Alvin Deutsch Dies: Attorney Who Took On Disney For Peggy Lee & Battled Scott Rudin Over ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Was 89

deadline.com:

Alvin Deutsch, the attorney who represented singer Peggy Lee in her landmark victory over Walt Disney Productions and more recently tangled with Broadway producer Scott Rudin and the estate of author Harper Lee over rights to a stage production of To Kill A Mockingbird, died Oct.

6 at his home in New York City. He was 89.The Deutsch family announced his death just yesterday, shortly following his win, in arbitration, against the Lee estate.

The Deutsch family says it chose to wait until the Lee verdict was rendered before making his death public.An internationally renowned expert in copyright law, Deutsch also represented a lengthy roster of entertainment and cultural figures throughout his career, including author Tom Wolfe (a client for 50 years), the Broadway composing team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams (Bye Bye Birdie, Applause), librettist Michael Stewart (Bye Bye Birdie, 42nd Street, Hello, Dolly!), songwriter Irving Burgee (“Day O – The Banana Boat Song”); theater producers Stuart Ostrow, Larry Kasha and James Nederlander), playwrights Charles Gordone and Jon Marans, Sweet Valley High author Francine Pascal, Broadway lighting designer Ken Billington, opera singer Sherrill Milnes, singer Margaret Whiting and actors Marian Seldes and Tony Randall, among others.Deutsch also served as legal counsel and board member for the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and in the same capacity for nearly 50 years for Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House, for which he wrote a crucial contract for theaters that originate new musicals.

The contract would allow Goodspeed to create an endowment from the substantial residuals it earned after producing the first staging of the musical Annie, including NBC’s recent television event Annie Live!