Who

Along with her husband Barry Weissler, Fran is a top Broadway producer, responsible for a string of popular revivals including Chicago, Sweet Charity, and Annie Get Your Gun.

Backstory

Fran grew up in a Boston suburb and was a married mother of two when she met Barry Weissler: He was performing at a theater where she was working at the box office. According to Fran, Barry was penniless, short and a bad actor—not to mention ten years her junior. He was also, she says, "difficult, volatile, funny, romantic." Within eighteen months, the couple had married, and they hit the road with the National Shakespeare Company, visiting schools throughout the Northeast. In 1982, the Weisslers landed on Broadway for the first time when they co-produced Othello. But they soon switched their focus from Shakespeare to revivals of musical warhorses, staging productions of Gypsy, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, and My Fair Lady in the late '80s and early '90s. A revival of Grease!, which opened in 1994 with Rosie O'Donnell as Rizzo, proved to be a major hit and ran for over 1,500 performances at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. The Weisslers' crowning triumph, though, was 1996's Chicago—it ended up winning seven Tonys, including Best Actress for Bebe Neuwirth.

Of note

Since the debut of Chicago, the Weisslers have produced five more musicals, including Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters; 2000's Seussical, which was slammed by critics; 2003's Kathleen Marshall-directed revival of Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town; and 2005's Sweet Charity, starring Christina Applegate. But it's Chicago that continues to be their cash cow. Now more than a decade old, the play has grossed over $300 million in sales. Lately, though, it's the couple's propensity for stunt casting that seems to be luring audiences to the aging production. A slew of B and C-listers with time to spare have signed on in recent years, including Melanie Griffith, Usher, Ashlee Simpson, Huey Lewis, Marilu Henner, Harry Hamiln and Lisa Rinna.

Trophy case

The Weisslers have won five Tonys over the years.

On the job

The Weisslers are famous for their good cop/bad cop routine, with Barry playing the tough businessman and Fran the kindly grandmother who's devoted to the craft. Don't let the act fool you: The Weisslers are two of the toughest negotiators on Broadway. Well-known for their litigiousness, Barry and Fran once went after Anthony Quinn for $4 million for allegedly concealing a heart condition that invalidated an insurance policy; more recently, the couple sicced their lawyers on a Bronx high school for putting on Chicago without permission. They're also notorious for their penny-pinching ways—two-time employee Rosie O'Donnell once called the Weisslers "the cheapest people in the free world." But their stinginess has occasionally backfired: In 2006, when the couple flew Conor Macpherson to the U.S. to acquire the rights to Shining City, the couple offended the playwright by putting him up in a sub-par hotel and low-balling him on an offer, which he promptly rejected.

Personal

Nicely preserved for someone in her ninth decade, Fran favors pastel-colored Escada suits, diamonds and furs. The Weisslers live in a condo on the 40th floor of the Time Warner Center, where their neighbors include Tobias Meyer, Stephen Ross, and Adam Lindemann and Amalia Dayan.