Danny Newman, creator of the subscription model that is currently used by all major opera houses, and most orchestras and theater companies (and author of "Subscribe Now!") passed away at the age of 88.
I had the chance to meet Danny a few years ago when I interned at Lyric. He still had an office at the Lyric's administrative offices, and he'd come in every once in a while to (as my supervisor told me) "Use the copier and flirt with the ladies." A dapper figure who always wore a hat and coat, Danny would come into the office and chat, and yes, flirt. I was standing by the printer one afternoon, and he said to me "Where did we get you from?" And then we had a nice little conversation about Columbia College.
The below is from the Chicago Sun Times.
Legendary press agent, lyric founding father diesDecember 3, 2007
BY WYNNE DELACOMA (Chicago Sun Times)
Danny Newman, one of the last of the great arts and entertainment press agents, died Saturday at home after a long illness. At age 88, the Chicago native went out with the consummate pro's ultimate gesture: preparing his own obituary in the form of a five-page press release, with the details of his death to be filled in later.
Mr. Newman, a decorated veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, had been in failing health since 2004, when he underwent surgery to repair spinal injuries caused by a fall. With his wife Alyce at his side, he died of pulmonary fibrosis at his Lincolnwood home.
A longtime hero on the internationational arts scene, Mr. Newman was the first to champion the use of subscriptions -- first at Lyric Opera of Chicago, his professional base since 1954, and then throughout the world.
"Danny was one of the founding fathers of Lyric," said William Mason, Lyric's general director. "It's safe to say that there probably wouldn't have been a Lyric Opera without Danny. Who knows if there would have been a lot of companies if not for Danny. He was one of the greatest arts patrons of the last half-century."
Mr. Newman was a member of the staff assembled by Carol Fox and two associates when theyfounded the company in 1954, and even though he subsequently traveled the world preaching the gospel of subscription-ticket sales to arts organizations from Canada to Australia, Lyric remained his home.
From 1961 through 1981, he traveled extensively for the Ford Foundation, working on a major effort to expand and strengthen American arts organizations. He outlined his theories in a 1977 book titled Subscribe Now!, which went through 10 editions over the ensuing years.
"Not only did Danny help companies launch subscription campaigns himself, he also helped the staffs of those companies to be able to carry on the work," said Susan Mathieson Mayer, Lyric's director of communications. "He was a teacher par excellence. He has a nation filled with proteges, including me, who took what he taught them and carried on the work."
"What he did for all these companies, giving them a sound financial base through subscriptions, was much better than giving them, say, $100,000," Mason said. "It's like the adage, 'teach someone how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.' Danny taught them how to fish through the use of subscriptions."
Mr. Newman retired in 2001 but retained the title of public relations counsel emeritus. In honor of his 88th birthday last Jan. 24, Lyric named its box office after him, with his famous motto -- "Subscribe Now!" -- engraved on the plaque.
A colorful figure, Mr. Newman was known for tapping out press releases of precise detail and florid prose on a manual typewriter in his small office in the Civic Opera House building. When necessary, he would stride onto the opera house stage to announce that Soprano X or Tenor Y was unfortunately unable to sing the evening's performance. His stentorian voice riding over the audience's groans, he introduced the substitute singer's name with a ring of triumph, implying that the listeners' dismay would be short-lived, that the next Callas, Gobbi or Vickers was about the take the stage.
Bustling through Chicago's newsrooms, his signature soft, broad-brimmed, dark fedora pushed back on his head, he was the kind of man who called women "darling'' long past the era when such greetings were deemed politically correct. His courtly way with that greeting, however, not to mention his attendant hand-kissing, made us smile.
A jack of many arts and entertainment trades, starting at age 14 in 1933, Mr. Newman produced and promoted local, national and international theater and dance companies, vaudeville and movie houses and classical music artists. Or, as he put it, with only slight exaggeration, "he was also actor, script writer, oratorio narrator, modern-dance impresario, classical-concert presenter, vaudeville, film, radio, television and legitimate theater publicist, advance agent, playwright's agent, house manager, personal manager, general manager and producer.''
During the 1940s and '50s, his projects reached from one end of Loop to the other. Among them was promoting the Chicago premiere in 1941 of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane'' at the Woods Theatre (Welles attended) and foreign art films at the World Playhouse in the Fine Arts Building. He promoted movies at city and suburban drive-ins and downtown performances of American Ballet Theatre, the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet. He also was publicist for the annual Prep Bowl, a hotly contested football championship game between Chicago public and Catholic schools at Soldier Field.
He received many honors for his work, ranging from a knighthood from the Italian government to an orchestral piece commissioned in his name by the Vancouver Symphony. An Al Hirschfeld caricature, which makes much of Mr. Newman's bushy, flaring eyebrows, adorns his book of reminiscences, Tales of a Theatrical Guru, published in December 2006.
Born in the Douglas Park neighborhood, he attended Wright Junior College. A decorated World War II veteran, Mr. Newman won the Combat Infantry Badge, the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star and five Battle Stars.
In 1948, he married Dina Halpern, an internationally known Yiddish stage and screen actress. She died in 1989. In 1994, he married Alyce Katz of Chicago. She survives, along with his stepsons, Paul Andre Katz and Leonard Katz.
"He was a lovely gentleman," Mason said. "I knew for 50 years and never heard him utter an unkind thought. With his boundless warmth and humanity, he was unique, one of a kind. We'll miss him."
"He truly believed with all his heart in what he was promoting," Mathieson Mayer said. "He loved singers, he loved theater -- the worst thing you could do to an artist was to present him with an empty seat. That where he started from.
"For me, he was quite something. I've known Danny for 30 years -- he just changed my life, he was an incredible man," she said. "I stayed in the business because of him. Once you got religion from Danny, there was no turning back."
Services, which will be open to the public, are scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Weinstein Funeral Homes, 111 Skokie Blvd. in Wilmette. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Chicago Jewish Federation, Lyric Opera of Chicago or the Chicago Yivo Society.
