On a night in May 1961, Marty Erlichman went to the Bon Soir, a nightclub in Greenwich Village, to see a friend, the comedian Phil Leeds. The opening act was a 19-year-old singer named Barbra Streisand. She already had a manager. He gave her his card anyway. The office address on it was reportedly a phone booth on West 53rd Street. “She sang five songs,” he told The New York Times years later. “I got chills from all five.” Erlichman died Oct. 31, 2026, in Los Angeles, at 97, and for most of the 65 years in between, he was the man standing next to her.

Before the Bon Soir

Martin Lee Erlichman was born Sept. 13, 1929, in Brooklyn. He graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and worked as a clerk at CBS Radio. By the late 1950s he was working behind the scenes in New York’s folk scene, managing the singer Josh White. He was not a famous man and did not have a famous office. What he had was an ear, and a habit of acting on it.

The night Pearl Bailey didn’t show

Around 1960 he began managing the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, an Irish folk group. In 1961 he got them onto The Ed Sullivan Show, booked for two songs. Pearl Bailey, another guest, didn’t appear, and the group ended up filling a long stretch of the broadcast, far more than the two songs they were booked for. A Columbia Records deal followed. Erlichman is also credited with pushing the Aran sweaters that became the group’s look. The pattern was set early: get the act into the room, then make the most of whatever opening the night hands you.

$750 and a midnight showcase

With Streisand, the first order of business was the manager she already had. Erlichman bought out the contract for $750, money reportedly lent to him by Streisand herself. In her 2023 memoir, “My Name Is Barbra,” she recalls what he told her: “If you’re as good an actress as you are a singer, then there’s no stopping you.”

Columbia Records signed her in October 1962, with unusual creative control over what she recorded. According to the Times, Columbia’s Goddard Lieberson hesitated until Erlichman arranged a midnight showcase at the Blue Angel. “The Barbra Streisand Album” came out in 1963.

The deal-making years

The years that followed were the ones that made the word “manager” too small for the job:

• 1963: He was a witness at her wedding to Elliott Gould, and he went with her when she met President Kennedy.
• 1964: He helped negotiate a reported $5 million deal with CBS for a decade of television specials.
• 1969: At the premiere of “Hello, Dolly!,” a photographer’s camera reportedly struck him and left him bloodied.

He managed other people too. Over the years his clients included Chevy Chase and George Foreman. He produced films: “For Pete’s Sake” (1974), “Coma” (1978) and “Breathless” (1983), and he was executive producer on four of the “Ernest” comedies.

Ten years apart

The partnership was not unbroken. The Times reported that in the mid-1970s, after Streisand began dating Jon Peters, Peters took over her management around “A Star Is Born” (1976). Erlichman was gone for about ten years. He was back by 1986, and in his telling they “jumped right into it like there had been no gap.” The first project back was “One Voice,” the HBO concert special that aired in December 1986. The relationship spanned more than six decades in all, with that gap in the middle.

The Concert

The work he is best remembered for came after. In 1994 Streisand went on tour for the first time in about 30 years, backed by a 64-piece orchestra conducted by Marvin Hamlisch. HBO’s “Barbra: The Concert” won a Peabody Award that year; the citation called it “testimony to how great the presentation of music on television can be.” In 1995 it won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special, with the award shared by Martin Erlichman, Dwight Hemion, Gary Smith and Barbra Streisand.

He conceived and executive-produced her Millennium concert in 2000 and her 2006-07 world tour. And a few weeks before he died, according to Streisand, he was still trying to talk her into another tour, telling her he would be there every step of the way.

“We never even had a contract”

Streisand posted a tribute on Instagram on Nov. 1, with a black-and-white photo of the two of them. “Although Marty lived a long and full life, nothing can prepare you for the reality of losing someone so dear,” she wrote. “I truly thought he would live forever. In my eyes, he was simply indestructible—always by my side, through everything. And we never even had a contract.”

In her memoir she describes the arrangement as a handshake. In the family’s press release she said: “I know it’s extremely rare for show business relationships to endure for as long as mine did with Marty. He trusted me, and I trusted him. This is a challenging business, but I always felt protected with Marty by my side.”

Quick facts

• Born: Sept. 13, 1929, Brooklyn, New York
• Died: Oct. 31, 2026, Los Angeles, at 97
• Career: Streisand’s manager from 1961, with roughly a decade apart from the mid-1970s to 1986
• Awards: Peabody Award (1994) and Emmy (1995) for “Barbra: The Concert”
• Film credits: “For Pete’s Sake” (1974), “Coma” (1978), “Breathless” (1983); executive producer on four “Ernest” comedies

The last headline

Marty Erlichman died Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. The death was announced by the spokesman Ken Sunshine and in a family statement; his family attributed it to age-related causes. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Miko Mayama Erlichman; his son, J.J. Erlichman, a tour and production manager; and four grandchildren. “To the world, he was a giant of Hollywood,” the family said. “To us, he was a deeply devoted and loving father, husband, grandfather and rock.” The service will be private. The family asked that donations go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or the National Kidney Foundation.

He went to the Bon Soir to see a comedian. He stayed for the opening act, and then, with one long interruption, for the rest of his life.

Sources

• NYT obituary (via mirror; the NYT itself is paywalled)
• MyNewsLA, Erlichman dies at 97
• Yahoo Entertainment, family statement and career
• Yahoo Entertainment, Streisand’s tribute
• American Songwriter, Streisand mourns
• Enstarz
• Peabody Awards, “Barbra Streisand: The Concert”
• Television Academy, “Barbra Streisand: The Concert”
• RTE Archives, Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
• Wikipedia, Martin Erlichman