Jay Weston dies: ‘Lady Sings The Blues’ producer who brought Al Pacino to Broadway was 93

Jay Weston, who was working as a publicist, when a chance meeting with Billie Holiday at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival led to the production of her 1972 biopic Lady sings the blues, died of natural causes on February 28 at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California. He turned 93.

His death was announced by spokesman Jeff Sanderson on behalf of the Weston family.

A leading restaurant critic in late life, Weston’s distinguished career in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was marked by highlights such as producing Billy Wilder’s last film (friend friend with Walter
Matthau and Jack Lemmon), Chu Chu and the Philly Flash with Carol Burnett and Alan Arkin; WC Fields and me with Rod Steiger; And For the love of ivy with Sydney Poitier.

In his only foray on Broadway, Weston produced the legendary 1968 production of the Don Petersen play. Does a tiger wear a tie?Beginning of the career of a young Al Pacino.

Born John Weinstein on March 9, 1929 in Brooklyn, Weston and his younger brother Stan lost their mother at a young age and were raised by their opera loving father and stepmother, a jazz pianist. (Stanley Weston later became an inventor and created the legendary action figure GI Joe).

The family love of music would serve Weston well: when he met the jazz great at the Newport Fest, he was intrigued by her newly released memoir. In a 2011 interview, Weston recalled the encounter.

“I met Billie Holiday at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958,” he recalls. “She said to me, ‘Someone just wrote a bio about me Lady sings the blues. And most of it is true, but a lot is not.’ I read the book and told her agent, “I want to make a movie out of this.” He said, “Give me $5,000 and I’ll think about it.” So I gave him $5,000 and it took 13 years and a lot of $5,000 payments to keep the rights because everybody wanted it.

Weston also recalled how Oscar-nominated star Diana Ross was involved in what would become her feature film debut. “I wanted Diana Ross to do it because she did in a Search magazine interview that she would like to play Billie Holiday,” Weston said. “I finally went to her and her manager said, ‘No, she doesn’t want to play a black junkie.’ After two or three rejections, I went back with the director, Sidney Furie, and she ended up in the film. Then I got Billy Dee Williams. I saw it Off Broadway years ago and said, ‘If I ever do this movie, I want you to play her husband’.”

Weston attended New York University as a medical student before switching to an art curriculum. After earning a BA, he began his career in public relations before being drafted in 1952 and sent to Korea. There he founded a newspaper The Hialeahwhich was awarded the Army Prize Medal as the best newspaper in Korea.

After his release, he returned to New York and founded an advertising agency that represented many young stars, including Paul Anka. He became a public relations consultant for Cinerama Inc., where he worked for ten years, and then in 1967 worked as ABC’s film director, Palomar Pictures, where his first major project took place in 1969. You shoot horses, don’t you? with Jane Fonda.

Also around this time – 1968 – he produced the play Does a tiger wear a tie?, an infamous Broadway flop that nonetheless earned Pacino a Tony Award and launched the young actor’s career. In the same year, Weston would co-produce the film For the love of ivy, with Poitier and Abby Lincoln.

Weston moved to Los Angeles in 1971 to more actively pursue film production. The following year he co-produced with Barry Gordy, Brad Dexter and James L. White: Lady sings the blues. The film, like the book that inspired it, played fast and loose with Holiday’s true life story, but soon put Ross, former lead singer of The Supremes, in the front row of Hollywood leading ladies.

Weston’s later film credits may include WC Fields and me (1976); Night of the Juggler (1980); Underground Aces, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash And buddy buddy (all 1981); and the beach volleyball movie from the 1990s side out with C. Thomas Howell and Peter Horton.

In 1987, Weston produced the TV movie Harry Hamlin lagoon heat and the 1999 TV movie Invisible child in the lead role Rita Wilson.

In 1981, Weston discovered a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles that he liked so much that he wrote about it and recommended it to 100 friends. As people began to follow his advice about restaurants, he soon created a monthly restaurant newsletter that would run until 2022.

Weston is survived by his ex-wife, Annabelle Weston Shulman; his daughter Teresa Kraegel (and husband Bill); grandchildren Connor and Caroline; Sister Ann Sowers and cousins ​​Greg and Eric Gantwarg.