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Sandy Gallin Dies: Agent, Talent Manager & Producer Was 76

Sandy Gallin, whose long career as an agent, talent manager and producer included clients from Barbra Streisand, Nicole Kidman and Richard Pryor to Michael Jackson, Cher and Joni Mitchell, has died in Los Angeles following a long battle with multiple myeoloma. He was 76.

His death was announced by friend Bruce Bozzi on Instagram today. “We lost a shining light this morning,” wrote Bozzi. Howard Rosenman, L.A. Reid and Jennifer Gray soon joined in the remembrances (see below).

Gallin began his career work in the mailroom of the GAC talent agency, according to a bio on his official website, becoming an agent within three years. Among his early clients were Mitchell, Phyllis Diller, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme and Laura Nyro. “During that time, he also revealed his gift for recognizing new talent and signed then-unknown Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, Tiny Tim and Cass Elliot,” Gallin’s bio reads.

Gallin soon began booking his clients on the era’s most popular TV variety shows, The Ed Sullivan Show, Hollywood Palace and Hullabaloo. He later put together similar shows for Sonny and Cher, Cher, the reunion of Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, Mac Davis, Paul Lynde and Dolly Parton. He produced specials for Streisand, Joan Rivers, Whoopi Goldberg, Neil Diamond and Lily Tomlin.

Gallin later cofounded the management company that would become Gallin Morey and Associates. Clients included Streisand, Jackson, Parton, Cher, Diamond, Davis, Mariah Carey, Olivia Newton-John, the Osmond Brothers, Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond, Patti LaBelle, the Pointer Sisters, KC and the Sunshine Band and Petula Clark, Korn and Limp Bizkit, among others.

In 1985, Gallin and Parton formed Sandollar Productions, later producing documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt and Harvey Fierstein’s 1988 HBO special Tidy Endings. Among various awards, Sandollar took a CAble ACE Award in 1990 for The Whoopi Goldberg Special.

Other Sandollar projects included Father of the Bride, I.Q., Sabrina and Fly Away Home. TV productions listed on his website include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and The Dolly Parton Show, among many others.

As a manager, Gallin’s clients included Tomlin, Pryor, Rivers, Lynde, Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Whoopi Goldberg, Roseanne, Martin Lawrence and Howie Mandell.

Gallin’s stage productions included Hedda Gabler in 2001 and Man of La Mancha in 2002.

Gallin also founded the short-lived Las Vegas-based Mirage Entertainment & Sports with Steve Wynn and worked extensively for such charities as AIDS Project Los Angeles. More recently, he bought, developed and flipped real estate properties, most notably in Beverly Hills and the Hamptons, and was a noted interior designer.

Instagram Photo
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