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Bernie Jacobs is above all a businessman, he is known as a tough one, but one who is impeccably fair

[[image: photo of Bernard Jacob sitting looking up at Michael Bennet standing next to him]]
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Bernard Jacob's association with Michael Bennet (r.) began with A Chorus Line. "He regarded me as his godfather," says Jacobs.
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two. They're both originals. The one from A Chorus Line was given to him on opening night by Joe Papp," founder of The New York Shakespeare Festival, the producer of A Chorus Line, which played all of its 6,137 Broadway performances just downstairs at the Shubert Theatre.

"Michael regard me as his godfather," Jacobs says with a smile of reminiscence about the late director.

Jacobs has long been known for his ability to work effectively with the great theatre artists of the day. "He's been heavily involved in the creative side of the business," says Rocco Landesman, president of Jujamcyn Theaters, a Broadway theatre-owning competitor and sometime production partner of the Shuberts. "He forges the relations with the directors and writers. They tend to trust him and work easily with him."

Display is influence, Jacobs has rarely been profiled. He does not seek out the

media; he likes to work behind the scenes and leave the publicity and the aura of celebrity to others. He is above all a businessman, and he is known as a tough one, but one who is impeccably fair."

"I think he's notoriously, or infamously, straightforward," Landesman says. "He tells people what he thinks, even if it's something hurts, which in his business is remarkable, maybe even unique. But it builds trust. When a person is that direct with you, you know you can have confidence in him."

The directness, Landseman says, can sometimes be displayed amid a gruff exterior. "But beneath the gruffness," Landesman says, "he's really goodhearted. Actually, he's a total softie."

Another thing that is total about Jacobs is his grasp of the business. He has even taught Cameron Mackintosh. "I have been able to learn and observed from his tremendous dedication to and love of New York theatre," McIntosh says, "and only very occasionally gotten the better of him in a deal."

All of which is quite remarkable for someone who began his career as a lawyer and readily admits that when he started working for the Shuberts he knew little about the legitimate stage. "When I came here I was interested in the theatre to the extent that I have loved it and went to the theatre with a reasonable degree of frequency," Jacob recalls. "But I had no more idea of what this business was about then my six-year-old grandson has now."

Or, in the words of Bernard Gersten, executive producer of Lincoln Center Theater and associate producer of A Chorus Line: "Who would have thought that this lawyer who grew up serving the legal needs of the Shubert Organization would have grown into the grandfather

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of the Broadway theatre?"

Bernard B Jacobs was born 76 years ago this month. [June 13, 1916] in Harlem. His father, born in this century, "was very active as a religious Jew in a Harlem Synagogue," Jacobs says; my mother, "came here as a baby, one or two years old, from somewhere in that huge area of Russia and Poland." The family moved to the West Side of Manhattan when Jacobs was a teen-ager. He attended New York City public schools, Dewitt Clinton High School, graduated from New York University (the University Heights campus, which doesn't exist anymore.") and then from Columbia Law School.

After law school, Jacobs went into the Army for World War II, serving primarily in the South Pacific. When the war ended, he began practicing law, and then in 1957. He was taken on by Schoenfeld at the Shubert Organization.

"Gerald's older brother and I were the best of friends at Dewitt Clinton, as well as in college," Jacobs says. "So subsequently, Gerald asked me if I wanted to join him. We've gotten along very well. And we've been partners for 35 years."

In early 1970s, Jacobs and Schoenfeld became involved in running the organization. It was a time when things were not going particularly well for the Shuberts or for the Broadway theatre in for general.

"When Jerry and I took over this business," Jacobs says, "we called Morgan Guaranty, which had been the banker for the Shuberts, to find out if we could borrow some money. We had no working capital. And they turned us down. They told us our assets were in a sense worthless, because they were assets that were only there for a specific use, and that the use was not one that was economically viable. So we really started with no working capital. But fortunately for us, things work out. We kept fighting. We change the business from a loser to a winner. Of course, we were lucky. We ran into A Chorus Line."

Just what is it exactly that Jacobs does? Let in talent in his own words: "I negotiate a host of labor agreements," he says. "I negotiate booking agreements. Go over production budgets. Decide (Gerald and I do everything jointly) which shows we will produce. Which shows we will present in our theatres. Which shows we will invest money in. Decide very often which artistic people we will employ for particular projects. Then there's the maintenance and operation of all the buildings. The supervision of the real estate. The placement of advertisements. How much money will be spent. What the advertising budget will be. The hiring of press agents. Dealing with a host of people all the time. All the things an entrepreneur does in this business."

In addition to those duties, Jacob supervises the installation of computerized ticket operations at all Schubert box offices, by telephone or through Ticketron outlets. He began a program with the New York City Board of Education, the city's Youth Bureau in the Midtown Arts Project in which 50 free tickets are provided for students at each Wednesday matinee performance of Cats. He is also president of the Shubert Foundation, which helps the performing arts in the United States as well as many charitable causes. He is a vice president of The League of American Theaters and Producers, the Broadway trade group. Jacobs is also a visiting professor at the Yale School of Drama and an adjunct professor of theatre at the Columbia University School Of the Arts. And he is a trustee of The Actors' Fund.

Jacobs and his wife, Betty, have been married for 46 years (since June 1946). They have two children, Stephen and Sally, and three grandchildren. Jared and Matthew Jacobs and Amanda Baker.

"I think I've had a full and decent life," Jacob says. "I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I'm very happy with my family life. I'm very happy with my grandchildren. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the way things turned out."

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