American playwright and screenwriter whose work was part of the flowering of television drama in the 1950s.

Chayefsky graduated from City College of New York in 1943 and served during World War II in the U.S. Army. On his return to New York City he worked as a printer's apprentice, then began writing radio adaptations for “Theatre Guild of the Air” (1951–52) and mystery dramas for television series.

His first full-length television play was Holiday Song (1952). His greatest success was Marty (1953), about the awakening of love between two plain people, a butcher and a schoolteacher. The film version in 1955 won four Academy Awards and the Golden Palm of the Cannes Festival. Two other of his television plays also were made into motion pictures: The Bachelor Party (1954; filmed 1957) and The Catered Affair (1955; filmed 1956).

Another television drama, The Middle of the Night (1954), became, in expanded form, Chayefsky's first stage play (1956). His next two stage plays, The Tenth Man (1959) and Gideon (1961), were on religious themes and attacked contemporary cynicism, while The Passion of Josef D. (1964) was a treatment of Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution. The Latent Heterosexual (published 1967; performed 1968) tells of a successful homosexual author who marries for tax purposes and enjoys it. Chayefsky also wrote film scripts and scenarios; he received Academy Awards for his screenplays for Marty, The Hospital (1971), and Network (1976), the last-named work being a brilliant satire of network television.