Michael S. Rosenfeld | Agent, producer, 75

Michael S. Rosenfeld, 75, a Philadelphia native and a talent agent and producer who was one of the founding partners of Creative Artists Agency, died Thursday of respiratory failure at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif.

In 1975, Mr. Rosenfeld and four other executives with the William Morris Agency left to form CAA, which would become a talent agency powerhouse.

Mr. Rosenfeld and his partners - Michael Ovitz, Bill Haber, Ron Meyer, and Rowland Perkins - pooled their resources and set up shop on Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard.

Mr. Rosenfeld brought together the creative elements for the 1980 movie Fame and sold the landmark 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man to ABC.

Among his clients were William Link and Richard Levinson, creators of TV's Murder, She Wrote, and the actresses Marlo Thomas, Joanne Woodward, Ann-Margret, Eva Marie Saint, and Dyan Cannon.

By the early 1980s, Mr. Rosenfeld had left CAA to produce such projects as the 1984 TV miniseries Fatal Vision and the 1986 skateboard film Thrashin'.

Michael Stuart Rosenfeld was born in Philadelphia to Maxwell S. Rosenfeld, who became a Pennsylvania state senator, and Edith Rosenfeld.

He appeared at the age of 11 on the Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, a talent show broadcast in Philadelphia, playing the guitar, and began composing music at 16, first at Lower Merion High School and then at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his bachelor's degree.

Mr. Rosenfeld represented Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, securing their roles in the 1961 film West Side Story, for which they both won Academy Awards. According to CAA, he also persuaded Walt Disney to cast Dick Van Dyke in the 1964 film Mary Poppins.

- Los Angeles Times