Background
A prestige show for NBC, it launched the careers of more than a few actors, directors and playwrights, including future Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated actress Hope Lange.
Actors on the series included James Dean, Janet De Gore, Colleen Dewhurst, Anne Francis, Lee Grant, Helen Hayes, Jack Lemmon, Grace Kelly, Jack Klugman, Cloris Leachman, Patrick McVey, Michael Higgins, John Newland, Paul Newman, Leslie Nielsen, Anthony Perkins, Judson Pratt, Lee Remick, George C. Scott, Rod Steiger, Joan Tompkins (her first television role), and Joanne Woodward. Announcers for the show were Ed Herlihy (1947–1955) and Charles Stark (1955). In 1958, young performers Martin Huston and Zina Bethune appeared in "This Property Is Condemned", based on a Tennessee Williams play, the last show of Kraft Television Theatre.
Directors for the series included George Roy Hill, Fielder Cook and Sidney Lumet, and the many contributing writers included Rod Serling and JP Miller. Serling won an Emmy for scripting Patterns (January 12, 1955), the best remembered episode of the series. The drama had such an impact that it made television history by staging a second live encore performance three weeks later and was developed as a feature film, also titled Patterns.
In April 1958, Kraft sold the rights to David Susskind's Talent Associates, which revamped the series as Kraft Mystery Theatre. Under that title, it continued until September 1958. However, this eventually evolved into the 1963 filmed series Kraft Suspense Theatre, which concentrated exclusively on original dramas written for television, not on adaptations.
Between 1947 and 1958, the Kraft Television Theatre presented more than 650 comedies and dramas.
Read more about this topic: Kraft Television Theatre
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