Lee Guber

Lee Guber (November 20, 1920 – March 27, 1988) was an American theater impresario, who produced several Broadway theatre productions and developed a chain of entertainment venues in suburban locations along the East Coast.

Early life and education Guber was born in Philadelphia on November 20, 1920. He attended Central High School, where he met his future business partner Shelly Gross, when they were assigned to sit next to each other in alphabetical order. He attended Temple University, where he majored in sociology, earning bachelor's and master's degrees.

Entertainment Guber went into the nightclub business, and joined his childhood friend Shelly Gross and Frank Ford in creating a musical theater in Devon, Pennsylvania in 1955 called the Valley Forge Music Fair.

The group was advised to open a second theater in Westbury, New York, a suburb of New York City, but Guber asked "Where's Long Island?" when told the proposed location. The original Westbury Music Fair was housed in a tent that was constructed on what had been the site of a lime pit, with a $1 million building constructed several years later that included 3,000 seats in a theater in the round format. Their daughter Jacqueline Dena Guber was born in 1968 and adopted by the couple the same year.

His third marriage was in 1982 to Lois Wyse, with whom he remained married until his death. His stepchildren are Robert Wyse and Katherine Goldman. He has eight grandchildren, one journalist Noah Shachtman.

Guber enjoyed playing squash and tennis, and was described by The New York Times as "an accomplished cook" who learned his culinary skills from James Beard. He was appointed to serve on the New York State Council on the Arts in the mid-1970s.

A resident of Manhattan's Upper East Side, Guber died at age 67 on March 27, 1988, at his home due to brain cancer.