BLOOMGARDEN, KERMIT

born Dec. 15, 1904, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. died Sept. 20, 1976, New York City American producer of dramatic and musical plays that were commercially and critically successful. Bloomgarden graduated in 1926 from New York University and practiced as a certified public accountant for several years before assuming a managerial position with the theatrical producer Arthur Beckhardt. His first independent production was Deep Are the Roots (by Arnaud d'Usseau and James Gow), which opened in 1945 and ran for 477 performances. There followed Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest (1946), Command Decision (1947), by William Wister Haines, and Death of a Salesman (1949) by Arthur Miller, which ran for 742 performances. Bloomgarden's other award-winning productions included The Crucible (1953), by Arthur Miller; The Diary of Anne Frank (1955), by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett; The Most Happy Fella (1956), a musical by Frank Loesser; Look Homeward, Angel (1957), by Ketti Frings; The Music Man (1957), a musical by Meredith Willson; Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic (1960); The Hot L Baltimore (1973) by Lanford Wilson; and Equus (1975) by Peter Shaffer.