In January 2010, Charles was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame at the nineteenth annual ceremony alongside Don Pardo, the Smothers Brothers, Bob Stewart, and Gene Roddenberry.

Starting at the age of ten, Lisbany carefully constructed a model to scale of the Radio City Music Hall with nothing but an article he had read that included the plans of the stage.

Receiving an early discharge due to meningitis, Charles ignored his father's wishes for him to become a doctor and returned to New York to attend art school.

His brother was retired United States Navy Rear Admiral James Lisanby (1928–2012), a former Chief of Engineers.

[3] Charles Lisanby is currently the first and only Production Designer ever inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.

Lisanby also invented lighted steps as a feature of shows and was the first to implement large block letters which actors could sit on as a part of the set.

Lisanby passed the test with the highest marks and met the influential stage designer Oliver Messel who offered him a job as his assistant working on the Broadway show Romeo and Juliet starring Olivia de Havilland in 1951.

After Romeo and Juliet, Lisanby continued to work in the same scene shop for a year until he was offered a job by Jim McNaughton at ABC.

He then worked for CBS for a number of years on such shows as the infamous $64,000 Question and Camera Three where he met Lewis Freedman, the future head of PBS and director of the National Endowment for the Arts.

After the series ended he went on to work on the Kraft Music Hall for Smith/Hemion; and in 1973 and 1974 he designed the Ben Franklin miniseries and received his first Emmy.

Starting in 1979 he began annually working on Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular which he continued designing until 1996.

That particular night it was raining, so he and Warhol stood under the awning of a taxidermy shop where Lisanby pointed out that he liked a stuffed peacock in the window.

They met every Sunday to do figure drawings and studies which influence both artists greatly as they matured in their respective careers.