Early Career
Born Allan Solomon in Chicago, Illinois, he attended Lake Forest College and Northwestern University, but his interest was always in show business. While at Northwestern, he invested $750 in the Broadway musical Ziegfeld Follies, starring Tallulah Bankhead. That show wasn't a hit but his $1,250 investment in The Happiest Millionaire (1957) gave him the success he needed to leave school and embark upon a career in entertainment. In Chicago in the 1960s he opened the Civic Theater and financed The World of Carl Sandburg starring Bette Davis and Gary Merrill, as well as Eva Le Gallienne in Mary Stuart, directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and Tennessee Williams' "Garden District" featuring Cathleen Nesbitt and Diana Barrymore. Carr worked behind the scenes at Playboy with Hugh Hefner and was a co-creator of the Playboy Penthouse television series, which in turn launched the Playboy Clubs.
Through the years, he became known as a great planner of promotional events and parties. One such event, a black-tie affair for Truman Capote, took place in an abandoned L.A. jail.
Read more about this topic: Allan Carr
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