The United States Steel Hour

The series originated on radio in the 1940s as Theatre Guild on the Air. Organized in 1919 to improve the quality of American theater, the Theatre Guild first experimented with radio productions in Theatre Guild Dramas, a CBS series which ran from December 6, 1943 to February 29, 1944.

Actress-playwright Armina Marshall (1895–1991), a co-administrator of the Theatre Guild, headed the Guild's newly created Radio Department, and in 1945, Theatre Guild on the Air embarked on its ambitious plan to bring Broadway theater to radio with leading actors in major productions. It premiered September 9, 1945 on ABC with Burgess Meredith, Henry Daniell and Cecil Humphreys in Wings Over Europe, a play by Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne which the Theatre Guild had staged on Broadway in 1928–29.^[1]

Within a year the series drew 10 to 12 million listeners each week. Presenting both classic and contemporary plays, the program was broadcast for eight years before it became a television series.

Playwrights adapted to radio ranged from Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde to Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. Numerous Broadway and Hollywood stars acted in the series, including Ingrid Bergman, Ronald Colman, Bette Davis, Rex Harrison, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Deborah Kerr, Sam Levene, Agnes Moorehead, Basil Rathbone, Charles Tyner and Mary Sinclair. One notable performance was John Gielgud as Hamlet, in an expanded 90-minute broadcast with Dorothy McGuire as Ophelia.^[2] Fredric March was heard in his only performance as Cyrano de Bergerac, a role he played neither onstage or onscreen.^[2] The series also featured the only radio broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's flop musical, Allegro.^[2]

The radio series was broadcast until June 7, 1953, when U.S. Steel decided to move the show to television.

The September 8, 1946, episode was "Angel Street", starring Hayes, Victor Jory, and Leo G. Carroll.^[3]

The television version aired from October 27, 1953, to 1955 on ABC, and from 1955 to 1963 on CBS. Like its radio predecessor, it was a live dramatic anthology series. Although episodes were normally dramatic productions, the series occasionally presented a musical program^[4] or a comedy.^[5]

While most episodes were broadcast live, some were taped. At least one combined the methods, as on April 6, 1960, Robert Loggia had three roles in an episode. The segments in which he played a 45-year-old man and his 22-year-old son were done live, while between them the segment in which he portrayed an 80-year-old uncle was on tape.^[6]

By its final year in 1963, it was the last surviving live anthology series from the Golden Age of Television. It was still on the air during President John F. Kennedy's famous April 11, 1962, confrontation with steel companies over the hefty raising of their prices. The show featured a range of television acting talent, and its episodes explored a wide variety of contemporary social issues, from the mundane to the controversial.^{[citation needed]}

Notable guest star actors included Martin Balsam, Tallulah Bankhead, Ralph Bellamy, James Dean, Dolores del Río, Keir Dullea, Bennye Gatteys, Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Harrison, Celeste Holm, Sally Ann Howes, Jack Klugman, Sam Levene, Peter Lorre, Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, George Peppard, Janice Rule, Albert Salmi, George Segal, Jamie Smith, Suzanne Storrs, and Johnny Washbrook. Washbrook played Johnny Sullivan in The Roads Home in his first ever screen role. Griffith made his onscreen debut in the show's production of No Time for Sergeants, and would reprise the lead role in the 1958 big screen adaptation. In 1956–57, Read Morgan made his television debut on the Steel Hour as a young boxer in two episodes titled "Sideshow". Child actor Darryl Richard, later of The Donna Reed Show, also made his acting debut in the episode "The Bogey Man", which aired January 18, 1955. On August 17, 1955, in her series debut, Janice Rule played the titular protagonist–and actor Jamie Smith her "likable, solid-type fiancé"–in the episode "The Bride Cried".^[7] In 1960, Johnny Carson starred with Anne Francis in "Queen of the Orange Bowl".

Many notable writers contributed episodes, including Ira Levin, Richard Maibaum and Rod Serling. The program also broadcast one-hour musical versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The latter was broadcast on November 20, 1957, with a cast including Jimmy Boyd, Earle Hyman, Basil Rathbone, Jack Carson and Florence Henderson. Boyd had previously played Finn in the earlier telecast of Tom Sawyer.^[8][9][10]

Jackson Beck was the announcer when the program was on ABC.^[11]

On ABC the program was broadcast from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. on alternate Tuesdays. Episodes were distributed live on 76 network affiliates and by kinescope on 31 others. The latter status caused a problem because "The television rights to a story property cannot be obtained in certain cases if the program is to be televised in some areas by delayed film broadcasts."^[18] During its first season on television, the program alternated bi-weekly with The Motorola Television Hour,^[19] which was replaced by Center Stage June 1, 1954 - September 21, 1954.^[20] The Elgin Hour became the alternate program in October 1954.^[21]

NBC and CBS tried to obtain the series, and CBS succeeded with the ability to have it carried live on 115 affiliates. The series's last ABC broadcast was on June 21, 1955. Its CBS debut was at 10 p.m. E. T. on July 6, 1955,^[18] alternating with Front Row Center.^[13] In later years it alternated with Armstrong Circle Theatre.^[22] It ended on June 12, 1963.^[23]

The Theatre Guild supervised production of the TV series. Executive producers included Marshall Jamison.^[152] Producers included George Kondolf.^[22] Episodes on ABC were produced at ABC Television Center on West 66th Street in New York.^[13] Broadcasts originated from WABC-TV.^[11]

During its time on ABC, Alex Segal was the director.^[18] Directors on CBS included Boris Sagal,^[6] Marshall Jamison,^[95] Paul Bogart,^[5] Don Richardson,^[96] Tom Donovan,^[106] Norman Felton, Dan Petrie, and Sidney Lumet.^[13]: 55 Concurrent with the change of networks, the Guild applied "the well-known theory that a certain director may be skilléd in staging a comedy, but somewhat inept at serious drama".^[153]

The March 15, 1955, episode ("No Time for Sergeants") was the show's first presentation before a live studio audience. A network representative said that the change should "engender honest laughter".^[154]

• "Bang the Drum Slowly (1956) – Bang the Drum Slowly (film, 1973)^[13]: 56

"P. O. W.", the series's premiere episode, was used to help American armed forces personnel who had problems as they returned from fighting in Korea. At the request of the United States Department of Defense, ABC provided a film of the live broadcast to be used as a training film.^[155]

The series's musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer was itself adapted into a stage musical. The production debuted on July 13, 1958, at the Starlight Theatre in Swope Park in Kansas City, Missouri.^[156]

A "full-blown West End presentation of Who's Earnest" was produced in London in 1957.^[157] The musical was an adaptation of the October 9, 1957, Steel Hour episode.^[157]

The script for "Welcome Home" (March 16, 1954) was developed into a full-length play for stage performances.^[158]

Rod Serling was not regarded as a controversial scriptwriter until he contributed to The United States Steel Hour, as he recalled in his collection Patterns (1957):

In the television seasons of 1952 and 1953, almost every television play I sold to the major networks was "non-controversial". This is to say that in terms of their themes they were socially inoffensive, and dealt with no current human problem in which battle lines might be drawn. After the production of Patterns, when my things were considerably easier to sell, in a mad and impetuous moment I had the temerity to tackle a theme that was definitely two-sided in its implications. I think this story is worth repeating.

The script was called Noon on Doomsday. It was produced by the Theatre Guild on The United States Steel Hour in April 1956. The play, in its original form, followed very closely the Till case in Mississippi, where a young Negro boy was kidnapped and killed by two white men who went to trial and were exonerated on both counts. The righteous and continuing wrath of the Northern press opened no eyes and touched no consciences in the little town in Mississippi where the two men were tried. It was like a cold wind that made them huddle together for protection against an outside force which they could equate with an adversary. It struck me at the time that the entire trial and its aftermath was simply "They're bastards, but they're our bastards." So I wrote a play in which my antagonist was not just a killer but a regional idea. It was the story of a little town banding together to protect its own against outside condemnation. At no point in the conception of my story was there a black-white issue. The victim was an old Jew who ran a pawnshop. The killer was a neurotic malcontent who lashed out at something or someone who might be materially and physically the scapegoat for his own unhappy, purposeless, miserable existence. Philosophically I felt that I was on sound ground. I felt that I was dealing with a sociological phenomenon—the need of human beings to have a scapegoat to rationalize their own shortcomings.

Noon on Doomsday finally went on the air several months later, but in a welter of publicity that came from some 15,000 letters and wires from White Citizens' Councils and the like protesting the production of the play. In news stories, the play had been erroneously described as "The story of the Till case". At one point earlier, during an interview on the Coast, I told a reporter from one of the news services the story of Noon on Doomsday. He said, "Sounds like the Till case." I shrugged it off, answering, "If the shoe fits..." This is all it took. From that moment on Noon on Doomsday was the dramatization of the Till case. And no matter how the Theatre Guild or the agency representing U.S. Steel denied it, the impression persisted. The offices of the Theatre Guild, on West 53rd Street in New York City, took on all the aspects of a football field ten seconds after the final whistle blew.^[159]

Theater Guild on the Air won a Peabody Award for drama in 1947.^[160] The United States Steel Hour won Emmys in 1954 for Best Dramatic Program and Best New Program. The following year it won an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series, and Alex Segal was nominated for Best Direction. It received eight Emmy nominations in 1956, then one nomination for the years 1957, 1959, and 1961.^[161] In 1962, the episode "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.^[162] The program won TV Guide's Gold Medal Award for 1953-54 as one of three programs "honored for their outstanding achievement, initiative and enterprise and their major contributions to the industry".^[163] Gracie Fields won a 1956 Sylvania Award for her performance in "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals".^[164]