Gerald Schoenfeld dies at 84; Shubert chairman ushered shows to Broadway

Gerald Schoenfeld, the longtime head of the powerful Shubert Organization who helped bring numerous works to Broadway, including “A Chorus Line,” “Amadeus” and “Cats,” has died. He was 84.

Schoenfeld died of a heart attack early Tuesday at his Manhattan home, said Sam Rudy, a Shubert spokesman.

As chairman of Broadway’s biggest landlord since 1972, Schoenfeld ushered many plays and musicals to the Broadway stage and beyond.

The Shubert Organization owns or operates 17 Broadway theaters and one off-Broadway playhouse, as well as theaters in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It also ran a theater in Century City until 2002, when the lease expired.

“For generations now, it has been impossible to speak about Broadway without thinking of the enormous impact of Gerald Schoenfeld,” said Howard Sherman, executive director of the American Theatre Wing, which co-produces the Tony Awards show. “His career was integral to the life of the Great White Way.”

Schoenfeld, a jovial, outgoing man and a familiar figure at Broadway opening nights, had never been to the theater before going to work for the law firm that handled business for the Shuberts -- the quixotic, combative dynasty that controlled much of Broadway’s real estate in the 20th century.

“The only Schubert I had ever heard of was Franz Schubert, the great composer,” Schoenfeld wrote in “The Shuberts Present: 100 Years of American Theater,” a mammoth coffee-table book published in 2002 that celebrated the centenary of the theatrical empire founded by three brothers -- J.J., Lee and Sam Shubert.

For more than 35 years, it was Schoenfeld’s job as company chairman to fill the theaters, which range from the cozy, wood-paneled Booth to the splendidly opulent Winter Garden. It was a juggling act that required skill and shrewdness, not to mention a little luck and an appreciation for the stages he was booking.

Luck was what Schoenfeld needed in 1972 when he and another lawyer, Bernard B. Jacobs, assumed control of the tottering Shubert empire, taking over at a time when Broadway was in decline and more than a few Shubert houses sat empty.

Schoenfeld and Jacobs turned things around first with such hit productions as “Pippin” and “Equus,” and then, in 1975, with “A Chorus Line.”

“It was a bonanza,” Schoenfeld recalled of “A Chorus Line” in a 2002 interview with the Associated Press, “a bellwether event because it was a product of the not-for-profit theater and the Shubert Organization. That show really changed the perception of the Broadway theater as far as nonprofit theaters were concerned.”

“A Chorus Line” was followed by “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Evita,” “Amadeus,” “Dreamgirls” and “Cats,” the long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that held forth at the Winter Garden for nearly 18 years. It was followed by another big hit, which is still running there, “Mamma Mia!”

“The object is to fill these theaters,” Schoenfeld said, either by producing shows themselves or booking other producers’ efforts. “And if you are not in a time of plenty, then you put in whatever you can find.”

Schoenfeld used to pick the plays with Jacobs, who died in 1996. “Our judgments and taste were the same,” he said. “The rule between us was if he liked it and I hated it” or vice versa, “we would not pursue it.”

Born Sept. 22, 1924, in New York, Schoenfeld earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois and a law degree at New York University. He served in the Army during World War II.

Although Schoenfeld spent most of his career on the production side of the entertainment business, in 1984 he appeared in the Woody Allen film “Broadway Danny Rose,” playing a personal manager named Sid Bacharach.

In 2005, the Plymouth Theatre was renamed for Schoenfeld and the Royale rechristened for Jacobs. The theaters are affectionately known as the Jerry and the Bernie.

Schoenfeld is survived by his wife, Pat; a daughter, Carrie Schoenfeld-Guglielmi; and two grandchildren.

Funeral services will be private. A memorial service will be held at a later date.

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