Sandy Gallin

Sandy Gallin, who in the 1970s, ′80 and ′90s was one of the most powerful talent representatives in the entertainment business, died on Friday April 21 2017 in Los Angeles. He was 76. Mr. Gallin had few peers as a behind-the-scenes ally to the biggest stars, from the time he helped rescue Dolly Parton from a stalling career in 1976 until the day Elizabeth Taylor died in 2011 and, in her will, left him her biggest amethyst crystal. He was part of the team that booked the Beatles for their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (1964). He woke up in the middle of the night to Richard Pryor calling from jail (twice in 1967). He oversaw Cher’s transformation from rock balladeer to disco dancing club diva (1978). He signed Whoopi Goldberg before she auditioned for Steven Spielberg and got the leading role in“The Color Purple” (1984). He jetted to London with Ms. Taylor to stage a painkiller intervention for another of his clients, Michael Jackson (1993). And by serving as executive producer of the Oscar-winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt” (1990), which profiled people represented in the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and by appearing on the cover of Out Magazine’s annual Power Issue (1994), he became something of a role model for gays and lesbians in the entertainment business at a time when few in prominent positions, and virtually no one in front of the camera, acknowledged being gay. Albert Samuel Gallin was born in Brooklyn on May 27, 1940, and raised on Long Island, in Lawrence, where his father, Sidney, was a builder with a spending problem and his mother, Florence, was a homemaker. After graduating from Boston University, Mr. Gallin returned to New York and started in the mailroom of General Artists Corporation, which eventually became International Creative Management, one of the largest agencies. He was promoted to agent in 1965. In 1968, G.A.C. moved Mr. Gallin to Los Angeles. There was a brief marriage to a woman (“I told her I was gay before,” he later said), after which he switched from working as an agent, which is focused on deal making, to managing, which is focused on overall strategy and hand-holding. A brief marriage to Bryan Fox, with whom he was involved for six years, ended in 2015. His brother, Henry, died in 2015. He left no immediate survivors. With his cousin Ray Katz, a veteran talent representative, Mr. Gallin launched Katz Gallin Associates and began amassing a client roster that included Joan Rivers, Florence Henderson, Cher, Lily Tomlin and Patti LaBelle. He became best friends with Mr. Diller, Mr. Geffen and Calvin Klein. Mr. Gallin helped Ms. Parton open the theme park Dollywood in Tennessee and started a company with her, Sandollar Productions, which was responsible for the Steve Martin film “Father of the Bride” and the hit television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”