Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays.
Despite being one of the most notable writers of "The Golden Age of Television," it was in film that he saw his greatest achievements, winning three Academy Awards for Marty (1955), The Hospital (1971) and Network (1976). The movie Marty was based on Chayefsky’s television drama about two lonely people finding love. His screenplay for Network is regarded as his masterpiece and was hailed as "the kind of literate, darkly funny and breathtakingly prescient material that prompts many to claim it as the greatest screenplay of the 20th century."
As a playwright, Chayefsky was twice nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play for The 10th Man (1960) and Gideon (1962). He was part of the inaugural class of inductees into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Television Hall of Fame and received this honor three years after his death in 1984. The stage adaptation of Chayefsky’s Network by Lee Hall debuted on the West End in 2017 and had a successful run on Broadway in 2018, both starring the actor Bryan Cranston.
