Tony-Winning Producer Jerry Frankel Has Died
(© David Gordon)
Prolific Broadway producer Jerry Frankel died on November 17. Frankel is remembered for having produced over 50 Broadway shows since 1997 and winning nine Tony Awards.
In his nearly 20 years with his producing partner, Jeffrey Richards, Frankel's credits included Come From Away (2017), Fiddler on the Roof (2015), Something Rotten! (2015), The Heidi Chronicles (2015), The Realistic Joneses (2014), The Bridges of Madison County (2014), The Scottsboro Boys (2010), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (2010), A Little Night Music (2009), Blithe Spirit (2009), Gore Vidal's The Best Man (2000), You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999), Jekyll & Hyde (1997), and many more.
He earned his nine Tony Awards for All the Way (2014), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2012), The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (2012), La Cage aux Folles (2010), Hair (2009), August: Osage County (2007), Spring Awakening (2006), Glengarry Glen Ross (2005), and Death of a Salesman (1999).
In addition to his career as a commercial producer, he was a dress manufacturer, film producer, internet entrepreneur, and thoroughbred owner and breeder.
Richards commented on Frankel's passing, "To put it simply, Jerry was a class act, and all of you who encountered him during his years in our business had to appreciate his forthrightness, great sense of humor, and passion for the theater. He will be greatly missed."
Frankel is survived by his partner Mary Casey and his children: Elizabeth Bailenson, her husband Robert, and their children Gabrielle and Lily; Jessica Genick, her husband Lee and their children Jacob and Chloe; his son Gordon and Gordon's children Ruby and Zoey; as well as his brother, Ronald Frankel.
