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Jerry Kravat, Longtime Manager of Barbara Cook, Dies at 72
By Robert Simonson
02 Apr 2008
Jerry Kravat, who managed the careers of a wide array of musical theatre and cabaret artists, included Barbara Cook, died March 31, the New York Times reported. He was 72.
The cause was complications after cancer surgery.
The artists Mr. Kravat either managed or booked included the cream of theatre and nightclub talent, including Eartha Kitt, Joel Grey, Cab Calloway, Bobby Short, Lena Horne, Mort Sahl, Steve Allen and Sylvia McNair.
His most notable and long-lived professional relationship, however, was with Barbara Cook. When Mr. Kravat and Ms. Cook began working together in 1979, her triumphs on the stage in The Music Man and Candide were many years behind her, but she was just beginning to reemerge as a concert and cabaret artist of the first caliber. Mr. Kravat helped to guide her career. Ms. Cook now routinely sells out cabaret stints at halls like Cafe Carlyle and concerts at Lincoln Center Theater and the Metropolitan Opera House.
In 1987, he produced Barbara Cook: A Concert for the Theatre at the Ambassador Theatre. His only other Broadway foray was the short-lived 1985 musical Mayor.
Born in the Bronx, Jerome Kravat attended the High School of Music and Art and New York University. After two years in the Army, he began a career playing piano. He later became a bandleader and businessman after forming an early partnership with the conductor Skitch Henderson, according to the Times.
Beginning in the 1960s, he managed society orchestras. He booked talent into major New York hotels, set up bands for weddings, was entertainment director for many years beginning in the late 1960s, and booked the swank Café Carlyle. He formed Jerry Kravat Entertainment Services in 1977. Among his many disparate activities, he he coordinated entertainment for the principality of Monaco until the death of Princess Grace.
He is survived by his wife, Marty Kravat; his twin sister, Muriel Barall; five children, Dr. Buschman, Lynne Bushman-Fielding, Leah Kravat, Amanda Kravat and Jenny Kravat Solomon; two stepdaughters, Betsy Grass and Julie Wurts; and 13 grandchildren.
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