Roger Berlind, a Broadway producer with over 100 shows to his credit, has died according to reports. His successful shows ranged from the original runs of Amadeus and Nine to more recent hits like The Book of Mormon and Dear Evan Hansen. He was 90 years old.
Berlind’s first attempt at a showbiz was as a songwriter, but he was unable to find sure footing. He then worked in finance, eventually becoming a partner at a brokerage firm. His wife and three of his four children were tragically killed in the 1975 Eastern Airlines disaster at John F. Kennedy Airport. He quit his position and turned his eyes toward theater. His second act lasted over four decades and won him 25 Tony awards.
His first production was 1976’s musical take on Henry VIII Rex, a late work from one of the legends of the Great American Songbook, Richard Rogers. Despite this pedigree and performers like Nicol Williamson and a young Glenn Close, it was a considerable flop.
But Berlind carried on, eventually building to the 1980 Broadway production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. Ian McKellan, Tim Currey, and Jane Seymour starred as Salieri, Mozart, and Costanze. Both McKellan and the play itself won Tonys, and the production was adapted into Milos Forman’s Oscar-winning film.
His other hits in the 1980s included the Duke Ellington revue Sophisticated Ladies, the Fellini-inspired Nine, and Tom Stoppard‘s The Real Thing, directed by Mike Nichols, starring Jeremy Irons, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, and Glenn Close. He also produced the much-hyped Kander and Ebb original musical The Rink, starring Liza Minelli and Chita Rivera, which received some famously negative notices.
Berlind entered the 1990s with City of Angels, the Tony-winning Cy Coleman-David Zippel musical with a book by Larry Gelbart. There followed a very successful revival of Guys and Dolls with Nathan Lane as Nathan Detroit, Peter Gallagher as Sky Masterson, and Faith Prince as Adelaide. He then re-teamed with Lane for a hit revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Other notable shows of the decade included The Blue Room with Nicole Kidman, Closer with Natasha Richardson, and a revival of Kiss Me, Kate with Brian Stokes Mitchell.
Hits from the aughts included Copenhagen, Proof, Doubt, and The History Boys. In this decade he produced The Book of Mormon, a revival of Death of a Salesman with Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper, Dear Evan Hansen, Saoirse Ronan in The Crucible, Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce in Hello, Dolly!, and the musical adaptation of Mean Girls.