AP News, October 1st, 2007
Martin Manulis, a television, film and stage producer who created the classic, Emmy-winning program "Playhouse 90," has died. He was 92.
Manulis died Friday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, according to his son, John Bard Manulis.
Manulis was best known as the creator and original producer of "Playhouse 90," a live dramatic anthology series that took on serious subjects and won critical acclaim and a constant stream of Emmys.
The first season of the show, which debuted in 1956, won six Emmys including best single program of the year and best new program series, among others for writing, acting and directing. It included the classic drama "Requiem for a Heavyweight," featuring Jack Palance as a down-on-his-luck boxer and written by Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame.
The second season under Manulis earned five Emmys, but by the third season he cut back to producing a third of the programs. Manulis also produced "The Miracle Worker," directed by Arthur Penn and written by William Gibson, and "The Eighty Yard Run," starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, in the early years of the series.
Weary of the strain of three years of producing live TV, he became the head of production at Twentieth Century Fox Television in 1958, overseeing lighter fare like "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."
In the 1960s he moved into film, bringing to the big screen "The Days of Wine and Roses," starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as troubled alcoholics. He had originally produced the drama for "Playhouse 90."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1915, Manulis graduated from Columbia and worked as a stage director before and after World War II.
Manulis is survived by John Bard Manulis, daughters Laurie Harmon and Karen Manulis Cohen.
His wife, Katherine Bard, died in 1983.
