The Witness is an American television show broadcast on the CBS network in the United States September 29, 1960 - January 26, 1961,[1] in which a fictional "Committee" of lawyers cross-examined actors portraying actual people from the recent past of the United States who had been considered criminal or suspicious.
The show was created and written by Irve Tunick, and filmed in the CBS studios in New York City.
Packaged by David Susskind, it effectively utilizes a formula first laid out by more modest shows like Day in Court and The Verdict Is Yours: the simulated hearing or trial.
Telly Savalas, a comparatively unknown actor, was superb as Luciano—full of gutter cynicism, arrogance, brutality, and yet at moments pathetic.
The show's spontaneity derived partly from the fact that the lawyers involved were real, some of the best courtroom performers in New York (Richard Steel William Geoghan Jr., Charles Haydon,' Benedict Ginsberg), who ad-libbed much of their argument.However, several months later, daily newspaper television columns disagreed—for example:[4] Despite medical care and extensive surgery, CBS' "The Witness" series will succumb after the Feb. 2 show.