Paddy Chayefsky

(1923 - 1981)

Paddy Chayefsky attempted a career as a standup comic before serving in World War II. He kept his promise to never again write for the New York stage after bad reviews of his play about Joseph Stalin hastened the production’s closing. His screenwriting career earned him three Academy Awards for his scripts for Marty (1955), The Hospital (1971), and Network (1976). He died at the age of fifty-eight in 1981, with the last words “I tried. I really tried.”