Henry Jaffe; Emmy Award Winner

Henry Jaffe, an Emmy-award winning producer and entertainment attorney who was the first legal counsel for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, has died.

A family spokeswoman said Jaffe died Sept. 11 at his Beverly Hills home of the complications of old age. He was 85.

A graduate of Columbia University School of Law, Jaffe was the attorney for the American Federation of Radio Artists before it became AFTRA with the advent of television.

An AFTRA spokesman said Jaffe was instrumental in negotiating the contract that established the union’s pension fund.

With baritone Lawrence Tibbett, Jaffe also founded the American Guild of Musical Artists, a union representing about 5,000 ballet dancers and opera singers based in New York.

He left his law practice to produce TV shows, winning Emmys over the years for “Producers’ Showcase,” widely praised 90-minute dramas that were broadcast live over NBC in the mid-1950s; for “Teacher, Teacher,” a 1968 “Hallmark Hall of Fame” show, and three separate statuettes for “Dinah’s Place,” a daytime TV favorite of the 1970s.

Jaffe is survived by his wife, Florence; two daughters; two sons and a daughter from a previous marriage, and four grandchildren.