Hillard Elkins (October 18, 1929 – December 1, 2010) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 theatre and film producer

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

.

Born in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Elkins attended Erasmus Hall

Erasmus Hall High School

Erasmus Hall Campus High School is a four-year public high school in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, United States operated by the New York City Department of Education....

 and Midwood High School

Midwood High School

Midwood High School, at Brooklyn College, is a public, urban, co-ed high school located on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City.Midwood High School was for many years the recipient of multiple accolades because of its competitive educational programs and for the achievements of its students...

s and Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

. At the age of eighteen he already had his degree and was studying law while working in the mail room at the William Morris Agency

William Morris Agency

WME is the largest talent agency in the world, with offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, Nashville, London, and Miami. WME represents elite artists from all facets of the entertainment industry, including motion pictures, television, music, theatre, publishing, and physical production...

, quickly moving up the ranks to agent and then head of the theatrical department. After serving in the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 by making training films in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, he returned to agency work, but in 1953 left to open his own management company, where he represented James Coburn

James Coburn

James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...

, Robert Culp

Robert Culp

Robert Martin Culp was an American actor, scriptwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp first earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy , the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents...

, Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen

Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...

, Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

, Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...

, Charles Strouse

Charles Strouse

Charles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist.-Life and career:Strouse was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ira and Ethel Strouse...

, and Lee Adams

Lee Adams

Lee Richard Adams is an American lyricist best known for his musical theatre collaboration with Charles Strouse.Born in Mansfield, Ohio, Adams received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio State University and a Master's from Columbia University.Adams won Tony Awards in 1961 for Bye Bye Birdie...

.

Elkins turned to Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 producing in 1962 with the Garson Kanin

Garson Kanin

Garson Kanin was a prolific American writer and director of plays and films.-Film and stage career:...

 play Come on Strong. The following year, he saw former client Sammy Davis, Jr.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....

 performing at the Prince of Wales Theatre

Prince of Wales Theatre

The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and approached him about starring in a musical version of Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...

' Golden Boy. When Davis expressed interest, Elkins lured Odets out of semi-retirement to write the book (revised by William Gibson

William Gibson (playwright)

William Gibson was an American playwright and novelist. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1938.He was of Irish, French, German, Dutch and Russian ancestry...

 when Odets died) and hired Strouse and Adams to compose the score. The 1964 Broadway production

Golden Boy (musical)

Golden Boy is a musical with a book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse.Based on the 1937 play of the same name by Odets, it focuses on Joe Wellington, a young man from Harlem who, despite his family's objections, turns to prizefighting as a means...

, directed by Arthur Penn

Arthur Penn

Arthur Hiller Penn was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...

, earned him Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nominations for Best Musical and Best Producer of a Musical. Additional Broadway credits include Oh! Calcutta!

Oh! Calcutta!

Oh! Calcutta! is an avant-garde theatrical revue, created by British drama critic Kenneth Tynan. The show, consisting of sketches on sex-related topics, debuted Off-Broadway in 1969 and then in London in 1970. It ran in London for over 3,900 performances, and in New York initially for 1,314...

, The Rothschilds, and Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...

and A Doll's House

A Doll's House

A Doll's House is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month....

, the latter two with his then-wife Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...

 (they married in 1969 and divorced in 1972).

Elkin reunited with director Penn for his first film production, Alice's Restaurant

Alice's Restaurant (film)

Alice's Restaurant is a 1969 American comedy film co-written and directed by Arthur Penn. It is an adaptation of the 1967 folk song of the same name by singer and songwriter Arlo Guthrie...

(1969) with Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...

. This was followed by the Golden Globe-nominated film A New Leaf

A New Leaf

A New Leaf is a dark comedy film based on the short story The Green Heart by Jack Ritchie, starring Elaine May, Walter Matthau, George Rose and James Coco. Better known for her collaboration as a stage comedienne with The Graduate director Mike Nichols, May also wrote and directed . For this film...

(1971), screen adaptations of Oh! Calcutta! (1972) and A Doll's House (1973), and Richard Pryor: Live in Concert

Richard Pryor: Live in Concert

Richard Pryor: Live in Concert was the second of Richard Pryor's filmed concert performances, but the first to be released theatrically...

(1979).

For television, Elkins produced the documentaries Pippin: His Life and Times (1981), Sex, Censorship and the Silver Screen (1996), An Evening with Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp , was an English writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant.- Early life :...

(1999), and Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool (2005).

Elins owned the screen rights to the Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

 novel Cat's Cradle

Cat's Cradle

Cat's Cradle is the fourth novel by American writer Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1963. It explores issues of science, technology, and religion, satirizing the arms race and many other targets along the way...

, which currently is in development.

Elkins was the subject of a 1972 book, The Producer by Christopher Davis.

Additional awards and nominations

• 1998 Daytime Emmy Award
  Daytime Emmy Award
  The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...
  
   for Outstanding Children's Special (In His Father's Shoes, winner)
• 1997 CableACE Award
  CableACE Award
  The CableACE Award was an award that was given from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in American cable television programming...
  
   for Best Children's Special, Age 7 and Older (In His Father's Shoes, nominee)
• 1975 Tony Award for Best Play (Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, nominee)
• 1975 Tony Award for Best Play (The Island, nominee)
• 1975 Drama Desk Award
  Drama Desk Award
  The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
  
  for Outstanding New Foreign Play (Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, nominee)
• 1975 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Foreign Play (The Island, nominee)
• 1971 Tony Award for Best Musical (The Rothschilds, nominee)

External links

• Hillard Elkins interview