Michael Abbott, a television, film, and theatre producer who produced the first New York production of Stalag 17, in 1951, died Jan. 24 at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 81. Mr. Abbott had been working on a new production of Stalag 17 with director Spike Lee for an upcoming Broadway engagement.
The cause of death was cancer, said his sister, Helene Fields.
Abbott began on Broadway as an actor in 1949, in the Herman Wouk drama The Traitor. Two years later, when he was 21, he produced Donald Bevan and Edmund Trczinski's prisoner-of-war drama Stalag 17 Off-Broadway at the Lambs Club. It transferred to Broadway with José Ferrer as producer-director.
In 1953 he produced on Broadway Late Love, a comedy starring Arlene Francis. His success continued at London's Royal Court Theatre with the production of From Here and There, an Anglo-American musical revue.
Abbott later became producer and executive-in-charge of the West Coast offices of Talent Associates-Paramount, which produced for television adaptations of The Prince and the Pauper, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and A Tale of Two Cities.
Funeral arrangements for Mr. Michael Abbott will take place this Sunday January 27th at 11:30am at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, located at 1076 Madison Ave at 81st Street, New York, NY 10028.