John Vlahos (December 26, 1917 – April 8, 2004) was, along with his contemporaries Horton Foote, Reginald Rose, and Rod Serling, one of the leading screenwriters of the 1950s and 1960s, writing for such series as The Philco Television Playhouse, Studio One, Robert Montgomery Presents, Goodyear Television Playhouse, The United States Steel Hour, Climax!, Playhouse 90, The Alcoa Hour, Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Route 66, The Defenders, The Nurses, Doctor Kildare, and Marcus Welby, M.D..[1] His credits include 17 film screenplays, 70 radio scripts, 52 network television live and film dramas, and more than 200 episodes for various daytime shows.
"[8] Other notable early works include Tongues of Angels (1958), a drama about a farmer who feigns muteness to hide his severe stutter, and Beaver Patrol (1958), a comedy about a retired New York businessman who assumes leadership of a Cub Scout pack.
His Cold War drama, The Brandenberg Gate, set in Berlin, was produced for television three times in eight years—first for Motorola TV Hour with Jack Palance and Maria Riva (1953), then with Climax!
(under the title The Largest City in Captivity) with Franchot Tone and Viveca Lindfors (1957), and finally for the United States Steel Hour with Richard Kiley and Dina Merrill (1961).
[12] He also wrote a promotional film, The Big Decision, for Wittenberg University, which awarded Vlahos an honorary doctorate in 1958, and he developed poetic liturgies performed at the Unitarian Church in Westport.
His co-writers for the United States Steel Hour, included Foote, Arnold Schulman, Arthur Hailey, Tad Mosel, Rod Serling, and Ira Levin.
[16] They met in 1939 at the Old Wharf Theatre,[17] in Provincetown, Massachusetts, home of many independently produced plays and often continued its legacy of experiment in art.