
Robert E. Costello, a pioneering producer of classic '50s television shows who later won a Peabody Award for the PBS series
The Adams Chronicles and two Emmys for ABC's daytime serial
Ryan's Hope, died of a heart attack on May 30 at his summer house in Amagansett's Beach Hampton neighborhood. He was 93 and had been diagnosed many years before with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
In the '60s and '70s Costello introduced viewers to
The Patty Duke Show and cult classic soap opera
Dark Shadows. He was most proud, however, of his work on
The Armstrong Circle Theatre, a series of true-life “docudramas” that ran from 1950 to 1963 and gave such movie stars as James Dean, Grace Kelly, and Jack Lemmon their first taste of the small screen.