Gilman Kraft; Published Theater Playbills

Gilman Kraft, owner of Performing Arts, which provides printed programs for the Los Angeles County Music Center, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the San Francisco Opera and Ballet and 40 other entertainment venues, has died. He was 73.

Kraft, also the former owner of Playbill, which provides the same type of program booklets for New York’s Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, died Sunday in Los Angeles after a brief illness.

Ernest Fleischmann, former managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., called Kraft a tough negotiator with “a very good heart.”

“We were not dissimilar. We both wanted the best for his organization,” Fleischmann said. “He always saw to it that when he got a deal, somehow the nonprofits he dealt with were also well looked after.”

Kraft moved to Los Angeles to found Performing Arts in 1966, when the Music Center was new. For a number of years, he paid the center $30,000 a year for the privilege of distributing the free program magazines at its performances. He made his money from advertising.

But in the inflationary mid-1970s, with the cost of paper spiraling, he negotiated new arrangements that resulted in the Music Center charging patrons 25 cents for each program. The controversial charge remained for several years, although the programs are now distributed free to ticket-holders.

Even through that lean period, Music Center mavens learned by interviewing a variety of printing companies that Kraft still delivered the least expensive product. Printing their own simple cast list, they found, could cost a third more than what Kraft sought.

In 1975, Kraft broke down the 25 cents for The Times as 5 cents to cut his losses, 10 cents to the Music Center for distribution costs and 10 cents to support the Music Center resident performing companies. As Fleischmann observed, Kraft had negotiated a deal that helped everybody.

Born in New Jersey, raised in New York City and educated at Columbia University, Kraft served as a linguist in Japanese during World War II. He began his publishing career by founding the Readers Subscription, which reprinted such works as Nathanael West’s “The Day of the Locust,” James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” and works by Chaucer.

Kraft was next recruited to revive Playbill, which he owned and operated for 10 years.

In addition to Kraft’s more than three decades of working with the California performing arts community, he also speculated in California real estate.

Kraft is survived by his wife, Ruth; four children, Richard Kraft, Dana Kiraj, Susan Pelosa and Frank Pelosa, and eight grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned for 10 a.m. today at the Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd.

The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the Dr. P.K. Shah Heart Research Fund, Division of Cardiology, Room 5347, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048.