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"The United States Steel Hour" was one of the longest-running and most successful of the dramatic anthology series that defined American television during the "Golden Age" heyday of the 1950s and early '60s. Sponsored by the United States Steel Corporation and produced through the auspices of the Theatre Guild, the series began as a radio show ("Theatre Guild on the Air") in 1945 and moved to the ABC television network in 1953. For the next ten years (the series shifted to CBS in 1955). "The United States Steel Hour" presented over 200 live productions, often adaptations of classic plays previously produced on the Broadway stage by the Theatre Guild, but increasingly in later years, productions of original teleplays penned by some of the medium's finest writers.
The series also featured appearances by many of the up-and-coming actors who were learning their craft on New York stages and television studios. Among those young performers was Cliff Robertson, who began working in television in 1952, and who performed brilliantly in a number of productions considered all-time classics. including "The Days of Wine and Roses" ("Playhouse 90"). "The Twilight Zone" episodes "One Hundred Yards over the Rim" and "The Dummy," and the "The United States Steel Hour" production of "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon."
Recently, along with over 30 other "Steel Hour" kinescopes and original master 2" videotapes. three of Mr. Robertson's "Steel Hour" appearances were donated to the Archive by Marilyn and Philip Langner of the Theatre Guild. All three have been preserved by the Archive, which is pleased to present two of them in this tribute to "The United States Steel Hour" and the television work of Cliff Robertson.
