Paddy Chayefsky biography

Synopsis

Early Years

Born on January 29, 1923, and raised in the Bronx, New York, Paddy Chayefsky was the son of Jewish-Russian immigrants. Both his religion and his lower-middle-class background informed and influenced his many works. As a young man, Chayefsky developed an interest in writing. He learned how to write a play by studying the works of others, and he even copied out the entire text of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour by hand. Chayefsky attended DeWitt Clinton High School and then studied at the City College of New York.

After graduating from college in 1943, Chayefsky joined the U. S. Army. He served in an infantry division in Germany, where he earned the nickname "Paddy." His real was Sidney Aaron Chayefsky, but his fellow soldiers started calling him Paddy after he kept asking to be excused to attend mass. This was an effort to avoid kitchen duty, not to convert to another faith. But his comrades joked that he must have been Irish for going to services so much.

Chayefsky was injured in the war after stepping on a landmine. While recuperating in an English hospital, he wrote a military musical called No T.O. for Love. Chayefsky returned to New York after the war and went to work at an uncle's print shop. In his own time, he continued writing, developing scripts and stories for radio, and the emerging medium of television.

Television, Films and Theater

Chayefsky first broke into television by writing scripts for two crime dramas, Danger and Manhunt. Before long, he was a part of what some would later refer to as "The Golden Age of Television." Chayefsky penned engaging dramas for the small screen, including 1953's Marty, which aired on Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse. He soon adapted his teleplay for film, scoring his first Academy Award for his screenplay. The movie version starred Ernest Borgnine as the lonely, overweight butcher who falls for a schoolteacher.

Writing for the theater, Chayefsky made his Broadway debut in 1957 with Middle of the Night. The play, called a love story, featured Edward G. Robinson and Gena Rowlands. His next effort, The Tenth Man, was a comedy set in an Orthodox synagogue. It ran for nearly two years in New York before going out on a successful tour. It was criticism of The Passion of Josef D., an experimental production about Communist leader Josef Stalin and the Russian Revolution, that drove Chayefsky away from the theater. The show lasted less than two weeks before it closed, and he vowed to never write for the Broadway stage again.

While television tastes changed, Chayefsky turned to films. He adapted his earlier teleplay, The Americanization of Emily, into a screenplay with mixed reviews.