In the next 10 years, Clift built a successful stage career working with, among others, Dame May Whitty, Alla Nazimova, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Fredric March, Tallulah Bankhead, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne. He appeared in plays written by Moss Hart, Robert Sherwood, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, and Thornton Wilder, creating the part of Henry in the original production of "The Skin of Our Teeth". In 1939, as a member of the cast of the 1939 Broadway production of Noël Coward's "Hay Fever", Clift participated in one of the first television broadcasts in the United States. A performance of "Hay Fever" was broadcast by NBC's New York television station W2XBS (the forerunner of WNBC) and was aired during the World's Fair as part of the introduction of television.