Fortune in My Eyes

Every age has had its stars who combine show business glitz and political passion, with Bono, Sean Penn, and Angelina Jolie among those carrying that mantle currently. But few, if any, have inhabited both worlds as dramatically and comprehensively as David Rothenberg.

Rothenberg's multilayered life has thrust him into Broadway's brightest lights as a publicist and producer, as well as prison riots, political campaigns, civil rights sit-ins, and a Central American civil war. It all is recounted in his searing memoir, Fortune in My Eyes: A Memoir of Broadway Glamour, Social Justice, and Political Passion (Applause Books, October 2012, $29.99).

While a publicist, Rothenberg represented some of the most successful theater offerings of the last half of the 20th century, including Richard Burton's Hamlet, the original production of Hair, Beyond the Fringe, Blue Man Group, John Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, and several plays by Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams.

He later turned to producing, and it was the production of Fortune and Men's Eyes, an off-Broadway prison drama that reshaped his life. John Herbert's chilling play led directly to the creation of the Fortune Society, which has evolved into one of the nation's most formidable advocacy and service organizations in criminal justice. In a few short years, the man who had been Elizabeth Taylor's date at the opening night of Hamlet was being called to Attica prison as a mediator during that institution's famed inmate uprising. In the 1980s, he was part of a delegation led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark to determine how the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was treating imprisoned Contras.

In Fortune in My Eyes, Rothenberg shares these experiences and many more, those with stars and presidents and with anonymous men and women who, once out of prison, fought to reclaim their lives. As often as not, the human drama of the formerly incarcerated is a match for that of the entertainment world's most fabled characters.