Paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king

Since he had always wanted to use a synagogue as backdrop, he wrote Holiday Songtelecast in and also in Robinson and Gena Rowlandsand its success led to a national tour. Marty is about a decent, hard-working Bronx butcher, pining for the company of a woman in his life but despairing of ever finding true love in a relationship. Fate pairs him with a plain, shy schoolteacher named Clara whom he rescues from the embarrassment of being abandoned by her blind date in a local dance hall.

The production, the actors and Chayefsky's naturalistic dialogue received much critical acclaim and influenced subsequent live television dramas. Chayefsky was initially uninterested when producer Harold Hecht sought to buy film rights for Marty for Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. Chayefsky, still upset by his treatment years before, demanded creative control, consultation on casting, and the same director as in the TV version, Delbert Mann.

Surprisingly, Hecht agreed to all of Chayefsky's demands, and named Chayefsky "associate producer" of the film. Chayefsky then requested and was granted "co-director" status, so that he could take over production if Mann were fired. The screenplay was little changed from the teleplay, but with Clara's role expanded. Chayefsky was involved in all casting decisions and had a cameo roleplaying one of Marty's friends, unseen, in a car.

Actress Betsy Blairplaying Clara, faced difficulties because of her affiliation with left-wing causes, and United Artists demanded that she be removed. Chayefsky refused, and her husband Gene Kelly also intervened on her behalf. Blair remained in the cast. In Septemberafter most of the movie had been filmed, the studio ceased production due to accounting and financial difficulties.

After his success with MartyChayefsky continued to write for TV and theater as well as films. Catered Affair did well in Europe but poorly in U. The studio chose instead to promote another Hecht-Hill-Lancaster film, Sweet Smell of Successwhich it believed to be better. Bachelor Party was a commercial failure, and never made a profit. Chayefsky wrote a film adaptation of his Broadway play Middle of the Nightoriginally writing the female lead role for Marilyn Monroe.

She passed on the part, which went to Kim Novak. He also commenced work on The Goddessthe story of the rise and fall of a movie star resembling Monroe. He and Stanley clashed during production of the film, in which Chayefsky served as producer as well as screenwriter. Despite her requests, Chayefsky refused to change any aspect of the script.

Monroe's husband, Arthur Miller believed that the film was based on his wife's life and protested to Chayefsky. The film received positive reviews, and Chayefsky received an Academy Award nomination for his script. Chayefsky denied for years that the film was based on Monroe, but Chayefsky's biographer Shaun Considine observes that not only was she the prototype but the film "captured her longing and despair" accurately.

In Chayefsky began adapting Middle of the Night as a film, and he decided not to use the star of the Broadway version, Edward G. Robinson, with whom he had clashed, choosing instead Frederic March. Elizabeth Taylor initially agreed to appear in the female lead, but dropped out. Kim Novak was ultimately cast in the part. The film was chosen as the American entry at the Cannes Film Festival, but reviews were mixed and the film had only a short run in theaters.

Guthrie received another nomination for Chayefsky's Gideonas did actor Fredric March. Chayefsky's final Broadway theatrical production, a play based on the life of Joseph StalinThe Passion of Josef Dreceived unfavorable reviews and ran for only 15 performances. Although Chayefsky was an early writer for the television medium, he eventually abandoned it, "decrying the lack of interest the networks demonstrated toward quality programming".

As a result, during the course of his career, he constantly toyed with the idea of lampooning the television industry, which he succeeded in doing with Network. Although Chayefsky wished only to do original screenplays, he was persuaded by producer Martin Ransohoff to adapt William Bradford Huie 's novel that was eventually filmed with the book's title The Americanization of Emily Chayefsky agreed to adapting the novel but only if he could fundamentally change the story.

He made the titular character more sophisticated, but refusing to be "Americanized" by accepting material goods. William Wyler was initially brought in as the director, but his relationship with Chayefsky deteriorated when he sought to change the script. William Holden was initially cast in the male lead, but that led to conflict when he asked that Julie Andrews be replaced by his then-girlfriend, Capucine.

James Garneradept at comedy with sophisticated dialogue but originally slated to play a supporting role, replaced Holden and delivered a critically acclaimed performance while James Coburn took over the part originally meant for Garner. The film has since been praised as a " vanguard anti-war film. The failure of Americanization of Emily and Josef D.

Director Sam Peckinpah rejected the script, and Chayefsky was fired. Chayefsky worked for a time on adapting Huie's book Three Lives for Mississippi, about the murders of three civil rights workers inand in was hired to adapt the Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. He was fired from the film after producing a script that Alan Jay Lernerthe playwright and producer, felt lacked "a musical structure.

In and Chayefsky began to consider a film that would be set among the civil unrest taking place at the time. When his wife Susan received poor care at a hospital, he pitched to United Artists a story based at a hospital. To ensure that he had the same kind of creative control given to playwrights, he formed Simcha Productions, named after the Hebrew version of his given name, Sidney.

He then commenced research, reading medical books and visiting hospitals. The leading character in the film, Dr. Herbert Bock, included many of Chayefsky's personal traits. Bock had been a "boy genius" who felt bitter and that his life was over. One of the monologues of George C. Scott as Bock in the film, in which Bock says he is miserable and considering suicide, was repeated verbatim from a conversation that Chayefsky had with a business associate during that time.

The long speeches written for Bock and other characters by Chayefsky, later praised by critics, met resistance from United Artists executives during the making of the film. The script was described as "too talky" and containing excessive medical terminology. But Chayefsky, as producer, prevailed. He also vetoed the studio's suggestion that Walter Matthau or Burt Lancaster be hired for the lead role, insisting on Scott.

Chayefsky worked on the dialogue with Diana Riggthe female lead, but Scott rejected his input. After filming, Chayefsky spoke the opening narration after several actors were rejected for the job. It was supposed to be temporary, but became the one that was used in the film. Chayefsky won an Academy Award for his script, and his career was revived.

Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October he said that he had not decided whether he would vote for Democrat Adlai Stevenson II or Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower at the presidential electionbut that "In the past, I always voted the Democratic ticket.

Kennedy : "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one. InKing urged his supporters "and all people of goodwill" to vote against Republican Senator Barry Goldwater for president, saying that his election "would be a tragedy, and certainly suicidal almost, for the nation and the world.

Kennedy would make for a good president, but also believed that he wouldn't beat Johnson in the Democratic Party presidential primaries. He also expressed support for the possible presidential candidacies of Republicans Nelson RockefellerGeorge Romney and Charles Percy. King rejected both laissez-faire capitalism and communism ; King had read Marx while at Morehouse but rejected communism because of its " materialistic interpretation of history " that denied religion, its " ethical relativism ", and its " political totalitarianism ".

He stated that one focused too much on the individual while the other focused too much on the collective. In a letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic King was critical of American culture saying "when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered" and that America must undergo a "radical revolution of values".

King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy inhe said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils.

He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races. Actress Nichelle Nichols planned to leave the science-fiction television series Star Trek in after its first season. King explained that her character signified a future of greater racial cooperation. Keep doing what you're doing, you are our inspiration. Star Trek was one of the only shows that [King] and his wife Coretta would allow their little children to watch.

And I thanked him and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face. And he said, 'Don't you understand for the first time we're seen as we should be seen. You don't have a black role. You have an equal role. The series' creator, Gene Roddenberrywas deeply moved upon learning of King's support. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered surveillance of King, with the intent to undermine his power as a civil rights leader.

Kennedy to proceed with wiretapping of King's phone lines, purportedly due to his association with Stanley Levison. The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and King, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country. King was also the subject of extensive surveillance by local police agencies throughout the United States, including years before the FBI initiated wiretaps on the SCLC leader.

The Memphis Police Department also spied on King in the spring ofas the civil rights leader was taking part in a campaign to support striking sanitation workers in the Tennessee city. A fire station was located across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the boarding house in which James Earl Ray was staying. Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance.

Marrell McCollough, an undercover police officer, was the first person to administer first aid to King. In a secret operation code-named " Minaret ", the National Security Agency monitored the communications of leading Americans, including King, who were critical of the U. For years, Hoover had been suspicious of potential influence of communists in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights.

Due to the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, the FBI feared Levison was working as an "agent of influence" over King, in spite of its own reports in that Levison had left the Party and was no longer associated in business dealings with them. Despite the extensive surveillance, by the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king involved with any communist organizations.

For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to communism. In a Playboy interview, he stated that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida. The attempts to prove that King was a communist was related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were content with the status quo but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators".

CIA files declassified in revealed that the agency was investigating possible links between King and Communism after a Washington Post article dated November 4,claimed he was invited to the Soviet Union and that Ralph Abernathy, as spokesman for King, refused to comment on the source of the invitation. The FBI attempted to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life.

FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king to demonstrate that he had numerous extramarital affairs. The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you.

You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [ sic ]. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.

The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons. King to resign from the SCLC. In Mayan FBI file emerged on which a handwritten note alleged that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. Historians of the period who have examined this notional evidence have dismissed it as highly unreliable.

The professor of American studies at the University of NottinghamPeter Ling, pointed out that Garrow was excessively credulous, if not naive, in accepting the accuracy of FBI reports during a period when the FBI was undertaking a massive operation to attempt to discredit King. Theoharis commented "Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this.

King records at Stanford University states that he came to the opposite conclusion of Garrow:.

Paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king: LIFE Magazine April 19,

None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs. King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording. This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report.

You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present. The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in In his autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling DownRalph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage.

It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation. According to Garrow, "that relationship Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt". King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities. You have it all or you are not free. There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today.

That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war. The citation read:. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America.

He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in Among the planned designs are images from King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Memorial Library in Washington, D. King has received several honorary doctorates. Contents move to sidebar hide.

Augustine, Florida, Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. American civil rights leader — The Reverend. Coretta Scott. Martin Luther King Sr. Alberta Williams King. Christine King Farris sister A. King brother Alveda King niece.

Civil rights peace anti-war. This article is part of a series about. See also: Martin Luther King Jr. Activism and organizational leadership. Montgomery bus boycott, Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Survived knife attack, Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the elections. Albany Movement, Main article: Albany Movement. Birmingham campaign, Main article: Birmingham campaign.

March on Washington, Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I Have a Dream. Problems playing this file? See media help. Main article: St. Augustine movement. Biddeford, Maine, New York City, Scripto strike in Atlanta, Main article: — Scripto strike. Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches.

Chicago open housing movement, Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement. Opposition to the Vietnam War. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced —Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People's Campaign, Main article: Poor People's Campaign. Assassination and aftermath.

I've Been to the Mountaintop. Further information: King assassination riots. Allegations of conspiracy. Main article: Martin Luther King Jr. See also: Black Consciousness Movement. See also: Northern Ireland civil rights movement. Ideas, influences, and political stances. Criticism within the movement. Activism and involvement with Native Americans.

See also: Reparations for slavery debate in the United States. State surveillance and coercion. FBI surveillance and wiretapping. NSA monitoring of King's communications. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN X. The New York Times. Voice of America. Archived from the original on August 2, Board of Education. ISBN The King Center. The Martin Luther King, Jr.

Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Archived from the original on January 22, Retrieved January 22, March 9, Archived from the original on March 10, Retrieved September 2, Archived from the original on December 17, Retrieved June 24, Archived from the original on January 18, Retrieved May 29, Beacon Press. January 15, The Washington Post.

Paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king: Paddy Chayefsky, American playwright and

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Associated Press. Archived from the original on November 8, Retrieved November 13, Archived from the original PDF on November 7, Retrieved November 7, Ethnic and Racial Studies. ISSN The Daily Telegraph. February 1, Archived from the original on November 13, Retrieved September 8, Martin Luther King, Jr. InterVarsity Press. University of Georgia Press.

Retrieved June 17, Encyclopedia of Alabama. Archived from the original on January 23, Retrieved January 23, March 11, Archived from the original on September 18, Retrieved June 8, The Montgomery Bus Boycott. Gareth Stevens. Offering a brief history lesson on the roots of segregation, King emphasized that there would be no stopping the effort to secure full voting rights, while suggesting a more expansive agenda to come with a call to march on poverty.

Explaining why his conscience had forced him to speak up, King expressed concern for the poor American soldiers pressed into conflict thousands of miles from home, while pointedly faulting the U. The well-known orator delivered his final speech the day before he died at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. They were married on June 18,and had four children—two daughters and two sons—over the next decade.

The couple welcomed Bernice King in In addition to raising the children while Martin travelled the country, Coretta opened their home to organizational meetings and served as an advisor and sounding board for her husband. His lengthy absences became a way of life for their children, but Martin III remembered his father returning from the road to join the kids playing in the yard or bring them to the local YMCA for swimming.

Leery of accumulating wealth as a high-profile figure, Martin Jr. However, he was known to splurge on good suits and fine dining, while contrasting his serious public image with a lively sense of humor among friends and family. Due to his relationships with alleged Communists, King became a target of FBI surveillance and, from late until his death, a campaign to discredit the civil rights activist.

Edgar Hooverwhich urged King to kill himself if he wanted to prevent news of his dalliances from going public. Inhistorian David Garrow wrote of explosive new allegations against King following his review of recently released FBI documents. Among the discoveries was a memo suggesting that King had encouraged the rape of a parishioner in a hotel room as well as evidence that he might have fathered a daughter with a mistress.

The original surveillance tapes regarding these allegations are under judicial seal until From late throughKing expanded his civil rights efforts into other larger American cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. He was met with increasing criticism and public challenges from young Black power leaders. To address this criticism, King began making a link between discrimination and poverty, and he began to speak out against the Vietnam War.

He sought to broaden his base by forming a multiracial coalition to address the economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged people. Bythe years of demonstrations and confrontations were beginning to wear on King. He had grown tired of marches, going to jail, and living under the constant threat of death. He was becoming discouraged at the slow progress of civil rights in America and the increasing criticism from other African American leaders.

In the spring ofa labor strike by Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers drew King to one last crusade.

Paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king: Paddy Chayefsky. Sidney Chayefsky writer. Born:

Longevity has its place. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. In SeptemberKing survived an attempt on his life when a woman with mental illness stabbed him in the chest as he signed copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in a New York City department store. King died at age The shocking assassination sparked riots and demonstrations in more than cities across the country.

The shooter was James Earl Raya malcontent drifter and former convict. He initially escaped authorities but was apprehended after a two-month international manhunt. InRay pleaded guilty to assassinating King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Another complicating factor is the confession of tavern owner Loyd Jowers, who said he contracted a different hit man to kill King.

In Junemore than two years after Ray died, the U. Years after his death, he is the most widely known Black leader of his era. His life and work have been honored with a national holiday, schools and public buildings named after him, and a memorial on Independence Mall in Washington D. Over the years, extensive archival studies have led to a more balanced and comprehensive assessment of his life, portraying him as a complex figure: flawed, fallible, and limited in his control over the mass movements with which he was associated, yet a visionary leader who was deeply committed to achieving social justice through nonviolent means.

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Paddy chayefsky biography of martin luther king: Paddy Chayefsky (born January

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