David Wiltse has earned that honorable if dusty epithet, Man of Letters. He's made three careers, as a novelist with a dozen popular thrillers, successful TV writer and playwright. A recent play is now on display at City Theatre, a comedy of mix-and-match marriages and infidelities, "A Marriage Minuet," directed by City artistic director Tracy Brigden.

Wiltse, 67, was at City a couple of weeks back, looking in on early rehearsals of "Marriage Minuet" and doing rewrites for a one-week workshop of his newest play, "Scrambles," which Brigden will direct at the famous old Westport (Connecticut) Playhouse this summer.

Working on two plays at once was arranged by Brigden, who seems happiest working simultaneously on several projects. But at "Marriage Minuet" rehearsals, Wiltse says he felt like a fifth wheel. "I think a playwright can always be helpful the first day or two, to answer questions. But they hardly need me." Brigden already directed the play the summer before last at Westport, two of the four cast members (Douglas Rees and Deirdre Madigan) are the same and "it couldn't be in better hands."

Wiltse says "Marriage Minuet" was "the hit of the season" at Westport, and it's gone on to be staged a half-dozen places. The other cast members here are Helena Ruoti, Ross Bickell and Tami Dixon. Rees and Ruoti are longtime Pittsburgh veterans, while Madigan and Bickell, who have starred several times at the Pittsburgh Public, are making their City debuts.

In the midst of all this, Wiltse took time for an extensive lunch interview, looking distinguished with his neatly trimmed beard and sparkling eye.

"How many playwrights make their living in the theater?" he asks. "Aside from Pete Gurney and maybe Jeffrey Hatcher, I'm not sure you can," even though, as the adage has it, you can make an occasional killing. He did very well with "Doubles," which played Broadway, toured and went on to be done in every dinner theater, but that was 25 years ago.

Besides, it's expensive where he lives, and there have been two divorces: "If I hadn't split my fortune twice, theatrically I'd be worth twice what I am."

Wiltse had an unusual early life for a man of letters; or maybe a youth spent mainly in the library of a small Nebraska town isn't that unusual. Right after graduating from the University of Nebraska, he was drafted and sent to Germany. As he neared the end of his service, Vietnam began heating up and some of his peers were transferred -- he figures he escaped that by a couple of months.

While in Germany, he spent a week's leave in London. "I'd read some plays, but I'd never seen any." He saw Ralph Richardson in "You Never Can Tell" and Diana Sands in "The Owl and the Pussycat." "I was very aware of the triumvirate of Richardson, Olivier and Gielgud. It just struck me as terribly exciting."

Suddenly the aspiring short story writer wrote a play. "Everything I've explored in writing is from seeing something and saying, 'I can do that.' " An army friend who was a graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art sent his play to his agent, who signed Wiltse up.

As easy as that!

"My notion of being a playwright was formed by three or four movies, usually with Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck. I knew a playwright attended rehearsals and then went off to Connecticut to write a play" -- which now, several wives and careers later, is pretty close to what he does.

Mustered out of the service, Wiltse arrived in New York with a play and an agent. "I starved for a couple of years," then his play "Suggs" was produced at Lincoln Center, winning him a Drama Desk Award as most promising playwright.

Several plays later, Hollywood beckoned. Except for occasional forays back into playwriting ("Doubles," his best known play, ran on Broadway in 1985-86), for many years Wiltse lead a dual life as a TV writer and novelist.

He speaks with mixed pride and disparagement of his novels. "If you like thrillers, I think they're very good examples of the genre. I made a lot of money at it. But it isn't the kind of book I read myself."

He has written a few novels he cares more about: his debut, "The Wedding Guest," was one of the New York Times' 100 books of the year, "Prayer for the Dead" received a similar honor in London and "Into the Fire" was selected by the Literary Guild." But generally, he says if he wrote what he calls a serious novel, "I'd be an unknown and my [thriller] audience wouldn't cross over. I'd have less chance of getting published than with a play. They've done away with the mid-list author. With the really serious novel by someone with something to say, unless it's Updike or Roth, there's very little market. Publishing was still a gentleman's business 30 years ago. They were content to make a profit, not a killing. Now, the corporate owners insist on making a fortune."

He's more dismissive of his extensive TV credits, which include a one-year comedy series, "Ladies Man." "I did a little bit of everything, a lot of thriller, movie-of-the-week things. ... But TV and movies are made to make money. Being a playwright allows me a much larger scope."

When his then-wife -- "the mother of my children" -- transferred her work to Stamford, they settled in Weston, next to Westport, where he's now lived with Annie Keefe, his third wife, for 18 years. "This stunning woman," he calls her, promising a glimpse of her in the essay he has written for the City Theatre program.

He and Keefe have long known Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, who revitalized the famous 75 year-old Westport Playhouse. Keefe, retired as a stage manager after 30 years at the Long Wharf Theater in nearby New Haven and several Broadway shows ("the doyenne of stage managers," Wiltse says), led Westport with Woodward until Tazwell Thompson took on the artistic directorship a few years ago. Thompson made Wiltse playwright in residence.

Then Thompson left and now Woodward and Keefe are back at the helm, the former providing vision, the latter handling the nuts and bolts. Once a pre-Broadway tryout house, Westport has a 500-seat auditorium, its walls tracking its history, from Lillian Gish forward.

Wiltse's connection to Westport was part of a decision to make theater his focus. The play that sealed his re-dedication was "The Good German," which he's proud of. Even though theater is "expensive, chancy and people don't have time for it," he calls it his passion for several reasons. "One is its difficulty -- it's such a concentrated form." Another is that "most of my writing is very solitary. So when I finish I get to spend some time with people.

"Theater combines two things important to me: the ability to say whatever I want, not censored as in Hollywood, and [the use of] language. There's no place in TV or film for really intelligent or lyrical language. Movies are camera work and TV is insipid" -- although he makes an exception for the recent freedoms on cable. "Theater is more exciting because it's live."