The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Opens Archive of Oscar-winning scenarist and playwright Paddy Chayefsky

Collection Joins the Billy Rose Theatre Division, a vast resource of theatrical materials

November 17, 2006 - As of today, The New York Public Library for the Performing Art's Billy Rose Theatre Division is opening to researchers and historians the papers of American playwright and scenarist Paddy Chayefsky (1923-1981), most known for penning the Academy Award winning films Marty and Network . The papers, numbering about three thousand items, contain manuscripts and correspondence - to and from such prominent figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Tennessee Williams - from the 1940s until Chayefsky's death in 1981, fully documenting the career of this important force in the literature of stage, film, radio, and television in the final half of the twentieth century.

"Paddy Chayefsky was an innovative force in the entertainment industry: a versatile writer of the stage, television and motion pictures," said Jacqueline Z. Davis, Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director for the Performing Arts. "He developed some of the most memorable dramas of the television golden age and is responsible for a series of significant films that examined and satirized the society of his era. Being able to trace the course of his projects from initial jottings to script treatments to notes taken on the set is an invaluable asset to any researcher. The Chayefsky papers join the wealth of materials available to researchers here at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts."

"Paddy Chayefsky's work luminously transcended one single genre," comments Robert Taylor, Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division. "The collection here at the Billy Rose Theatre Division showcases the versatility and depth of his talent, and provides ample evidence of Chayefsky's intellectual work process as he developed into an American icon of dramatic arts and social commentary."

The papers offer a thorough record of a remarkable career that touched many other American artists of the period. The correspondence files and the production files for his works are of primary interest. Early letters candidly discuss his experiences during wartime, as well as early creative projects. These letters often brim with Chayefsky's humorous observations. While stationed in London, he wrote to childhood friend Della Wasserman of his host city, "...there is a distinctly Bohemian section to this town, where people roam around like in the days of Isadora Duncan. Everybody wears their hear [sic] the same way, and often enough it is difficult to determine the sex." Letters to Tyrone Guthrie illuminate the development of Gideon and The Passion of Josef D. Among the papers is also lengthy discussion of the work of others, as demonstrated by an extensive twelve page letter to producer Walter Wanger providing feedback on the script for Cleopatra (1963). In the letter, Chayefsky blatantly states the script is abominable and suggests Wanger start anew. "...to finish off what is left of our friendship, let me add that the script is lumpy and deformed and doesn't have five minutes of living breath in it," he laments.

In the collection, there is considerable correspondence between Chayefsky and various members of the Beat movement including Allen Ginsberg, Ray and Bonnie Bremser, and William Morris. Other notable correspondents include Ray Bradbury, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Fosse, Katharine Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Elia and Molly Kazan, Frank Loesser, Jackie Mason, Ed Sullivan, Gay and Nan Talese, Elizabeth Taylor, Tennessee Williams, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Correspondence with organizations reveals the wide range of social, political, and professional concerns Chayefsky maintained throughout his life. Chayefsky's role as a cultural emissary in dealings with various U.S. agencies and international bodies is also recorded in letters here.

Among his own produced work, Chayefsky's later projects, specifically The Latent Heterosexual, The Hospital, Network, and Altered States are most extensively represented in this collection.

Other highlights of the collection include a series relating to other works. The material here reveals projects that inspired Chayefsky, but never came to fruition for various reasons. The entire collection reflects the diversity of the artist's interests and the progression of his oeuvre from social realism, to social satire, to the surreal and American historical drama.

Paddy Chayefsky

Paddy Chayefsky was one of the most renowned dramatists to emerge from the golden age of American television. He was able to transition from television in the 1950s to have a successful career as a playwright and screenwriter for Hollywood, winning three Academy Awards for three scripts.

Sidney Aaron Chayefsky was born in the Bronx, New York in 1923 to Russian Jewish parents. He studied at the City College of New York and Fordham University and served in the U.S. Army during World War II, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart.

He began writing in the 1940s and began his television career writing episodes for Danger and Manhunt in the early 1950s. His scripts came to the attention of Fred Coe, a producer at NBC's Philco-Goodyear Playhouse. Chayefsky's first project with Coe, Holiday Song, was an immediate hit when it aired in 1952.

Coe went on to produce six of Chayefsky's scripts, securing Chayefsky's name among the pantheon of the brightest television writers during that period.

Chayefsky's scripts are known for their witty dialogue, depictions of second-generation Americans, as well as for their sentiment and humor. They frequently drew on the author's upbringing in the Bronx. And the protagonists were generally middle-class tradesmen struggling with loneliness, pressures to conform, and neglect of their own emotions.

His work on Marty, first as a live production for television featuring Rod Steiger in 1953 and then for film two years later, gave him his first major success. The film, starring Ernest Borgnine, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Chayefsky himself received an Academy Award for his work on the screenplay, as well as wide acclaim. Critics compared his writing to the realistic dramas of Clifford Odets and Arthur Miller, though Chayefsky generally steered clear of social and political issues. Chayefsky focused on screenplays after the success of Marty, and left television work in 1956 to work on films such as The Goddess (1958), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and The Bachelor Party (1957).

In the 1960s, Chayefsky's work greatly departed from the genre of personal dramas he was known for. His subsequent work was dark and satirical. During this period, he went on to win two more Oscars for his work on The Hospital (1971) and the film for which he is best known, Network (1976), his scathing satire of the television industry, for both of which he also received Golden Globe awards.

His last screenplay was based on his novel Altered States (1980). Paddy Chayefsky died in New York City of cancer in 1981 at the age of 58.

About The Billy Rose Theatre Division

The Billy Rose Theatre Collection was formally established in 1931, following a gift to The New York Public Library of thousands of items from the estate of producer and playwright David Belasco. It was officially named the Billy Rose Theatre Collection in recognition of a major gift from the Billy Rose Foundation. While it houses an extraordinary array of traditional reference materials, the Collection's strength and unique quality lie in its unparalleled collection of theatre ephemera, as well as its pioneering efforts to document theatre on videotape and film.

The Collection is a comprehensive archive of some 5 million items devoted to the theatrical arts in all their forms and manifestations, and includes scripts and promptbooks, programs, personal archives and scrapbooks, clippings, production designs, prints, photographs, and posters, as well as books and periodicals. Its collections illuminate virtually every type of performance, from street corner to stage to studio, and include drama and musical theatre, film, television, radio, and popular entertainment, such as circus, magic, vaudeville, and puppetry. Users can, for example, peruse costume designs from the film version of The King and I, analyze a video of A Chorus Line, read multiple drafts of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, or read scripts from current television hits. In recent years, the Theatre Collection acquired the archives of famed theatrical producer Joseph Papp and the great theatre and screen star Lillian Gish.

Through its documentation and conservation efforts, the collection preserves and promotes the theatre, playing a dynamic role in the national and international theatre communities. Notably, the collection includes the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, known as TOFT, the only organization authorized by all of America's theatrical guilds and unions to videotape live theatre performances from across the United States. More than 4,500 tapes include Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre productions, theatre-related television programs, films, and documentaries; and interviews with distinguished theatre professionals.  The work of notables such as Rosemary Harris, Derek Jacobi, James Earl Jones, Nathan Lane, Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, and Sam Waterston are preserved for posterity, as are new plays and musicals, classics and revivals, ranging from Kiss Me, Kate to Proof. In 2001, TOFT received a special Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, one of many awards the division has received for its contribution to American theatre.

The Billy Rose Theatre Division was formally named a division of the The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2006.

About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world's most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts -whether professional or amateur- the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.

Processing of the Paddy Chayefsky papers was generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library through   the Nina Robbins Endowment.

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Contact :             Jennifer Lam   212.592.7700             |             Jennifer_Lam@nypl.org

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