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Collection Data
- Description
- Sol Jacobson was an American press agent, noted for his work on early productions of the director and producer Harold Prince, including Fiddler on the Roof. The Sol Jacobson papers contain publicity files on productions, organizations, and individuals Jacobson represented; responses to a biographical questionnaire of actors and actresses; personal notes and correspondence, and a late nineteenth century theatre scrapbook.
- Names
- Jacobson, Sol, 1912-2010 (Creator)
- Harmon, Lewis (Contributor)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1891 - 1993
- Library locations
- Billy Rose Theatre Division
- Shelf locator: *T-Mss 2011-152
- Topics
- Prince, Harold, 1928-
- Musicals
- Musicals -- Production and direction -- New York (State) -- New York
- Press agents -- United States
- Publicity -- United States
- Theater -- New York (State) -- New York
- Theater -- Public relations
- Theater -- United States -- 20th century
- Press agents
- publicists
- Genres
- Clippings
- Photographs
- Press releases
- Programs
- Scrapbooks
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Sol Jacobson was born Solomon A. Jacobson in Pennsylvania on July 3, 1912. Jacobson began his career as a theatrical press agent at Jasper Deeter's Hedgerow Theatre, in the Philadelphia area. He moved to New York in 1936 to work for the Shuberts. He moved through George Abbott's office before being taken on as a protégé by the prolific press representative Richard Maney, working with him on Watch on the Rhine (1941).
When Jacobson came back from military service in World War II, he lauched his own career, which would include such productions as Summer and Smoke (1948), The Browning Version / Harlequinade (1949), The Autumn Garden (1951), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), The Male Animal (1952), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1953), John Murray Anderson's Almanac (1953), No Time for Sergeants (1955), Look Back in Anger (1957), The Entertainer (1958), Flower Drum Song ( 1958), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Fiorello! (1959), Toys in the Attic (1960), Tenderloin (1960), Donnybrook! (1961), A Call on Kuprin (1961), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), She Loves Me (1963), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Generation (1965), The Right Honourable Gentleman (1965), A Joyful Noise (1966), Loot (1968), Harvey (1970), The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1971), Hard Job Being God (1972), Best Friend (1976), and Horowitz and Mrs. Washington (1980). All productions from 1950 to 1976 were represented jointly by Jacobson and his partner Lewis Harmon.
In 2012, David A. Long published Tales of a Broadway Flack: The Charmed Life of Press Agent Sol Jacobson, based on a series of interviews he'd conducted with Jacobson.
Sol Jacobsol died of heart failure on February 17, 2010 in Key West, Florida.
- Content: Sol Jacobson was an American press agent. His papers document the process of publicizing a production, individual, or company in the mid-twentieth century New York theatre community. Jacobson kept publicity files on shows, individuals, and theatre companies he represented. These files consist of press releases, advertisements, features, clippings, business correspondence, programs, production shots, headshots, resumes, biographies, and information sheets on productions and theatres. Publicity files occasionally contain scrapbooks of clippings.
Fiddler on the Roof is the most extensively represented production in this collection. Publicity files from this show document not only the musical's eight-year Broadway run, but also touring, regional domestic, and international productions. Rare publicity photographs of productions all around the world are included here. The musical, Tenderloin, and the production company run by Lyn Ely, Theatre in Education, are also documented extensively with publicity files.
Throughout their careers, Jacobson and his partner Lewis Harmon conducted surveys with the actors and directors involved in the productions they were publicizing. These surveys collected basic biographical information and resume credits on the individuals concerned. The majority of these questionnaires are included in publicity files for the shows in which the actors filling out the questionnaires were appearing, but a small amount have been separated from publicity files and arranged by actor's name.
Other Professional and Personal Files include a scrapbook of late nineteenth century Philadelphia theatrical programs; a small number of programs from various New York and touring productions from the late 1930s, including some for the Mercury Theatre; Jacobson's typed notes and outlines on unidentified early projects; autobiographical writings; and a few folders of letters to Jacobson from theatre industry friends and prominent individuals such as Brooks Atkinson, John Beal, John Beaufort, Schuyler Chapin, Constance Cummings, Ronald Gow, Sheldon Harnick, Boris Karloff, Burton Lane, Robert E. Lee, Edwin Lester, Richard Maney, Frank McHugh, Richard Nixon, Katina Paxinou, Harold Prince, Louis Schaeffer, Dorothy Stickney, Howard Taubman, and Eli Wallach.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 16.41 linear feet (37 boxes, 1 volume)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Still image
- Identifiers
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b20582485
- MSS Unit ID: 18896
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 32facd50-36f6-0137-ff9d-7d6a30d5ae5e
