Bert Granet

New Yorkborn television pioneer Bert Granet graduated with a BA from Yale University He began in the film industry in 1934 and a decade later was working as writerproducer under contract at RKO 194448 He set up his own shortlived production company Kaladore Corporation under which banner he released just one feature film a rather obscure item entitled The Torch 1950 set in revolutionary Mexico with an allMexican cast the single exception being star Paulette Goddard In the mid50s Granet joined Desilu Productions to produce light unpretentious entertainment like The LucyDesi Comedy Hour 1957 and the weekly anthology series Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse 1958 Reputedly a hardnosed realist Granets success in the medium stemmed from vowing audiences through signing top movie actors and acquiring scripts from wellestablished and respected writers One of these turned out to be the genial Rod Serling introduced to Granet via a mutual friend the director Robert Parrish At considerable cost and having to overcome strong objections by the sponsors ad agency McCannErickson who had script approval and hated ambiguous endings Granet purchased a story from CBS The Time Element This was aired with great success as an episode of Playhouse and ultimately persuaded CBS to take on The Twilight Zone 1959 the show which according to Serling himself no one wanted to buy The rest is history Granet later served as producer of Twilight Zone during seasons four and five