Early
Sunday morning, December 7, 2003 Mr. Lloyd Rigler, the creator
of Classic Arts Showcase, passed away peacefully at home
in his sleep. He was 88 years old
Though it was an expected passing, we still found it difficult
to believe Lloyd wouldn't be coming into the office as usual.
His desk is littered with dozens of letters waiting for
his replies. His chair sits waiting. A half filled glass
of water sits next to his phone. His appointment book is
open. There are half a dozen invitations waiting for an
RSVP. Staring from the walls are signed photos of environmental,
political and arts leaders grateful for Lloyd's help. Testimonies,
awards, Certificates of Merit, Appreciation and Recognition
adorn every corner of the office, happy to make room for
more. This is the office of a man whose life was full, varied,
busy, and appreciated.
Before his passing Mr. Rigler made arrangements for Classic
Arts Showcase to continue broadcasting for at least another
twenty years. He considered Classic Arts Showcase to be
part of his legacy, and one of his great joys was to read
appreciative letters from viewers.
He will be greatly missed.
Charlie Mount
CLASSIC ARTS SHOWCASE
Dec 8, 2003
Mr.
Rigler's NY Times
Obituary
Lloyd
E. Rigler
Biography
Recognized as one of the most discerning arts patrons in
America, Lloyd E. Rigler has practiced and preached the
cost-effective use of resources in order to achieve the
greatest good. From the earliest days of his success as
a businessman, he has been an active philanthropist.
He and his business partner, the late Lawrence E. Deutsch,
were pioneers in the field of corporate support for the
arts. Long before "corporate responsibility" became
a given in America, Rigler and Deutsch were building intimate
relationships with a number of major performing arts organizations
across the country, not merely as donors but, more importantly,
as members of executive and finance committees. Today, Rigler
continues this tradition of assisting arts organizations
to secure a place in our society with sound fiscal policies
and strategies for building ever-broadening bases of support.
The 4th of 6 children, Lloyd E. Rigler was born in Lehr,
North Dakota in 1915. His family moved to Wishek, North
Dakota when he was 4 years old. He grew up working in his
parents' General Merchandise Store, which served a large
farming community.
By age 11, he had his own business, a gift and greeting
card shop, which he operated in a section of his parents'
store. He was a Boy Scout at 12 and an Eagle Scout at 16.
He graduated from High School after only 3 years so that
he could work and begin to save for college.
In the summer of 1933, he found a ride to Chicago, where
he could stay with relatives, and immediately got a job
with the Edison Company selling electric irons. Shortly
thereafter he was hired as a shoe salesman at Marshall Field's.
By the fall of 1935 he had saved enough money to go to the
University of Illinois.
He went to New York in the fall of 1939 to go into theater.
To support himself, he worked as an interviewer for a market
research agency, and did the initial research on the Waring
Blender, becoming the top demonstrator and salesman at Ovington's,
an exclusive store on 5th Avenue.
In 1940, he was hired by RCA to head Guest Relations to
introduce television at their TV exhibit at the World's
Fair Century of Progress, the 2nd most visited building
after the General Motors Futurama. After the Fair he was
sent to Camden, New Jersey, to train as a Red Seal Record
(Classic Division) Promotion Specialist covering Ohio, Pennsylvania
and West Virginia, while living in Cleveland. He came to
Los Angeles in the Fall of 1941 for a vacation. When he
could not get transferred by RCA, he became an L.A. City
salesman for Decca Records.
He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942. Selected for officers
training, he trained at the University of Arizona and served
until the war ended in 1945.
He did a stint as a motion picture agent, working with Charles
Wendling, brother of Claudette Colbert, who was their most
famous client, but, looking for more lucrative work, he
answered an ad reading, "Enterprising salesman to dispose
of a quarter of a million dollars worth of war supplies,
10% commission." It was Her Secret Brasserie Company,
that had a quarter of a million dollars worth of English
net, pink and blue satin, and black lace as surplus to dispose
of.
He tried selling to a contact in Hong Kong, who said it
was too light for clothing. Although unsuccessful, when
he asked what every man, woman and child in Hong Kong used,
his contact sent him a rice bowl, mentioning that children's
bowls were only half filled. With plastics just coming on
the market, he asked a plastic mold manufacturer what it
would cost to make a mold of the same bowl in a baby size
and the cost to produce them. He then asked Hong Kong if
they would be interested. They agreed to order 150 gross
with an irrevocable letter if credit, which guaranteed the
mold maker to produce the mold and bowls on his money, which
was pre-paid in the bank and released when the bowls were
shipped.
While
doing this, Mr. Rigler became a food broker, representing
the packers of Dawn Fresh Mushrooms and Soups. In order
to get these products placed in Supermarkets, he had to
have a place where he could store and easily access inventory
so that he could pick up and deliver from his own car.
A friend from his movie agent days, Marshall Edson, had
gotten backing to produce "The Taming of the Shrew"
with Shelley Winters and John Ireland; he needed an office,
so he rented a 25 by 100 feet store front, operating Zippy
Cleaners there to pay the rent. He used only the front of
the store, so Mr. Rigler rented the area behind the drop-off
counter for storing his mushrooms.
Here he met the manager of Zippy Cleaners, Lawrence Deutsch,
who was on loan from the New York City Opera, where he served
as an assistant to their first artistic director, Lazlo
Halaz. Deutsch also assisted in the production of The Taming
of the Shrew, directed by Mr. Halaz's friend, Eugene Brieden.
While at the New York Opera City Opera, Deutsch met Julius
Rudel, who replaced Halaz. It was Rudel who brought singers
such as Samuel Ramey, Catherine Malfitano, Placido Domingo,
Jose Carreras, and Michael Devlin to the New York City Opera,
and created a memorable relationship with Norman Treigle
and Beverly Sills. While Marshall Edson was searching for
new plays to produce, Mr. Deutsch continued managing Zippy
Cleaners and began typing letters for Rigler's Export and
Food Brokerage at $.25 per letter. When his bill was $18.00
one month, Mr. Rigler gave him a share of the business.
To save money, they became partners as Rigler and Deutsch
Food Brokers, moved out of the Zippy Cleaners building,
and opened their own Dawn Fresh Valet Service a few blocks
away, with storage space for the mushrooms in the back.
They discovered Adolph's Meat Tenderizer at a Santa Barbara
restaurant owned by Adolph Rempp. They represented Rempp
as food brokers and finally bought the name and recipe in
1948 and introducing it in 1949 on the Home Show on Los
Angeles television. In 1953, Rigler and Deutsch were featured
in a story in Reader's Digest, which was printed in 14 languages,
and Adolph's was introduced to the world. Their company
was acquired by Chesebrough Ponds in 1974, which was acquired
by Lever Brothers several years later. Today, Adolph's is
owned by Unilever.
Rigler and Deutsch created a foundation in the early 1950s
as soon as they started to accumulate money. With the sale
of Adolph's, they began concentrating on philanthropy, with
their chief interest being the Arts. They were instrumental
in getting the newly founded Los Angeles Opera, of which
Deutsch was president, to bring the New York City Opera
to the Music Center. They handled all of the administrative
duties and had a regular season of 28 performances of 14
different operas for 16 years. They were among the first
founders of the Los Angeles Music Center, and founders of
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In 1977, Deutsch succumbed to lung cancer from smoking,
leaving his estate to the Foundation. Deutsch had been an
avid collector of records and had always wanted to share
that music with the world. Rigler discovered that everything
that had been commercially recorded since the first Edison
cylinder up through 1946 was stored in boxes in 5 different
libraries - the Library of Congress, the New York Public
Library, and the libraries at Yale, Syracuse and Stanford.
He received permission from the copyright office to provide
audio copies to anyone who requested one of the records
from the archive for $5.00 and catalogue the information
on each recording, including photographing each label, and
underwrote the project, which came to be known as the Rigler
& Deutsch Index of Recorded Sound and can be seen in
every library in the United States. Many of the current
re-releases of recordings on CD owe their discovery to the
Rigler & Deutsch Index.
Rigler was on the board of directors of the Los Angeles
Philharmonic for more than 20 years, as well as of the Board
of City Center of Music and Drama in New York and Community
Television of Southern California, station KCET in Los Angeles.
He served as co-chairman of the New York City Opera, until
demoted to vice-chairman, and introduced the Student Coalition
for the Arts, an audience development project.
Rigler has always believed in the potential of public television.
His support of KCET has always been focused on widening
the station's outreach. When the station needed new members,
for example, Rigler said, "broaden your signal and
you will increase your constituency". So, he purchased
a new antenna for the station, and the result was a now
historic increase in the station's support base of 18 million
viewers. He also provided them with closed captioning equipment.
In the 1980s, Rigler conceived of a way to assist PBS in
creating revenue for new programming. PBS's method was to
sell the rights to present their new productions to European
television distributors for 20% of the budget, making them
co-producers in the bargain. PBS retained only the rights
to show a program 4 times before consigning it to the archives.
Rigler wanted to clean up these old masters, put them on
VHS video, and have PBS stations show clips of them and
sell the cassettes direct, asking the unions to waive their
usual up front copyright and artist fees until profits came
in.
One of the largest archives was WNET in New York City, whose
executives were at first ecstatic at Rigler's idea. When
Rigler asked for a print-out of what they had, it was discovered
that their titles had never been indexed. Rigler agreed
to pay for the index, which took 2 years and yielded 17,800
titles. In a subsequent meeting with WNET executives, he
was told that after looking at the index that they would
rather sell the rights of the masters and let whoever bought
them clear the rights with the unions.
Having failed to develop his project with WNET, he envisioned
the creation of his own 24 hour non-commercial arts network,
designed to bring the classic arts to as large an audience
as possible by showing short video clips, in hopes of enticing
viewers to attend and support museums and live performances
in their own community. Rigler had been tracking the ticket
sales of live performances for many years, and found that
arts organizations were performing to more empty seats every
year - selling fewer tickets and charging more for them.
With present audiences aging and dying and little or no
arts exposure in our homes and schools, Rigler envisioned
a way to expose the largest possible number of viewers to
the arts, feeling that he might be able to develop a new
audience.
Launched on May 3, 1994, and available today in over 50
million homes, Classic Arts Showcase is a not-for-profit
24-hour Satellite Programming Service provided free of charge
to local public service channels, cable and broadcast stations
from G1R-Ch. 5.
