Entertainment

Adieu Marty

Producer Marty Richards died yesterday at 80. The Bronx native, here with Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Robert De Niro, was involved in more than 40 Tony-winning shows. (Joan Jedell/Marty Richard)

Marty Richards — an award-winning producer who made his mark with “Chicago” but by all accounts was the consummate New Yorker — died yesterday after a long fight with cancer. He was 80.

“Marty Richards was a great, loving and generous man with a real passion for producing Broadway musicals,” recalled Tommy Tune, who directed Richards’ musical “Grand Hotel.” “He really loved making shows.”

Said Chita Rivera, who played Velma Kelly in the original cast of “Chicago”: “We’ve lost a very passionate important producer, one that really cares about the great American theater.”

Born in The Bronx, Morton Richard Klein found his passion early, singing in a beautiful soprano in the hallway of his apartment building. His stockbroker father and his mother enrolled him at the Marie Moses School of Dance and Singing, where his classmates included Donna Reed and Rita Moreno.

Not long after he turned 10, he was cast as a newsboy in Broadway’s “Mexican Hayride,” with June Havoc. He went on to other shows and commercials until he turned 13, when his voice changed.

Undeterred, and with a brand-new name — Mart Richards — the James Dean-handsome New Yorker, now a baritone, landed small parts on TV. By 1962, he changed jobs again and became a casting director.

But he didn’t really find his niche until he became a producer — one of the biggest on Broadway.

In 1978, he married Mary Lea Johnson — the oldest child of Seward Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Together they founded the Producer Circle, and the hits came fast and furious: “On the Twentieth Century,” “Sweeney Todd,” “La Cage aux Folles” (both the original and the first revival), “Grand Hotel,” “The Life,” “Crimes of the Heart” and “The Will Rogers Follies.” All told, his shows won more than 40 Tony awards.

And that was just Broadway. Richards not only produced the original “Chicago,” but the Oscar-winning movie as well; other films included “The Shining,” “The Boys From Brazil” and “Fort Apache, The Bronx.”

But his career wasn’t without controversy — and lawsuits. Miramax reportedly shelled out $9 million to settle a lawsuit Richards filed over “Chicago,” contending that Harvey and Bob Weinstein’s company used deceptive accounting practices to cheat him out of millions from the film, which grossed $300 million.

He also won a lengthy lawsuit against the Johnson family, claiming he was indeed the “spouse” of his late wife — and as such, entitled to a trust fund set up for the family.

He lived lavishly but somehow simply, in a sprawling house in a Southampton estate on Gin Lane called By the Sea and in a sumptuous apartment in the River House, where he invited friends over for corned beef and cabbage. One visitor recalls seeing a love letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine — in Richards’ bathroom.

His 80th birthday party on Jan. 17 drew a glittering crowd headed by Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

“I’m rich because I have such dear friends,” Richards said that night. “When I was growing up in The Bronx, I never imagined a life like this.” And then he added: “I wish I had Michael’s hair, Catherine’s face and Chita [Rivera’s] talent.”

He certainly had their respect.

With additional reporting by Tim Donnelly and Michael Riedel.