Michael Frazier, the producer behind Broadway's Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, died at the age of 72 last week of complications with Parkinson's disease in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Frazier started out as personnel director for Good Humor. He then became head of human resources for Grey Advertising and for Gulf & Western thereafter, which owned Paramount Pictures at the time. His first foray into Broadway producing came in 1973 when he presented a revival of Clare Booth Luce's The Women starring Kim Hunter, Myrna Loy and Alexis Smith. Farzier would become known just as much for his Broadway successes, including Lena Horne, as he was for his legendary flops, including Hide and Seek (which ran for only 8 performances), the Hal Prince directed End of the World by Arthur Kopit, and Grind - also with Prince - that ran just a few months.
His additional Broadway credits include 3 from Brooklyn, Mail, Herman Van Veen: All of Him, and Noel Coward in Two Keys.
Frazier also the off-Broadway productions: Further Mo' at the Village Gate, and, 1991, Brad Fraser's Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love at the Orpheum, which received attention for its gory subject matter but underperformed at the box office.
In 1989, Frazier set his sights on Chicago and launched a non-profit enterprise at the Halsted Theatre Centre. "I want to do a series of four new American plays in the small space, each running about 6 to 10 weeks," he said at the time.
Mr. Frazier divided his time between his Manhattan apartment and his sprawling farm in the Berkshire's Sage Hill Farms, with his longtime partner Charles Mirotznik.
In addition to Mirotznik, Frazier is survived by a brother and three nieces.
Memorial services will be held in New York and the Berkshires.
