Gerald Schoenfeld

The theater mogul who breathed new life into Broadway

Gerald Schoenfeld

1924–2008

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In the early 1970s, New York City was verging on bankruptcy. Times Square was synonymous with sex shops and drug deals, and Broadway was dying as audiences stayed home and theaters crumbled. But Gerald Schoenfeld, who died last week of a heart attack, helped reinvigorate the Great White Way by luring audiences back through canny management and sheer showmanship. His power lay in the entertainment conglomerate of which he was chairman, the Shubert Organization; it owns 17 Broadway play­houses—half of all the district’s theaters.

The organization began life in 1900 as a theater chain owned by the three Shubert brothers, said the New York Post. Schoenfeld, who is a lawyer, went to work for the firm in 1958. When the last brother, J.J., died in 1963, and the decaying company passed to his alcoholic nephew, Schoenfeld and business partner Bernard Jacobs persuaded the board of directors to “give them the reins.” Over the next several years, the two brought in such crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed works as Pippin, Equus, and A Chorus Line. Flush with revenue, they followed up with the “British mega-hits” Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, and Miss Saigon. “Schoenfeld and Jacobs, who died in 1996, didn’t just control theaters.” They introduced computerized ticket sales, negotiated contracts with unions, “and controlled, quietly, the American Theater Wing, the Tonys, and the Actors’ Fund.”

“Schoenfeld had the look of a cherub, with a round belly, a gleaming bald pate, and an easy surface joviality,” said The New York Times. But he was a tough businessman and negotiator who competed fiercely with other theater owners and frequently became embroiled in feuds. Once, he got into a public spat with David Mamet, pronouncing him “a lousy playwright.” After that, “the two stormed off in opposite directions.” Since 1984, however, Schoenfeld’s theaters have featured eight Mamet productions.

Schoenfeld was an old-fashioned impresario with absolute faith in himself. When a reporter broached the subject of his successor, he shot back, “What do you mean, ‘When I die’? If I die. And if I die, I will die behind this desk.” Schoenfeld, who died at his Manhattan home, is survived by his wife of 58 years, Pat.