Chayefsky was born in The Bronx, New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants Harry and Gussie Stuchevsky Chayefsky who came from Moscow to New York in 1907. He had two older brothers, William and Isidor. He spent part of his youth in Mount Vernon, New York.

He moved into television with scripts for Danger, The Gulf Playhouse and Manhunt. Philco Television Playhouse producer Fred Coe saw the Danger and Manhunt episodes and enlisted Chayefsky to adapt the story It Happened on the Brooklyn Subway about a photographer on a New York subway train who reunites a concentration camp survivor with his long-lost wife. Chayefsky's first script to be telecast was a 1949 adaptation of Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? for Philco.  Since he had always wanted to use a synagogue as backdrop, he wrote Holiday Song, telecast in 1952 and also in 1954. He submitted more work to Philco, including Printer's Measure, The Bachelor Party (1953) and The Big Deal (1953). One of these teleplays, Mother (April 4, 1954), received a new production October 24, 1994 on Great Performances with Anne Bancroft in the title role. Curiously, original teleplays from the 1950s are almost never revived for new TV productions, so the 1994 production of Mother was a conspicuous rarity.  In 1953, Chayefsky wrote Marty, which was premiered on The Philco Television Playhouse, with Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand. Marty is about a decent, hard-working Bronx butcher, pining for the company of a woman in his life but despairing of ever finding true love in a relationship. Fate pairs him with a plain, shy schoolteacher named Clara whom he rescues from the embarrassment of being abandoned by her blind date in a local dance hall. The production, the actors and Chayefsky's naturalistic dialogue received much critical acclaim and influenced subsequent live television dramas. Chayefsky had a unique clause in his Marty contract that stated that only he could write the screenplay, which he did for the 1955 movie.  Chayefsky's The Great American Hoax was broadcast May 15, 1957 during the second season of The 20th Century Fox Hour. This was actually a rewrite of his earlier Fox film, As Young as You Feel (1951) with Monty Woolley and Marilyn Monroe. The Great American Hoax was shown on the FX channel after Fox restored some The 20th Century Fox Hour episodes and telecast them under the new title Fox Hour of Stars beginning in 2002.

Were there any low points regarding his career?