S.Hurok (1888-1974)

With a smile and a hint of boyish pride, the stout man in horn-rimmed glasses ushered Galina Ulanova into the three-room hotel suite. For the leading dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet, freshly arrived in New York on a first visit to the U.S., only the finest would do. In her refrigerator Ulanova found champagne, caviar and other necessities of the ballet life. Everywhere she looked there were flowers. In the sitting room stood the biggest surprise: a specially constructed exercise bar backed by floor-length mirrors. "So, my dear," said the man, "you can practice here if you wish." Remarked a theatrical producer later: "That is the difference between an impresario and a manager."

That was also the difference between S. Hurok and most other impresarios. He insisted on being--and duly became --a star in his own right, and he acted accordingly. He bestowed extravagant gifts on friends and colleagues, threw lavish parties, even appeared in a Hollywood movie about himself (Tonight We Sing, 1953).

His Own Legend. His full name was Solomon Isaievich Hurok. To his friends he was Sol. To the public, though, it was "S. Hurok Presents," an emblem that invariably appeared atop the newspaper ad, billboard poster or concert program. Beneath it ran names like Artur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, Margot Fonteyn, the Royal Ballet, the Old Vic and, of course, the Russians he so ably promoted and profited by in the U.S.: Pavlova, Richter, Oistrakh, the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera.

Hurok was actively wheeling and dealing when he died last week at 85. He had lunched in midtown Manhattan with one of his most famous artists, Spanish Guitarist Andres Segovia, then hopped into a car to go to a meeting with Banker David Rockefeller. On the way, a heart attack brought an end to the life of one of the most successful talent promoters in show business.

A man who worked hard on his own legend, Hurok eagerly boasted about what he considered his greatest accomplishment: "Bringing ballet to America and the American public to the ballet ... back when they called it 'toe dancing.' " His often hilarious way with the English language did not hurt his image either. "If people don't want to come," he once said while discussing the mystery of box-office appeal, "nothing will stop them." Hurok also authored two autobiographies (Impresario, S. Hurok Presents) about a life that began, like those of so many of his artists, in Russia. When he was 16, his father, a hardware merchant in the small Ukrainian village of Pogar, gave him 1,500 rubles and sent him to Kharkov to learn the hardware business. Instead, Sol headed straight for America, arriving with the equivalent of $1.50 in his pocket.

Hurok settled in Philadelphia, where he sold pots and pans, bundled newspapers, lost a job as a streetcar conductor because he could not pronounce the street names. He began going to concerts there, and liked them so much that when he moved to Brooklyn he decided to stage a few of his own. By 1915 he was regularly presenting such performers as Mischa Elman, Titta Ruffo and Alma Gluck in low-priced concerts at the old New York Hippodrome.

Innocent Victim. In the years that followed, he developed one absolute test for the artists he booked: Do they project? "If they are not temperamental, I don't want them," he said. "It's in the nature of a great artist to be that way. There's something in them--some warmth, some fire--that projects into an audience and makes it respond." Hurok found that warmth and fire in Paris one night in 1933 listening to a Negro contralto sing. She was Marian Anderson of Philadelphia, then unknown in her own country. As Hurok later recalled it, her voice and stage presence sent chills up and down his spine and made his hands wet. Hurok booked Anderson for a U.S. tour in 1935-36, and another glowing career was launched.

Though he remained in full charge to the end, some of the joy must have gone when Hurok, himself a Jew, became the innocent victim of protests by militant Jews. The New York-based Jewish Defense League, protesting Kremlin restrictions on the emigration of Russian Jews to Israel, in 1971 began picketing Hurok-produced concerts featuring Soviet artists. Hurok's New York office was fire-bombed in January 1972. One of his women employees was killed, and 13 others, Hurok included, were injured.

All that would have been enough to unnerve most octogenarians, but Hurok scarcely slowed down. As of last week, he was busy booking "attractions" (an impresario never presents anything else) as far ahead as 1979. It was his endearing conceit that Hurok Attractions should go on forever.

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