The name Peter Stone may not have a familiar ring to it but you've probably heard of some of the films based on his screenplays like Charade (1963), the Hitchcock-like thriller starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, or Father Goose (1964), for which he won the Oscar for Best Screenplay, or 1776, the popular 1969 Broadway musical that he penned and later adapted for the screen in 1972. Stone, who holds a doctorate in literature, graduated from Yale University and established himself as a writer for the stage and screen in the early sixties. Among the many successful plays he wrote for the Broadway stage are Kean (1961), Skyscraper (1963), and Two by Two. In 1963 he began his Hollywood screenwriting career with Charade and would go on to pen several more suspense thrillers like Mirage (1965) and Arabesque (1966). Stone, who sometimes uses the pseudonym Pierre Marton, also dabbled in television as well and won an Emmy Award in 1963. He even tried his hand at acting, making a cameo appearance in an elevator scene in Charade and playing a supporting role in Far From the Madding Crowd (1967).

TCM's mini-tribute "Written by Peter Stone" opens with Charade which ties in perfectly with the current remake The Truth About Charlie featuring Mark Wahlberg in the Cary Grant role and Thandie Newton in the Audrey Hepburn part. Our other two features are Father Goose, a romantic comedy set in the Pacific during World War II and starring Cary Grant as a grizzled beachcomber coerced into rescuing a stranded schoolteacher and her pupils, and The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three (1974), a heist thriller that takes place in the New York subway.