Dan Talbot, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas Co-Founder, Dies at 91

 12/30/2017 by Hilary Lewis

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The New York art house theater he ran with his wife, Toby, is set to close at the end of January after losing its lease.

Dan Talbot, co-founder of Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and an influential figure in the independent film world, has died, general manager Ewnetu Admassu has confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. Talbot was 91 and died of heart failure, Admassu said.

"He was a fantastic man. A real movie man," Admassu added.

Talbot's death comes shortly after news broke that the long-running New York art house theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side is set to close its doors at the end of January.

“We lost our lease, and they are not willing to extend it,” Admassu told THR earlier this month. “We’re not closing because of lack of business.”

Dan and his wife, Toby Talbot, ran and programmed the six-screen multiplex at 1886 Broadway between 62nd and 63rd streets. The theater, which opened in 1981, is a joint venture between the Talbots, France's Gaumont and Millstein Properties, which owns the building in which the theater is located.

The Talbots were influential figures in the independent film world. The couple started in specialty film exhibition in the 1960s when they opened the New Yorker Theater, which stayed in business until 1973. That was followed by the Manhattan Cinema Studio and Metro Theater in the mid-'70s and early '80s. Dan Talbot also ran the indie film distributor New Yorker Films from 1965 to 2009.

In an introduction to Toby Talbot’s 2009 book, The New Yorker Theater and Other Scenes From a Life at the Movies, Martin Scorsese wrote, “Anyone who lives in America and cares about cinema and its history, no matter how old or young, owes something to The New Yorker and to Dan and Toby Talbot.”

According to the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas Facebook page, a memorial for Dan Talbot is set to take place at Riverside Memorial Chapel at 180 W. 76th St. in New York on Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dan-talbot-dead-lincoln-plaza-cinemas-founder-dies-at-91-1070861

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