Who

A Wall Street financier-turned-Broadway producer, Berlind has put on a number of well-known shows including Doubt, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Amadeus.

Backstory

Berlind started out his career in finance. In 1960, he founded brokerage firm Carter, Berlind, Potoma, & Weill, which would eventually be sold to American Express. (The Weill on the company letterhead was Sandy Weill; the Carter was financier-turned-media investor Arthur Carter.) Following the loss of his wife and three kids in 1975 (see below), Berlind turned to theater and formed Berlind Productions, producing his first show, the Richard Rodgers musical Rex, for a then-steep $800,000. His first big hit came with Amadeus in 1980. (Milos Forman turned it into a hit movie four years later.) Since then, Berlind has co-produced of over 60 shows, including Nine; The Blue Room; Guys and Dolls (based on the 1955 film); the Stephen Sondheim musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; the revival of Kiss Me, Kate; Proof starring Mary-Louise Parker; Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change; Wonderful Town, produced in conjunction with Barry and Fran Weissler and Harvey Weinstein; and John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. But Berlind still keeps a hand in the world of high finance—he remains a director at Lehman Brothers.

Recently

Berlin had his biggest success of the past few years with The History Boys, which swept the Tonys in 2006 and nabbed the award for Best Play. Since then, he's helped put on the Vanessa Redgrave-fronted The Year of Magical Thinking (other backers included Daryl Roth and Scott Rudin) and the musical Curtains, starring David Hyde Pierce. Most recently, along with Bob Boyett, he produced the limited-run engagement of Terrence McNally's Deuce at the Music Box Theatre. All told, Berlind's productions have garnered 13 Tonys.

Pet cause

Berlind donated $3.5 million to finance the construction of the Roger S. Berlind Theater at Princeton, his alma mater.

Personal

Berlind's wife, Helen, and three of his four children were killed in the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 66 at JFK in June 1975 during a fierce thunderstorm. His surviving son, William, is a journalist and musician who has worked for the New York Times and the New York Observer. Berlind and his second wife, Brooke, live on East End Avenue.

---