswonhy, John 122 Hill, George Roy 117, 122
Garbo, Greta 106 Hole, Len 134
The Gathen·ng 123 Holiday Song (ill.) 48
Gay.John 115 Holland, Maury 20, 119
General Elecuic 6 Holme, Celeste 87
George Bums and Gracie Allen 48, 125 Home ufe of a Buffalo 33
Gilbert, Paul 145 The Home Show 69-70
Gilroy, Frank 95 Home Town 132
The Girls 43 Hong Kong 3
Gleason, Jackie ix, 105 Hoover, Herbert 7
174 Index

Hope,Bob 16 Kraft Television Theater (ill.) I, 5,

Hopper, Hedda 110 17-21,24,40, 44, 47,52-56,75,
Hostess with the Mostest ll0 83-87,93,98-99, 103, 110, 115-120,
Hour Glass Show 18 122,124,134
Houseman,John 110 KSTP 20
Howdy Doody 1, 20,98
Humphry, Hal v,104 uzdy in the Dark 68, 70
Hungarian Revoir 103 Lardner, Ring 46
Hutchinson,Thomas 9, 11 The Last Cruise 29
Hutton,Betty 68 The Last Notch 95
Hyman,Mac 96 Last of My Solid Gold Watches 22-23
The Last Tycoon 81, 110
I Am Jonathan Schrivener 61 Laurie,Joe, Jr. 42
I Love Lucy ix, 63,67,125 The Lawn Party 52
I Married Joan 44 Lawrence, Gertrude 8,32
I, Mrs. Bibb 103 Leave It to Larry 43
Ibsen,Henrik 39 Lewine, Robert 37,69, 107-108
Ile 86 Llebman, Max 64,67-72
Imaginary Invalid 90 Life Magazine 8
International Silver Theater 33 Life with Luigi 43
Invitation to a Gunfighter 110 Lights Out 34-35
Irving, St. John 21 Lights Up 33
It's a Business 43 Llndsay-Crouse 72
Ivanhoe 145 Llnfors, Viveca 110
I've Got a Secret 116 Little Moon ofAlbans 87, 89,124
Little Women 86
J. Walter Thompson Agency 5,17-20, The Lone Ranger 105
36, 53-56,83-87,106,115-ll9,135 Long Goodbye 94
Jackson,Felix 31,90,92 Lord,Walter 116
Jaffe, Henry and Paul 72 Lorre, Peter 110
Jagger, Dean 21 Los Angeles Mirror 127
Jane Eyre 9,30 The Lost Colony 97
January Thaw 55 Louis-Walcott fight 21
Jeanmaire 68 Loyalties 12 3
Jest ofHahalaba 18 Lumet, Sidney 93
Jim Bowie 105 Lune,Alfred 95
John Ferguson 21-22 Luray,Marrin 124
The Julian Housman Story 35 Lux Radio Theater 18
Julius Caesar (ill.) 28 Lux Vtdeo Theater 5, 35-36, 44, 53,
June Moon 9 54,56,84,87, 99,102,107,134

Kaiser,Henry 123 Macbeth (ill.) I,30,57, 90

Kaiser Aluminum Hour 102, 108, McCarthy,Charlie 84
122-123 McCleery, Albert v,I,15-16,27,31,
The Kathry n Steffan Story 35 57-60, 73,87-90, lll-114,119,126,
Kaufman,George S. 9 129-145
Kelly, Grace 135 MacDonald,Jeanette 110
Kerr, Walter 116, 135 McDonaugh, Dick 54
Kinescope film 24 MacDonnell,Norman 104
Kintner,Robert 107 Mack,Ted 131
Kiss Me Kate 87 McKenna,Siobhan 121
Kon-Tiki 53,142 Maclaren's Imperial Cheese 19
Kraft Foods Corporation 17-20, ll8-119 McLeod,Victor 33-34
Kraft Mystery Theater 118 Madison Square Garden 21
 Index 175

Magnavox Theater 31, 35 Mosel, Tad 3, 40, 44, 48, 51, 53,
Malma, McKnight 27 75-76, 79, 82, 103, 120
Mama 137 The Mother 49, 77-78, 81
Man and Superman 57 Motorola Television Hour 96, 115
Afan on 11 Mountain Top 79 Munsel, Patrice 68
The Man Who Came to Dinner 26 Murray, Jane 111-114, 129
Mandel, Loring 123 Murrow, Edward R. 1
Mann, Delben 52-53, 72, 76-77, 81 Music Corporation of America
Manners, J. Hartley 6 (MCA) 5, 106
Mantle, Mickey 103 Mutiny on the Bounty 106
Manulis, Martin 94, 109-111 My Brother's Keeper 55
Marconi, Guglielmo 7 My Hero 44
Markle, Fletcher 27, 31, 61 My Fnend Irma 43
Manin, Ben 48 My Little Margie 43
Marcin, Mary x, 72, 121 My Lost Saints 80
Marty 17, 49, 50, 75, 78, 108, 111 The Mysterious Mummy Case 6, 9
Masquerade Party 116
Masterpiece Playhouse 39-40 National Association of Radio and
Mathews, Dorothy 121 Television Broadcasters (NARTB) 42
Matinee Theater 66, 70, 102, 104, National Dairy Products Corporation
lll-114, 129-145 118
A Matter of Life and Death 81 National Telefilms 106
Maugham, Somerset 36 Nation's Business 15-16
Maunce Evans Presents the Hallmark Naughty Marietta 68
Hallo/Fame 57, 121-122 The Necklace 17
Mavenck 105 Neville, John 125
Medic 122 The New Republic 124
The Medium 30 New York Daily News 21
Meet Millie 44 New York Herald Tribune 14, 36
Memphis by Morning 123 New York World's Fair 8
Menasha the Magnificent 43 Newman, Paul 121
Menotti, Gian-Carlo 30 Nichols, Bill 81
Merrill, Gary 95 Nickell, Paul 31, 90, 92-93
Mesta, Perle 110 Nielsen racings 68-69, 94
Meston, John 104 A Night to Remember 108, 116-117,
Miami Vice 10 122
Michaels Awards 56 No R.iders 117
Miller, J.P. 44, 78 No Time for Sergeants 63, 96-97
Million Dollar Movie 106 Noble, William 116
Miner, Worthington v, 1, 25-32, 38, Norford, George 11
61, 64, 73, 90, 122-123, 126 Notonous 106
Minow, Newton 4, 127 A Nugget from the Sunnse 103
Les Miserables 106
Mr. I. Magination 27 O'Connor, Patricia 77-78
Mr. Peepers 43 Of Famous Memory 5 5
Mr. R.oberts l, 26 Of Human Bondage 30, 36
Mitchell, Thomas 21 Of Time and the R.iver 90
Moby Dick 90 O'Hara, John 56
Moliere 139 The Old Lady Shows Her Medals 95
Monday Night Football 63 Old MacDonald Had a Curve 48, 55
Monitor 70 Old Vic 125
Montgomery, Garth 26 Omnibus Show 42, 61
Montgomery, Robert 40, 47 Once 11 Genius 103
Morrison, Patricia 87 O'Neill, Eugene 45, 86
176 Index

Opatoshu,David 50 Pulse,Inc. 46
Opera 25 Pygmalion 87
Operation Home 63
Orwell,George 90 Quarterly of Film, Radio and Television
Othello 81 58
Other Peoples' Houses 68,75 Quayle, Anthony 121
Our Miss Brooks 44 The Queen's Messenger 6
Our Town 1,121 Quinn, Stanley 18-19,40
The Ox-Bow Incident 106
The Rabbit Trap 78-79
The Rack 48, 63,96
Palance,Jack 110 Radin,Ben 85
Paley,William S. 61,109,lll The Rainmaker 108
Papa Cellini 43 Rawhide 3
Paramount 106 Rayle,Jack 59,121
Pauick,Dennis 114 RCA 8,14,20,31
Patterns (ill.) 55, 63-64, 80,85,98, Reader's Digest 48
117,122 Reber,John 18
Peabody Award (George Foster) 37,45, Requiem for a Heavyweight (ill.) 55,
75,110,121,124 108,110
Penn,Arthur 3,51,53,72,81,119 Restless Gun 105
Pete and Gladys 3,127 Revere Productions 1
Peter Lind Hayes Show 43 Rice,Edmund v,15,18-25,52,55-56,
Peter Pan (ill.) x,17,64,72,102,108, 83,99. 116-119,126
121 Rice,Elmer 45
Peyton Place 70 Richard II 57. 88
Philco Corporation 115 Richard III 39
Philco-Goodyear Television Play- Rickenbacher,Eddie 53
house 75-82. 99 Rirchard,Cyril 30,79
Philco Television Playhouse 1,17, The Rivals 39
23-24, 39. 44,48-53,56,67,87, Robbins,Jerome 121
93,95,103,108,110, 119 Robert E. Sherwood Award 116
Phillips,Irma 144 Robert Montgomery Presents 56-57,
Phipps,Thomas 48 60-61, 67,99,102,124,134
Pinky Lee Show 43 Robinson,Hubbell,Jr. 1,2,3,32,67,
Pirandello,Luigi 39-40 109-lll,122,127
Playhouse 90 17,32,102-104,107, The Rocking Horse 35
109-lll, 124 Rogers, Ginger 72
Playwright's '56 102,119-122 Roger's Rangers 137
Plummer, Christopher 124 Romeo andjuliet 57,84,125
Pond's Incorporated 84 Roosevelt,Franklin Delano 8
Pond's Television Theater 84,86,99 Roots 128
Pontiac Company 120 Rose,Reginald 40,44,64,90-93,98,
Pontius Pilate 30 103,115,123
P.O.W. 95 Rosen, George 60, 72
Poznam 123 Royal,John 15
Presley,Elvis 103
Presumption of Innocence 118 Saint, Eve Marie 121
Printer's Measure 40 Sarnoff,David,(General) v,7,9,21,
Procter and Gamble 114,131 69,73,lll,113
Producer's Showcase 17,64,71-73,75, Sarnoff,Robert 3. 69,73,101-102,
102,119,121-122,125 107,109,lll,124
Prudential Family Playhouse 31,35 Saroyan,William 60
Pulitzer Prize 64,124 Satins and Spurs 68
 Index 177

S111urday's Children 36 Stanley, Kim 51, 118, 120

Schaefer, George 57-58, 87-90, 121 Stanton, Frank 4, 109
Schaffner, Franklin 31, 90, 92-93, 122 Star Tonight 86
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars 38 State of the Union 72
Schlitz Pulitzer Prize Playhouse 37-38, Stevens, George 108
45 Stevenson, Adlai 127
Schni12ler, Anhur 18 The Storm (ill.) 27-28
Schreibner, Flora 58 Suasberg, Lee 84
A SeacolZ!t in Bohemia 86 Strasberg, Susan 84
The Search (ill.) 53 A Streetcar Named Desire 23
Sgt. Bilka 32 Stu Erwin Show 43
See Ii Now 67 Studio One 1, 23-24, 26, 32, 43, 56,
Segal, Alex 45, 95-98 61, 63, 87, 90-93, 98-99, 103, 105,
Seldes, Gilben 9-10 110, 123, 124
Serling, Rod v, 31, 40, 46-48, 53-55, Sugarfoot 105
77, 80, 85-86, 96. 103, 109-110 Sullivan, Ed 64, 93, 103
Seven C11me Through 53 Sullivan, Margaret 27
Seventy-Seven Sunset Strip 71 Summer's End 103
Shakespeare, William 17, 28, 39, Susan and God 8-9
57-60, 88-90, 121, 125 Suskind, David 38, 72, 108
Shall Not Perish 54 Sutherland, John 143
Sh arpe, D.W. 43 Swezy, Robert 42
Shaw, David 53 Swope, Herben, Jr. 56
Shaw, George Bernard 57, 121 Sylvania Television Award 56, 72, 75,
Shayon, R.L. 36-37, 58, 60 79, 85, ll0, 124
She Stoops to Conquer 1
Sherwood, Robert E. 45, 60-61, 103 Talent Associates 5, 72, 108, 118,
Show Biz from Vaude to Video 42 123-124
The Show of Shows 67-71 Talent Scouts (Godfrey) 125
Showboat 137 The Taming of the Shrew 57, 121
Showcase Productions 5, 72, 115 Television City 93
Showmanagement Award (Variety) 26, Television Code 42
45, 86, 92 Television Hour 96
Showmanship Award (Variety) 75 The Tempest 57
The Showoff (ill.) Texaco Star Theater 32
Silvers, Phil 32 Theater Guild 21-23, 37, 94-97
Sinatra, Frank 121 There Shall Be No Night 103
Six Characters in Search of an This Happy Breed 122
Author 39-40 Those Endearing Young Charms 43
$4,000 Question 123
6
Thunder on Sycamore Street (ill.) 90-
Smith, Kate 144 92
Smith, Roben Austin 107 Ticket and Tempest 103
Snapfinger Creek 116 Time Magazine 85-86
Snerd, Monimer 84 Toast of the Town l, 27
Sobol, Edward 21, 95 The Today Show 70, 129, 132
Someone to Hang 103 Tombstone 105
Somerset Maugham Theater 36-37 Tonight at 8:30 72
Sony, Wrong Number 94 Tonight on Broadway 26
S. O.S. from the Andrea Doria 103 The Tonight Show 129
Sothern, Anne 68 Tracy, Spencer 136
Spector, Raymond 69 The Traitor (ill.)
Spinrad, Leonard 110 Trendex 125
Stagg, Jerry 45 Trial of Mary Dugan 46
Standard Brands 17 The Trip to Bountiful 50-51
178 Index

Truckers Welcome 103 63-73, 107, 109, lll-112, 122, 124,

Truman, Harry 41, 72 129-145
Twelfth Night 17, 57 The Web 35
Twelve Angry Men (ill.) 63, 91-92 Westerns (filmed) 94, 103-107
12:32 A.M. 92 Westinghouse Company (ill.) 29, 124
Twentieth Century 32 WGY 6
Wide Wide World 120
Uncle Vanya 39 William Morris Agency 5, 45
Union Pacific 105 Williams, Tennessee 22-23, 118
Unit Four Productions 122-123 Wilson, Julie 87
United States Steel Company 95 WNBC (W2XBS) 9
United States Steel Hour 37-38, 90, WNBT 9, 15-16, 48
94-99 Woman for Tony 103
The Untouchables 70 WOR 106
Utt, Kenny 91-92 World Series 20-21
World Video Company 37
Van Gogh 81 Wuthering Heights 55
Victoria Regina 87 Wyatt Earp 104-105
Vidal, Gore 79
Visit to a Small Planet 63, 79
The Yearling 106
Wade, Warren 46 The Yeoman of the Guard 87
Wagon Train 105 Young and Rubicam Agency 123
The Waiting Place 120 A Young Lady of Property 51
Youngman, Henny 21
The Walt Disney Show 105
Warfield, William 87. 124
Wasserman, Dale 86 Zane Grey Theater 105
Waterfront Boss 30 Zenith Radio Corporation 14
Weaver, Pat v, 1-2, 4, 15, 30, 31, Zworkin, D.W. 7