Hubert Schlafly, an Emmy Award-winning engineer who helped shape modern television by inventing the teleprompter and executing the first satellite transmission of a cable program, died Wednesday.

Schlafly, a longtime Greenwich resident who in recent years moved to the Edgehill retirement community in Stamford, was 91. He died at Stamford Hospital after a brief illness, according to close friend Thomas Gallagher, of Riverside.

Schlafly is perhaps best known for developing the teleprompter with Broadway actor Fred Barton Jr. and Irving Berlin Kahn, nephew of the famous composer and vice president of radio and television at 20th Century Fox.

Barton came up with the idea for creating a device to take the place of a live person helping actors with their lines. Kahn asked Schlafly, who served as 20th Century Fox's director of television research and was a prolific inventor, to build it.

"I said it was a piece of cake," Schlafly told The Advocate of Stamford in a 2008 interview.

The device -- a box with a motorized scroll printed in half-inch font, with a red arrow indicating the text to be spoken -- debuted in 1950 on a soap opera called "The First Hundred Years." In 1952, Herbert Hoover became the first politician to use a teleprompter, when he gave the keynote address at the Republican National Convention.

At first, a stagehand controlled the device. Later, mirrors projected the text in front of the camera lens, so a television actor could appear to be looking directly at the audience.

Schlafly also developed the first pay TV system that permitted subscribers to order special programs to be delivered by coaxial cable. By the early 1970s, TelePrompTer Corp. owned franchises in 140 markets and served approximately 1.4 million customers.

In June 1973, Schlafly executed the first satellite transmission of a cable program from Washington, D.C., to a convention of 3,000 cable operators in Anaheim, Calif. Two years later, he engineered the famous HBO satellite transmission of the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier .

Among his many awards, Schlafly received two Emmys for television technology for his invention of the teleprompter and for his contributions to cable television. In 2008, at age 88, Schlafly was inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame. After his acceptance speech, Schlafly revealed to the audience that it was the first time he had ever used a teleprompter in delivering a speech.

Gallagher said Schlafly was a visionary and problem-solver. The U.S. didn't have a commercial satellite in 1973, Gallagher said, and Schlafly had to track down a commercial satellite in Canada and facilitate sending up signals.

"We take for granted all of this technology today," Gallagher said.

Charles Dolan , founder and chairman of Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision , said Schlafly was "perhaps the most collaborative and authoritative leader in the cable industry."

"He did so much in the early years of cable to improve its technology," Dolan said in a statement. "He led TelePrompTer Corp. in a difficult period and assembled a staff that has since provided leadership for many companies."

Schlafly, who friends called "Hub," was born on Aug. 14, 1919, in St. Louis, Mo. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied electrical engineering, in 1941, then spent several years working for General Electric and the MIT Radiation Laboratory. He joined 20th Century Fox in New York City in 1947.

In 1975, Schlafly moved with his wife, Leona, to the Millbrook section of Greenwich. He served as president of the Greenwich Rotary Club and was involved in the Millbrook Association.

The digital media lab at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield was dedicated in Schlafly's honor. As a tribute to his wife, Schlafly underwrote the costs of the Chapel of the Nativity, the daily worship space of the university's Chapel of the Holy Spirit, which includes original mosaics and stained glass by Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik.

"Hub was a dear and very generous friend: in all matters, a gentleman," John Petillo, Sacred Heart University's president, said in a statement. "Everyone here owes him a debt, from his leadership support of our communications department to the student scholarships he established to the many lively exchanges he enjoyed with students and faculty about his pioneering inventions and media work."

A lifelong Catholic, Schlafly was a member of the Order of Malta and was a Knight of St. Gregory the Great. His wife of 59 years, Leona "Lee" Schlafly, died in 2003.

A Mass will be held on Tuesday at 10 a.m. at Saint Mary Parish, 178 Greenwich Ave. A graveside service will take place on Thursday, in Louisville, N.Y.