For a short period between August 28, 1955, and February 12, 1956, Philco Television Playhouse alternated with The Alcoa Hour in addition to Goodyear Playhouse. Following the end of the Philco Television Playhouse in 1955, The Alcoa Hour and Goodyear Playhouse continued in alternation with broadcasts of one-hour live dramas until September 29, 1957.

Under the guidance of producer Fred Coe (who also served as one of the program’s several directors), Philco Television Playhouse became known for its high-quality adaptations of plays, short stories, and novels. It was also the first anthology drama to encourage the writing of original plays exclusively for television.

During its first season, Philco Television Playhouse emphasized adaptations. The first broadcast was a television version of Dinner at Eight, a play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Directed by Coe, the production starred Peggy Wood, Dennis King, Judson Laire, Mary Boland, and Vicki Cummings.

Other adaptations from plays that first season included Counselor-at-Law with Paul Muni, The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, and a version of the Edmund Rostand play Cyrano de Bergerac starring Jose Ferrer. Among the novels adapted were Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Alexandre Dumas’s Camille, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. On December 19, 1948, Philco Television Playhouse broadcast an adaptation of the Charles Dickens’s story A Christmas Carol. The program included a filmed rendering of “Silent Night” sung by Bing Crosby.

Although it continued to produce adaptations of plays and novels, Philco Television Playhouse began to air original scripts toward the end of the first season. These became more important in subsequent seasons. A number of young writers, including Paddy Chayefsky, Horton Foote, Tad Mosel, Alan Arthur, Arnold Schulman, and Gore Vidal, began their careers writing teleplays for the program.

Chayefsky wrote several scripts for Philco/Goodyear. Among them were Holiday Song (Goodyear, September 14, 1952), The Bachelor Party (Philco, October 11, 1953), The Mother (Philco, April 4, 1954), Middle of the Night (Philco, September 19, 1954), and The Catered Affair (Goodyear, May 22, 1955). The Bachelor Party, Middle of the Night, and The Catered Affair were later made into feature films.

Chayefsky’s most famous Philco script was Marty, aired on May 24, 1953. Directed by Delbert Mann, the production starred Rod Steiger in the title role. It became the most renowned production from the Golden Age of television anthologies and marked a turning point for television drama because of the considerable amount of critical attention paid to it by the press.

According to Delbert Mann, Marty was inspired by the ballroom of the Abbey Hotel on the corner of Fifty-third Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City. A meeting place for single people during the evening hours, the ballroom was the site of Philco Television Playhouse rehearsals during the day. Chayefsky had originally planned to have the main character be a woman but then changed the role into that of the lonely butcher, Marty. The story is a simple one, focused on character and emotion rather than excessive dramatic action. After many unsuccessful attempts to find a girl, Marty visits the ballroom one evening and meets a homely young teacher. Against the objections of his mother and his bachelor friends, Marty finally stands up for himself and calls the young woman back for a date.

Mann believed that Rod Steiger gave the best performance of his life in the role of Marty, and Steiger became so moved by the story that he wept openly on the set. Mann’s last direction to Steiger before air was to “hold back the tears.” Mann also directed the 1956 film version of Marty, which won four Academy Awards—for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actor (given to Ernest Borgnine for his portrayal of Marty).

Other important productions broadcast on the Philco Television Playhouse were Gore Vidal’s Visit to a Small Planet (Goodyear, May 8, 1955), which later became a Broadway play and a feature film; Vidal’s The Death of Billy the Kid (Philco, July 24, 1955), which became the 1958 film The Left-Handed Gun; and Horton Foote’s A Trip to Bountiful, later staged on Broadway in the 1950s and reshot in the 1980s as a film, with actress Geraldine Paige winning an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.

Fred Coe, a graduate of the Yale Drama School, was active as a director and producer for the Philco Television Playhouse for six years. Coe and other staff directors including Gordon Duff, Delbert Mann, Vincent Donehue, and Arthur Penn shared directing responsibilities on a rotating basis. Usually, they worked three weeks ahead with one show in preparation, one in rehearsal, and one on the studio floor ready for telecasting.

During its long tenure, the Philco Television Playhouse became a breeding ground for an entire generation of young directors, actors, and writers who later became famous in motion pictures and on Broadway. The program won a Peabody Award in 1954 for its “superior standards and achievements.” Some of the best-known actors who appeared on the series were Joanne Woodward, Steve McQueen, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Grace Kelly, Kim Stanley, Jack Klugman, and Walter Matthau.