Welcome

All the excitement of Broadway during the glory days of the Great White Way comes to life in “Tales of a Broadway Flack,” David Long’s engrossing new biography about Sol Jacobson, press agent for some of the Broadway’s most memorable shows from “Too Many Girls” in 1939 to “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1964 and there were more than 100 shows in between.

Born and raised in Mechanicsburg, PA, Sol became one of the early pioneers in theatrical publicity. Legendary for his stunts, personality, and press agentry, Sol began his career in 1931 at The Hedgerow Theater in Rose Valley PA where he started as an actor, but quickly became the theater’s publicist, a job he quickly realized he was cut out for.  It wasn’t long before he moved on to the new Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope PA, and soon he found his way to Broadway, opening his own agency in the middle 1940’s with 2 partners: Bill Doll and Lewis Harmon.

During his long career Sol worked with such legendary performers as Desi Arnaz, Van Johnson and Eddie Bracken (Too Many Girls, 1939), Ethel Barrymore (The Corn is Green, 1940), Boris Karloff (Arsenic and Old Lace, 1941), Tallulah Bankhead (The Skin of Our Teeth, 1942), Maurice Evans (Man and Superman, 1947), Ray Bolger (Where’s Charley, 1948), Geraldine Page (Summer and Smoke, 1952), David Wayne (Teahouse of the August Moon, 1953),  Gwen Verdon (Damn Yankees, 1955), Laurence Olivier (The Entertainer 1958), Paul Newman (Sweet Bird of Youth, 1959), Tom Bosley (Fiorello, 1959),  Zero Mostel (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 1962 and Fiddler on the Roof 1964).

But there’s much more to his story than that, because Sol Jacobson’s life is also a love story. Not only a love of the theater, but a love of his wife and his children. It’s a compelling story, but if you love the theater, it’s a book that you won’t want to put down until you’ve read the last page,

 This synopsis was written by Jimmy Hirschfeld, three-time Emmy winner producer/director of Captain Kangaroo