Daniel Frohman

Notable work and positions

New Lyceum Theatre Co. - President and Manager
Famous Players Film Company - Managing Director
Madison Square Theatre - Business Manager

Biography

Daniel Frohman (1851-1940) was an American theatrical producer and manager, and an early film producer, born in Sandusky, Ohio. As a young man in New York he worked as a copy boy and later advertising manager for the New York Tribune, before joining Steele MacKaye as business manager of the Madison Square Theatre in 1879. With his brothers Charles and Gustave Frohman, he helped build a system of touring road companies that carried New York productions across the country. In 1886 he took over management of the Lyceum Theatre and its stock company, a position he held until 1909; in 1903 he built a new Lyceum Theatre on West 45th Street, which remains Broadway's oldest continuously operating theater. In 1912, Frohman became managing director of the Famous Players Film Company, founded with Adolph Zukor and his brother Charles, producing film adaptations of Broadway plays - including a version of his own hit, The Prisoner of Zenda - through 1917. He retired from active production in the years that followed and died in New York in 1940.

Career highlights

• Lyceum Theatre Built and managed the current Lyceum Theatre on West 45th Street, opened November 1903 · Broadway's oldest continuously operating legitimate theater.
• Famous Players Film Company Co-founded with Adolph Zukor and Charles Frohman in 1912, helping pioneer feature-length film adaptations of Broadway plays, beginning with Queen Elizabeth (1912) starring Sarah Bernhardt.
• Daniel Frohman Presents Claude Kendall and Willoughby Sharp, 1935 · Memoir of his career in theater and early film.