Look Who it Was Random video

Women in Theatre: Floria Lasky, theatrical attorney

814 views · Published 8 June 2011 · 26:49 · Indexed 10 November 2026

Channel: CUNY TV · 2011 · Entertainment

Watch on YouTube

This week's episode of Women in Theatre reprises the interview with Floria Lasky, an influential lawyer in the theatre world, who died last month from cancer. She was 84 years old.  Lasky's prominent clients included Jerome Robbins, Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams, Burl Ives, David Merrick, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jule Styne, Frederick Loewe and Carson McCullers. She also helped execute many of their estates, catalogues and foundations after their deaths, licensing the rights to their works for reproductions at worldwide institutions post-mortem.  In one of the last interviews of her life, Lasky describes her many years as a high profile lawyer and even hints at a new production of a beloved Jerome Robbins work. She also describes her difficulties in securing a job in a law firm as a female Jewish law graduate, and then her success in becoming the first woman to break into the legal sphere of Broadway and beyond.  Lasky was a graduate of Hunter College and New York University Law School, after which she joined the law firm of Fitelson & Mayers, where she would stay for the next 62 years, eventually becoming a principal.  

The acclaimed television series 'Women in Theatre' provides a unique look into the lives of some of the gifted women who create and sustain theatre in the United States -- with major directors, designers, actors, lyricists, composers and producers -- conducted by Linda Winer, theatre critic for Newsday. The series' theme song is "The Glamorous Life" from 'A Little Night Music' by Stephen Sondheim, performed by Alex Rybeck, noted pianist and music director.  Watch more at http://www.tv.cuny.edu/series/womenintheatre

More from this channel