Word: bloomgarden
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James D. Proctor, 50, pressagent for Broadway Producer Kermit (The Music Man) Bloomgarden, drew an even finer line than Dubin's. He said he was not a Communist Party member that day, but he dodged behind the Fifth Amendment when asked whether he had been a member two days earlier...
...much Bloomgarden pockets each week is his secret. But it is no secret that he did a hard sell to get co-backers for both current hits. With Angel, he had so much trouble that he finally had to give co-producer billing to a syndicate of 200 individual investors who put up $46,425 of the $125,000 cost. CBS, which put up the $400,000 for My Fair Lady, brushed off a $300,000 chance to finance The Music Man, missed a deal for 40% of the profits. Collecting modest sums from many angels, Bloomgarden got Music...
...practicing C.P.A. until 1933, Producer Bloomgarden has a good record for picking hits (The Lark, Death of a Sales man, Command Decision), but he has had his flops too. His basic criterion for picking: "I have to like it. It's a terrible thing to do a show just because you think it's going to make a million bucks...
...Bloomgarden sometimes snaps up a show the first time he hears it. "When Meredith Willson telephoned and asked me to produce The Music Man," he recalls, "I said to myself, 'Who the hell is Willson?' It had been so long since I'd heard him on the radio I'd forgotten all about him. He played the show through for me the next day, and we signed a contract that night...
...Bloomgarden's knack of spotting a good property has built up a roster of backers who will put up cash for anything he picks. Should an investor have more confidence in a producer than in a director or actor? "Definitely," says Bloomgarden. "A director looks at a script and says, 'Boy, what I can do with this!' An actor says, 'How good I'll be in this part.' A producer has more integrity. He has to-he has more people to worry about...