Chayefsky then took his unerring ear for credible conversation to the stage, conquering the Great White Way with "Middle of the Night" (1956), based on his teleplay. The examination of a May-December romance starred Edward G Robinson (in his first Broadway performance in 25 years) opposite a young Gena Rowlands in parts that Fredric March and Kim Novak would assume for the 1959 feature directed by Mann. Mann also directed "The Bachelor Party" (1957), another adaptation of a teleplay, which attempted to capitalize on the success of "Marty". When a group of bookkeepers throw a bachelor party for one of their pals, the booze liberates some of their deeper feelings, but despite being an excellent little picture about little people, it fell short of their previous collaboration, perhaps because spreading focus among so many more characters diffused the emotional impact. Into the 60s, Chayefsky would write screenplays for "The Goddess" (1958), "The Americanization of Emily" (1964) and "Paint Your Wagon" (1969), while Gore Vidal would pen the screen adaptation of "The Catered Affair" (1956). For the stage, he authored "The Tenth Man" (1960), "Gideon" (1961) and "The Latent Heterosexual" (1967).
Chayefsky reinvented himself in the 70s as one of the most bitingly satirical and prophetic writers in the history of feature films. First, he savagely skewered the medical industry with a bit of gallows humor called "The Hospital" (1971), making fun of a serious situation by turning it into Marx Brothers lunacy. Although not appreciated by the masses, it earned the writer his second Oscar and kudos for George C Scott as the bitterly discouraged doctor drawn into chaos by a crazy Diana Rigg. Next he aimed his venom at the institution that spawned him in "Network" (1976), an outrageous send-up of television that seems less like fantasy with each passing year. Accused of writing "surreal stuff" at the time, Chayefsky replied, 'No, I write realistic stuff. It's the world that's turned into satire." The story of a fourth network (remember when there were only three?) that would do anything for big ratings crackled with outstanding performances across the board, none better than that of Oscar-winning Peter Finch as anchorman Howard Beale, the mad prophet of the airways, who exhorted his listeners to go to their windows and shout, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" The expression entered the lexicon, and millions know it today, even if they don't know its derivation.
After winning his third Oscar for "Network", there still remained the strange case of "Altered States" (1980), which the writer adapted from his novel of the same name. Chayefsky disowned director Ken Russell's final cut, a pretty package of state-of-the-art special effects but ultimately a silly sci-fi affair, ultimately opting for credit under the pseudonym Sidney Aaron (his given first and middle names). Chayefsky had been unusually lucky in his career. Though the films he had authored (prior to "Altered States") uniformly featured good acting and directing, there could be no disputing that the energy or tone came from anyone besides the writer. Thus Russell's refusal to respect the integrity of his script came as quite a shock to a man who had enjoyed as much autonomy as any writer ever enjoyed in Hollywood. Perhaps he would have reinvented himself again if he had lived longer, but "Altered States" was his last film script. As it is, he created two distinct oeuvres, the social realism of "Marty" and the scathing satire of "Network", and possessed tremendous name recognition for a writer working in a director's medium.