Martin Manulis

Manulis was born and raised in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. His father, Abraham "Gus" Manulis, immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1897, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1911, and operated a drug store in Park Slope. His mother, Anna, was born in New York, the daughter of Russian immigrants. His older brother, Frederick, became a doctor and moved to Palm Beach, Florida. Manulis attended public schools in Brooklyn and graduated from Manual Training High School in Park Slope. At age 16, Manulis enrolled at Columbia College, Columbia University, majoring in English literature with aspirations to become a journalist. ==Live theater==

Manulis graduated from Columbia in 1935 and began working as an assistant for Ben Boyer, the business manager for producer Max Gordon, at a salary of $25 a week. Manulis also produced summer stock at Bass Rocks in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in partnership with Henry Levin. They invited John C. Wilson, a producer who was then affiliated with Noël Coward, to attend one of their productions. Wilson attended the performance and hired Manulis to work in his Broadway office. While employed by Wilson, Manulis directed rehearsals of understudies and reviewed scripts. Also in 1939, he acted in a short-lived Broadway production of They Walked Alone with Elsa Lanchester. This was Manulis's last acting performance. He later joked that his character died at the end of Act II, and a critic panned his performance and suggested that the production could be improved if Manulis's character were killed instead at the end of Act I. In June 1940, he was hired as a regular director at the Bass Rocks Theatre in Gloucester. In early 1942, after the United States entered World War II, Manulis served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in London, England, censoring mail for war sensitive information. By 1950, he had developed a reputation as the "superb manager-director" of the Westport Playhouse. • In September 1946, Manulis directed ''It's a Man's World'' at Westport. • In October 1946, Manulis directed his wife in the lead role in Made in Heaven! at the Henry Miller Theatre. • During the summer of 1950, Manulis directed his wife in The Long Days in the Theatre Guild's experimental course at Westport. • In November 1950, Manulis was the director of ''Pride's Crossing'', a play starring Mildred Dunnock and co-starring his wife at Broadway's Biltmore Theatre. • In January 1951, Manulis produced Springtime for Henry starring Edward Everett Horton and Manulis's wife at the winter stock season in the Bahamas. • In January 1952, Manulis co-produced the winter stock season at the Bahama Playhouse at the British Colonial Hotel in Nassau. He directed two of the productions, including Goodbye Again starring Tom Ewell and Manulis's wife. ==Television producer==

In 1951, Manulis was hired by Charles Underwood as a staff producer for CBS Television. Climax! In February 1955, after production problems with its new anthology series Climax! culminating with an extra playing the part of a murder victim standing up and dusting himself off in full view of the audience, CBS fired the producer and director and sent Manulis to Los Angeles to take over as the show's producer. Manulis brought John Frankenheimer with him to Los Angeles to work as the director of Climax! The show broadcast live every four weeks from CBS Television City in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. Manulis produced 18 episodes of the series, including adaptations of A Farewell to Arms and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Playhouse 90 Manulis is most remembered for his work as the producer of Playhouse 90, a weekly anthology series broadcast live on Thursday nights from CBS Television City in Los Angeles. In 1956, CBS executive, Frank Stanton, decided to air a 90-minute drama series with high production values. and starring Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn and Ed Wynn. The show also won five Emmy Awards in its second season and was voted the greatest television series of all time in a 1970 poll of television editors. Fox Television In 1958, Manulis left Playhouse 90 and took a three-month break to tour Europe with his family. He returned in the fall of 1958 as the "head of television" at 20th Century Fox Television. He later recalled that, as soon as he arrived at Fox, he knew it was wrong. None of his directors or writers followed him to Fox. Manulis tried to quit shortly after arriving, but Spyros Skouras refused to release him. Manulis stayed, and he discovered a proposal for a series that he developed as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, starring Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver. The show was co-produced by Martin Manulis Productions and aired for four seasons from 1959 to 1963. ==Motion picture producer==

After leaving Fox, Manulis spent much of the 1960s producing motion pictures for theatrical release. In December 1961, he began production of Days of Wine and Roses starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick and directed by Blake Edwards. Days of Wine and Roses was first produced as an episode of Playhouse 90 in the fall of 1958. Manulis's film version was released in December 1962 and received Academy Award nominations for best actor, best actress, best art direction, best costume design, and best original song. It was selected by the film critics of The New York Times as one of the 1000 best films ever made and as one of American Film Institute's best 400 films. Other motion pictures produced by Manulis in the 1960s include Dear Heart (1964), a romantic comedy directed by Delbert Mann, and starring Glenn Ford and Geraldine Page; Luv (1967), a romantic comedy directed by Clive Donner and starring Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk and Elaine May; and Duffy (1968), a comedy starring James Coburn, James Mason and Susannah York. ==Later years==

In 1977, Manulis was the executive producer of the television series James at 16, a coming-of-age drama starring Lance Kerwin that aired on NBC from 1977 to 1978. He produced the television miniseries, Chiefs in 1983 (starring Charlton Heston and Keith Carradine) and ''James Michener's Space'' in 1985 (starring James Garner, Beau Bridges, and Bruce Dern). Manulis's son, John Bard Manulis, is a motion picture producer. ==Filmography==

Television credits • Casey, Crime Photographer (producer, 1951-1952) • Suspense (producer, 1952-1953) • Studio One Summer Theatre (producer, 1953) • The Best of Broadway (producer, 1954-1955) • Climax! (producer, 1955-1956) • Playhouse 90 (producer, 1956-1958) • The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (producer, 1959-1963) • Adventures in Paradise (producer, 1959-1962) • Five Fingers (producer, 1959-1960) • Double Solitaire (producer, 1974; TV movie) • James at 15 (executive producer, 1977-1978) • The Day Christ Died (producer, 1980; TV movie) • The Fighter (executive producer, 1983; TV movie) • Chiefs (executive producer, 1983; miniseries) • Space (producer, 1985; miniseries) • Harem (executive producer, 1986; TV movie) • Grass Roots (producer, 1992; TV movie) Motion picture credits • Days of Wine and Roses (producer, 1962) • Dear Heart (producer, 1964) • Luv (producer, 1967) • Duffy (producer, 1968) ==References==