Daniel Frobman dean of American theatrical producers died this morning of pneumonia at the age of 89 in the Leroy Sanitarium. He had been ill since last month, when he fell in his hotel apartment and broke his hip.
“Uncle Dan,” as he was universally known, discovered many of America’s most famous actors and was a leading figure in the theater for three-quarters of a century. Born in Ohio, the son of immigrants from Germany, he came to New York as a youth and ran a soap factory and cigar store and worked as a reporter for Horace Greely’s New York Tribune before he entered the theatrical profession.
He joined the theater as advance man for a minstrel show. Later he became business manager of the Madison Square and then installed his own show in the Lyceum Theater, with David Belasco as stage manager. It was in the old and new lyceum that Frobman produced most of the plays which made him a great name in the American theater.
Frobman founded and for many years directed the Actors’ Fund of America, which assists aged and impoverished actors. In 1903 he married Margaret Illington, an actress, but they were divorced in 1908. He retired from producing in 1912, but continued as president of the Actors Fund and in his other varied activities.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
