Jack Rollins

Inducted into the Personal Managers Hall of Fame in 2015.

Jack Rollins and his longtime business partner, Charles Joffe, who died in 2008, liked to find young talent to nurture. "Rollins," Joan Rivers told the Tribune in 1986, "could take a grain of sand and make it into an industry." That was never more true than with Woody Allen, who came to Jack Rollins' Manhattan office in the late 1950s because he wanted to write for Nichols and May, the hip comedy act of the era. That wouldn't work out because the duo created their own material, but Jack Rollins and Charles Joffe saw something in the young TV writer. "He'd be dead serious when he read a sketch of his, but it hit us funny," Rollins told the New York Times in 1985. "Woody didn't know why we were laughing. He'd give a 'what's so funny?' look." Jack Rollins and Charles Joffe encouraged the deadpan Allen to do stand-up. Painful at first, "The first 18 months as a stand-up comedian were horrendous,' Rollins said in the 1986 Tribune interview. "Woody was the worst comedian you can possibly imagine -- zero grace as a performer." Finally the tide turned. "Woody got a smile, then a laugh, and then a cult." Woody Allen never forgot the manager who stuck by him. Allen continued to list Rollins as a producer on his films -- including "Irrational Man," -- long after the manger retired. "Jack Rollins had not been involved with his films for many years," Robert Weide, director of the 2012 film "Woody Allen: A Documentary," said in an interview, "I'm not sure if they even talked much." Weide asked Allen why he continued to give Rollins the credit. "Because without Jack," Allen replied, "I wouldn't have a career. Rollins was one of the very few people in my life who lived up to the hype about him. All the stories about how great Jack Rollins was are true".

He was a producer, known for Match Point (2005), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). He was married to Pearl (Jane) Rose Levine.

Rollins wasn't aiming for a show business career in particular, according to his daughter Francesca. "He didn't know what he wanted to do," Francesca said. "He had to find something where he could stay up late, and get up late and not require him to punch a clock. That wasn't his style." The answer came when he was in the Army during World War II, stationed on a base in India. He got involved in a satirical revue about Army life and decided show business was his calling. Back in New York after the war, he was looking for plays to produce without much luck when he became a manager by "sheer accident," Jack Rollins was quoted as saying in the 1991 book "The Compass," about the improvisational-group that gave Nichols and May their start. "I was strolling in the Village courting my wife," Rollins said. "We peered into the window of a tiny restaurant, and there was Harry Belafonte, flipping hamburgers." Rollins' soon-to-be wife, Jane, (deceased 2012) recognized Belafonte as a struggling pop singer seeking to switch to folk music. Belafonte became Jack Rollins' first major client. Rollins helped forge a new image for the singer, leading to early successes. Rollins and Belafonte had a bitter falling-out after a few years, but Rollins had earned a reputation as a manager who had solid instincts when it came to building careers. Jack Rollins and Charles Joffe were known for taking on only a few clients at a time. Eventually, Charles Joffe worked almost solely with Allen and Jack Rollins focused on David Letterman. Jack Rollins was listed as executive producer on the NBC show "Late Night with David Letterman" from 1983 to 1991.

Co-produced nearly all of Woody Allen films ever since 1969, except Love and Death (1975).

Along the way, Jack Rollins helped create the role of the modern show business manager. "When I went into this business in 1946, there weren't managers. There was only Milton Berle's mother" he said in a 1988 Chicago Tribune interview.

Jack Rollins was born on March 23, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA as Jacob Rabinowitz.