- He was born in Manhattan, New York, on August 13, 1949. His parents are Francesca Patinella (born in Sicily) and Charles Hairston, Sr. (born in W. Va.). Charles has three older half sisters: Gloria, Maria and Charlette and a younger brother, Thomas. He grew up in East Harlem, till age 5 then, his carpenter father built the family a home in Throgs Neck, The Bronx. He attended PS 14 grammar school, PS 101 Junior High School, then, Saint Helena's Boy's High School. He would go on to attend Hunter College in the Bronx and graduate with BA in Business in 1971. After his third year as a New York City Lifeguard, he would become an NBC Page at 30 Rockefeller Center. At NBC he held positions of: Show Cost Accounting, Network Sales Reporting, Program Dept. Office Manager, Manager of Film Acquisition, then, Director of Film Acquisition and Development, East Coast. He would become NBC's earliest rep/film buyer at the Cannes Film Festival. In November of 1978, he joined a new company called SHOWTIME as their VP of Programming and Promotion. He left SHOWTIME in January 1981. Within months of his departure, he packaged/co-produced, five (5) award winning, stage musicals from The Minneapolis Children's Stage Theatre to Universal's Pay TV Division. That same year he would fly down to New Orleans to research and eventually write a screenplay of one of the earliest true story cases of convicted slavery, since the Civil War: Mexican migrants being held and abused, as slaves, in Louisiana. Soon thereafter, he would partner with good friends, producers Max and Micheline Keller (Inter Planetary Pictures, American First Run, now known as The Keller Ent. Group). They would go on to produce television films (ie: the award winning "Conspiracy: Trial of The Chicago 8". in 1987). From 1982 to 1991, he would commute over a half million miles, traveling every ten (10) days NYC-LA-NYC for visitation of his family. He is the proud father of two sons, Jason and Avery. Today, he still develops meaningful, issue related projects and children's environmental books for NYC pre-schoolers. His hobbies include: Travel, cooking, Grandson Rocco & golf with long time friends.- IMDb mini biography by: Charles Hairston
- Transitioning to NBC Business Affairs, he worked in: Program Cost Accounting and later, Ad Sales and Program Dev. Reporting.
- For the (now) cult film "Voyage of The Rock Aliens" , he would direct the Music Video "New Orleans", performed by Neil Sedaka.
- While Manager then, Director of Film Acquisitions & Dev. East Coast, he:
- was first rep for NBC at Cannes Film Festival
- acquired "The Adventures of Frontier Freemont" that spawned the "Grizzly Adams" series.
- pre-bought: "Piranha (1)" and "Harper Valley PTA" (led to series)
- when told to "make it happen", after Broadcast Standards rejected "Godzilla vs Megalon", he wrote funny opening for John Belushi,
- while walking to work, he bumped into Paul Newman and discussed and got approval for the edits and re-title of "Sometimes A Great Notion"/"Never Give An Inch".
- As a NBC Page/Tour Guide (10/71-12/71) he: Stampeded a class of 1st graders out the Radio Sound Effects Room Tour, with an impression of Bella Lugosi's Dracula- "Don't be afraid, I only want to suck your blood!" In their hasty exit, they literally trampled their teacher. As a NBC Page he: while working on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, Joan Rivers invited him to see her perform and soon thereafter he sold her a joke for $8.
- Wanting to enter the NBC Program Dept. he took the job no one wanted: Office Manager. He catered to the executives that Patty Cheyefsky used as role models for his story & film "Network".
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