Landing in a thunderstorm, an Eastern Air Lines Boeing 727 crashed and exploded on the fringes of New York’s Kennedy Global Airport on June 24, 1975. Between the 113 people killed had been
Roger Berlind’s
wife, Helen, and three of their 4 little ones.
Mr. Berlind, the co-founder of a securities company, abruptly noticed no that means in his Wall Road occupation. “I was not in any form to do anything useful at the agency,” he informed The Wall Road Journal afterwards, “and I didn’t want to be there.” He stop his task to consider care of his toddler son, William.
Reverting to his early enjoy of display tunes and theater, he began investing in Broadway productions and quickly located himself hooked. Around much more than 4 a long time, he had a position in producing extra than 100 performs and musicals and gained 25 Tony Awards. His hits provided “The Book of Mormon,” “Amadeus,” “Nine,” “Sophisticated Ladies” and “City of Angels.”
There were being also many flops, starting off with his initial generation, in 1976: “Rex,” a Richard Rodgers-Sheldon Harnick musical about Henry VIII. A
New York Occasions
critic wrote that the creation had “almost every thing not heading for it” and was “one of the most interminable musicals in years.”
Mr. Berlind died Dec. 18 of a heart assault in his snooze at his residence in Manhattan. He was 90.
The next of four sons, Roger Stuart Berlind was born June 27, 1930, in Brooklyn and grew up in Woodmere on Lengthy Island. He attended the private Woodmere Academy and performed on the soccer workforce. His father was a clinic administrator, and his mom an artist who in some cases gave portray lessons.
At Princeton University, Roger Berlind majored in English and was lively in the Triangle Club, which makes musicals. Following graduating from Princeton in 1952, he served in the U.S. Military and was centered in Berlin. Again household in 1954, he tried out to make a dwelling by producing tunes. While a proficient pianist who performed by ear, he couldn’t market his tunes to publishers and after 18 months started looking for a task on Wall Street.
Just one impediment was that he realized minimal about business enterprise or economics. He endured dozens of rejections in advance of signing on at Eastman, Dillon & Co.
In 1960, he joined a good friend from faculty days, Arthur L. Carter, together with Peter Potoma and Sanford Weill to generate a very small investment decision banking agency with huge ambitions, Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill. Mr. Berlind cultivated institutional purchasers and oversaw analysis. The agency soon became element of a merger wave on Wall Avenue. By 1973, Mr. Berlind was chief government of what had grow to be Hayden Stone Inc. By means of much more promotions, that business was absorbed into Shearson Loeb Rhoades, which merged with
American Express
in 1981.
Mr. Weill afterwards headed
Citigroup,
and Mr. Carter grew to become a newspaper publisher.
Just after the death of his very first wife, Mr. Berlind satisfied Brook Wheeler on a blind date arranged by mutual buddies. She worked at a gallery providing reproductions of artwork from Nelson Rockefeller’s collection. They married in 1979.
Producing shows was very similar to running a little enterprise, Mr. Berlind explained. He was involved in casting, drawing up budgets, setting schedules, negotiating legal rights and devising promoting tactics.
Some administrators resisted his tips. Mr. Berlind made “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” in 1989 and later informed the New York Occasions that Mr. Robbins, the choreographer and director, “was tricky to communicate to and did not get ideas effectively.” So Mr. Berlind despatched Mr. Robbins a seven-web site, solitary-spaced letter outlining his strategies for the musical anthology. Mr. Robbins replied briefly: “Thank you for your ideas. I will acquire them into consideration.”
Mr. Berlind is survived by his spouse, his son, two granddaughters and a brother. The Roger S. Berlind Theatre at Princeton was named for him in recognition of a donation.
For those people seduced by the glamour of Broadway, he warned that producing displays was an unreliable way to make cash and usually a way to lose it. If you are very good at it, he reported, “you could have a success rate of 50%.”
His Manhattan residence was adorned with dozens of posters from his productions. He identified as the display screen his “Hall of Human Folly.”
Create to James R. Hagerty at [email protected]
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