Marilyn R. Shapiro, a theatre and television producer and longtime manager and business partner of actor Bonnie Franklin, died Sunday after a long struggle with kidney disease. She was 77.
Shapiro was born April 19, 1931, in New York City. She was one of the youngest Off-Broadway producers, held various production jobs and got into casting for stage as well as reality television series. She turned to talent management starting with Jack Colvin and Yvonne Wilder, one of the most successful comedy acts of the 1960s. In 1968, she discovered Broadway ingénue Bonnie Franklin and steered her career from her Tony nominated role in Applause to her starring role in Norman Lear's One Day at a Time and beyond.
In the 1980s, Shapiro and Franklin formed Poolhouse Productions, producing several television projects (including Your Place or Mine, Sister Margaret and the Saturday Night Ladies and Bonnie and the Franklins) as well as Bonnie's cabaret act.
About eight years ago, Shapiro and Franklin founded Classic and Contemporary American Plays (CCAP), whose primary purpose is to expose junior and senior high school students "the American canon of theatrical literature." CCAP produces staged concert readings of plays by great American playwrights that are read by name artists of theatre, film, and television.