The Philco Television Playhouse
Encyclopedia
The Philco Television Playhouse, a live television
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...

 anthology series sponsored by Philco
Philco
Philco, the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company , was a pioneer in early battery, radio, and television production as well as former employer of Philo Farnsworth, inventor of cathode ray tube television...

, was telecast from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe
Fred Coe
Fred Coe , nicknamed Pappy, was a television producer and director most famous for The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse in 1948-1955 and Playhouse 90 from 1957 to 1959...

, the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 series was seen on Sundays from 9:00pm to 10:00pm. It was one of the most respected dramatic shows of the Golden Age of Television
Golden Age of Television
The Golden Age of Television in the United States began sometime in the late 1940s and extended to the late 1950s or early 1960s.-Evolutions of drama on television:...

, winning a 1954 Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...

 and receiving eight Emmy
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 nominations between 1951 and 1956.

The title of the show was briefly changed to Repertory Theatre and Arena Theatre during part of the first season, but then reverted to The Philco Television Playhouse for the remainder of its run.

Synopsis

The first season featured adaptations of popular Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 plays and musicals. The first episode was Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight may refer to:* Dinner at Eight , a 1932 Broadway play written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.* Dinner at Eight , a 1933 adaptation...

by George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...

 and Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...

. The second season consisted mostly of adaptations of popular novels from the Book of the Month Club
Book of the Month Club
The Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...

. During later seasons, both original stories and adaptations were used.

The series launched the television writing careers of Robert Alan Aurthur
Robert Alan Aurthur
Robert Alan Aurthur was an American screenwriter, director and TV producer.-Television:In the early years of television, he wrote for Studio One and then moved on to write episodes of Mister Peepers...

, Paddy Chayefsky
Paddy Chayefsky
Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....

, Sumner Locke Elliott
Sumner Locke Elliott
Sumner Locke Elliott was an Australian novelist.-Biography:Elliott was born in Sydney to the writer Helena Sumner Locke and the journalist Henry Logan Elliott. His mother died of eclampsia one day after his birth...

, Horton Foote
Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...

, Tad Mosel
Tad Mosel
Tad Mosel was an American playwright and one of the leading dramatists of hour-long teleplay genre for live television during the 1950s. He received the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play All the Way Home....

, Arnold Schulman
Arnold Schulman
Arnold Schulman is an American playwright, screenwriter, producer, a songwriter and novelist. He was a stage actor long associated with the American Theatre Wing and the Actors Studio....

, and Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

. Its most famous drama was Chayefsky's Marty
Marty
Marty is a 1953 teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky. It was telecast live May 24, 1953, on The Goodyear Television Playhouse with Rod Steiger in the title role and Nancy Marchand, in her television debut, playing opposite him as Clara...

(May 24, 1953), which starred Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...

 and was later made into a movie that won an Academy Award for Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...

.

Among the many performers on the Philco Television Playhouse were Dennis Cross
Dennis Cross
Dennis Cross was an American actor who was the lead star of the syndicated television series The Blue Angels, fictional stories of daredevil United States Navy pilots which aired from 1960-1961...

, Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

, Janet De Gore
Janet De Gore
Janet De Gore is a former actress best known for her supporting roles on two television series, The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC and The Real McCoys, renamed The McCoys in its last season on CBS . In The Law and Mr...

, Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...

, Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...

, Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman
Jacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American stage, film and television actor known for his roles in sitcoms, movies, and television and on Broadway...

, Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award...

, Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...

, Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...

, Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...

, Zasu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...

, Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...

, Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane was an American stage, film and television actor, songwriter, and theatre director.-Early life:...

, Kim Stanley
Kim Stanley
Kim Stanley was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances....

, Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

, and Joanne Woodward
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman...

. Many of these actors were making their first television appearance; one of them was Jose Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

, who recreated his stage performance in a one-hour television condensation of Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....

a full year before the 1950 film version
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1950 black-and-white feature film based on the 1897 French Alexandrine verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It uses poet Brian Hooker's 1923 English blank verse translation as the basis for its screenplay...

, for which Ferrer won an Oscar, was released. Another was Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...

, who starred in the 1948 presentation Counsellor-at Law.

Beginning in 1951, Philco shared sponsorship of the program with Goodyear
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery....

, with the title alternating between Philco Television Playhouse and Goodyear Television Playhouse
Goodyear Television Playhouse
The Goodyear Television Playhouse produced live television dramas from 1951 to 1957 during the "Golden Age of Television".Sponsored by Goodyear, the hour-long anthology series was telecast Sundays at 9pm on NBC...

to reflect that week's sponsor. In 1955, the show was retitled The Alcoa Hour
The Alcoa Hour
The Alcoa Hour is a live anthology television series sponsored by Alcoa and telecast in the United States from 1955 to 1957. The series was seen Sundays on NBC at 9pm.-Overview:...

. The three series were essentially the same, with the only real difference being the name of the sponsor.
In the sixth season, Cathleen Nesbitt
Cathleen Nesbitt
Cathleen Mary Nesbitt, CBE was an English stage and film actress.-Biography:Born in Cheshire, England in 1888, of Welsh and Irish descent, Nesbitt was educated in Lisieux, France, and at the Queen's University of Belfast and the Sorbonne...

 and Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...

 starred in Chayefsky's The Mother (April 4, 1954). This is one of the rare teleplays from television's Golden Age to be restaged on TV decades later, a Great Performances
Great Performances
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...

production on October 24, 1994, with Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....

 and Joan Cusack
Joan Cusack
Joan Mary Cusack is an American film, stage and television actress. Throughout her career, Cusack has appeared in many films as well as appearing in stage productions....

.

The seventh season began September 19, 1954 with E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s, and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s...

 and Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...

 in Chayefsky's Middle of the Night, a play which moved to Broadway 15 months later and was filmed by Columbia Pictures in 1959.

On August 7, 1955, John Cassavetes
John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...

 played an American artist expatriate in A Room in Paris. This adaptation of Peggy Mann's novel (her first novel for adults) was published in 1955 by Doubleday, followed by Popular Library's paperback edition.

The final Philco production, on October 2, 1955, was Robert Alan Aurthur's A Man Is Ten Feet Tall, co-starring Don Murray
Don Murray (actor)
Donald Patrick "Don" Murray is an American actor.-Early life and career:Murray was born in Hollywood, California on July 31, 1929, the only child of Dennis Aloisius, a Broadway dance director and stage manager and Ethel Murray, a former Ziegfeld performer...

 and Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

, which was adapted and expanded into the 1957 MGM feature film, Edge of the City
Edge of the City
Edge of the City is a 1957 drama film directed by Martin Ritt, starring John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier. It was Ritt's debut film as a director...

, with Poitier recreating his original role, and John Cassavetes in Murray's part.

U.S. television ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of The Philco Television Playhouse on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

.
Season TV season Ranking Viewers (in millions)
3rd 1950-1951 #3 4.620
4th 1951-1952 #12 6.181
5th 1952-1953 #17 7.609
6th 1953-1954 #19 8.450
7th 1954-1955 #

Awards and nominations

Year Result Award Category Recipient
1954 Winner Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...

 
1951 Nominated Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 
Best Dramatic Show
1952 Nominated Emmy Award Best Dramatic Show
1953 Nominated Emmy Award Best Dramatic Show
1954 Nominated Emmy Award Best Dramatic Show
1955 Nominated Emmy Award Best Written Dramatic Material Paddy Chayefsky
Paddy Chayefsky
Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....

Nominated Emmy Award Best Dramatic Show
Nominated Emmy Award Best Actress in a Single Performance Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...

 (For episode "Middle of the Night")
1956 Nominated Emmy Award Best Original Teleplay Writing Robert Alan Aurthur
Robert Alan Aurthur
Robert Alan Aurthur was an American screenwriter, director and TV producer.-Television:In the early years of television, he wrote for Studio One and then moved on to write episodes of Mister Peepers...

 (For episode "A Man Is Ten Feet Tall")

In popular culture

In 2006, the NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was an American dramedy television series created and written by Aaron Sorkin. It ran for 22 episodes.The series takes place behind the scenes of a live sketch comedy show on the fictional television network NBS , whose format is similar to that of NBC's...

referenced The Philco Television Playhouse as The Philco Comedy Hour, a comedy show that aired on the fictional NBS network. Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

 made a guest appearance on Studio 60, playing a former show writer who was blacklist
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or...

ed in the 1950s.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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