Theater News

Philanthropist Martin E. Segal Has Died

Martin E. Segal
Martin E. Segal

Martin E. Segal, the former chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, died on Sunday, August 5 at his home in Manhattan, according to the New York Times. He was 96.


Segal, a super-successful consultant, was the founding president and chief executive of the Film Society of Lincoln Center from 1968 to 1978, and later became chairman of Lincoln Center from 1981 to 1986.


In 1985, he founded the New York International Festival of the Arts, and ran that organization until its discontinuation in 2002. He also helped establish the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2000.


He is survived by his son, Paul, his daughter, Susan Segal Rai, his brother, Hylan, and his sister, Esther Maidenbaum.