“Oh Calcutta!” producer Hillard Elkins, who was also a manager and tenpercenter, died Dec. 1 in Los Angeles following a heart attack. He was 81.
Elkins started in showbiz in the mailroom at William Morris. After a stint in the Army making training films during the Korean War, he began his own percentery, repping Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Culp and Sammy Davis Jr. among others.
In the early 1960s, he turned to Broadway, producing Garson Kanin’s play “Come on Strong.” It closed after 36 perfs on the Main Stem. Undeterred, he produced the musical “Golden Boy” two years later in 1964. Toplined by Davis, the tuner, with book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson, ran for two years and was Tony-nommed for musical, actor, choreography and for Elkins’ producing.
He also produced Broadway’s “Oh Calcutta!,” bashed by critics for its nudity and profanity, but a box office hit. Variety’s 1969 review said, “Its greatest assets are the beautiful bodies that are nude more often than not. The intelligence level
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of the script is somewhere around the fourth grade.”
Other Broadway credits include “The Rothschilds,” revivals of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and “Hedda Gabler” and Athol Fugard’s “Sizwe Banzi Is Dead” produced in rep with “The Island” as well as the satirical “An Evening With Richard Nixon.”
He was Tony-nominated for “The Rothschilds,” “Sizwe Banzi,” and “The Island” plus Drama Desk kudos for the latter two.
Elkins also produced the film version of “Oh Calcutta!”and pics including Arthur Penn’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” “A New Leaf” and “A Doll’s House.”
Married six times, including to his “Doll’s House” star Claire Bloom, survivors include his wife, Sandi; two sons and a grandchild.
