Garth Drabinsky

Garth Drabinsky (born 1949) is a Canadian film and theatrical producer and entrepreneur.

Drabinsky produced a series of projects in the 1970s and 1980s.

He produced A Broadway Musical, The Disappearance, The Silent Partner, The Changeling, Tribute, The Amateur, Losin' It.

However, he stopped producing films due to financial problems at Cineplex.

Born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario, Drabinsky graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1973, and was called to the bar in Ontario in 1975.

Drabinsky wrote a textbook, Motion Pictures and the Arts in Canada: The Business and the Law, while attending law school.

Entering into the entertainment business in 1978 as an independent commercial film producer (through Tiberius Entertainment Limited, formed with Joel Michaels) and film distributor (through Pan-Canadian Film Distributors Inc., formed with Nat Taylor).

In April 1979, he and Nat Taylor co-founded Cineplex Theatres, which created a chain of multiplex theatres for the Canadian market.

By May 1984, it had acquired the Canadian Odeon Theatre chain, thus becoming Cineplex Odeon and a major player in the industry.

It expanded further through the acquisition of several US theatre chains, but he left the company in December 1989.

Other films:

He leveraged his ownership of the Pantages Theatre in Toronto to form the publicly traded theatre production company, Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, Inc., also known as Livent.

The company expanded, building or refurbishing several theatres, including the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, and entered into management deals with others in Toronto, Vancouver, and New York.

It became noted for its productions (which earned a total of 20 Tony Awards out of a total of 71 nominations) of:

In November 1998, Livent sought bankruptcy protection in the US and Canada, claiming a debt of $334 million, and securities regulators in both Canada and the US began investigating Livent's books.

Beginning in 2002, Drabinsky dabbled for a few years with the Toronto-based film production and direct marketing company, Visual Bible International Inc. (OTCBB: VBII).

Although he and Livent co-founder Myron Gottlieb were both purported to be creative consultants to the company, they were instrumental in building VBII's business model and trying to find an American executive to serve as president and CEO to serve as a mouthpiece to Wall Street.

They were indeed running the company behind the scenes as fugitives from American prosecutors.

One executive who was recruited by the executive search firm Korn Ferry and offered the position, Stuart Hotchkiss, a former Time Inc. executive, declined the job after learning about Drabinsky's and Gottlieb's legal woes and being told by then company chairman and Toronto dentist, Dr. Steven Small, that he would not be able to fire either consultant should the need arise.

VBII was put into receivership by an Ontario court in 2005.

Drabinsky remained in the Canadian entertainment industry through Tiberius Entertainment (which later was known as Garth H. Drabinsky Productions).

In 2009, he was convicted and sentenced to prison for fraud and forgery.

The sentence was reduced from 7 to 5 years in prison, on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a subsequent appeal.

In April 2023, a judge dismissed Drabinsky’s defamation lawsuit against American Actor’s Equity for placing him on their ‘Do Not Work’ list.

Drabinsky has attempted 3 comebacks all resulting in failure and millions of investor dollars being lost.

Drabinsky got polio at age 3 and had multiple operations until he was 12.

On March 25, 2009, Drabinsky and Livent co-founder Myron Gottlieb were found guilty of fraud and forgery in Ontario Superior Court for misstating the company's financial statements between 1993 and 1998.

Drabinsky was sentenced to seven years in jail on August 5, 2009, for his role in the case.

Drabinsky filed an appeal in the Ontario Court of Appeal with respect to his sentence on September 3, 2009.

During that appeal, he remained free on bail.

In 2011, it promoted the film Barrymore at the Toronto International Film Festival, based on the play with Christopher Plummer.

Drabinsky then partnered with former CBC executive Richard Stursberg to raise funds for two musicals.

In 2022, Drabinsky was the lead producer for the Broadway musical Paradise Square.

It began previews at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City on March 15, 2022, and opened on April 3, 2022 receiving mixed reviews, and earning Drabinsky a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical.

On July 11, 2022, it was announced the musical would close on July 17 due to low ticket sales.

After several cast members and stage managers spoke out against the working conditions and unpaid benefits, Actors' Equity announced plans to put Drabinsky on the "Do Not Work" list, effectively banning him from producing any future Broadway shows.

On September 13, 2011, the Court of Appeal, while upholding the convictions, reduced Drabinsky's sentence to 5 years.

In December 2011, he was transferred to serve out his sentence at Beaver Creek Institution, a minimum security prison, located in Gravenhurst, Ontario, and was released on day parole in February 2013.

Drabinsky applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, and the application was dismissed without costs on March 29, 2012.

Drabinsky was originally held at Millhaven Institution, for assessment.