Bernie Brillstein, 77; legendary Hollywood talent manager, producer
He guided the careers of star performers and helped bring such programs as 'The Muppet Show' and 'Saturday Night Live' to television.
Bernie Brillstein, a legendary show business talent manager and producer who guided the careers of such performers as John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Muppets creator Jim Henson and helped bring "Saturday Night Live" and other shows to television, has died. He was 77.
Brillstein, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, died Thursday evening at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, Brillstein Entertainment Partners announced Friday.
"He was larger than life, a father figure to so many, and one of the last legends in the entertainment business," Jon Liebman, partner and chief executive of Brillstein Entertainment Partners, told The Times on Friday.
The white-haired and bearded Brillstein -- "he looks and sounds like a raucous Santa Claus," a New York Times writer observed a decade ago -- launched his more-than-50-year career in the mail room of the William Morris Agency in New York in 1956 and rose through the ranks to become a talent agent.
After founding Brillstein Co. in 1969 -- the first of three management and production companies to bear his name -- he helped launch "Hee Haw," the long-running country music-comedy show.
He also helped start "The Muppet Show" and was instrumental in bringing "Saturday Night Live" to NBC in 1975.
As a manager, Brillstein represented the long-running comedy show's creator-executive producer, Lorne Michaels, as well as Belushi, Radner and Dan Aykroyd.
"He was unwavering in his belief in me," Michaels told The Times on Friday, adding that he couldn't have done "Saturday Night Live" without Brillstein.
"He was just that voice in your ear," Michaels said. "He believed in what you're doing and helped give you confidence, but he also was really smart about show business, even the most fundamental stuff.
"Even though what I was doing [on 'Saturday Night Live'] was more rock 'n' roll and different generation and different sensitivity" than Brillstein was used to, "at the core he knew about audience and talent and how to put on a show. He loved show business, and he was unabashed in how much he loved it."
Michaels was a 24-year-old junior writer on "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show" in 1968 when he first met Brillstein, who was representing comedian Norm Crosby, one of the show's regulars.
Brillstein made an immediate impression on the young writer from Canada.
