Freyda Rothstein, 72; Produced Soap Operas, 50-Plus TV Movies

Freyda Rothstein, who produced more than 50 television movies and was one of the first women producers of daytime soap operas in the early 1960s, has died. She was 72.

Rothstein died in her sleep Oct. 27 while vacationing in Venice, Italy.

“She broke into producing in television in the ‘60s when women weren’t doing that,” said Jack Grossbart, a friend and producer who worked on a handful of TV movies with Rothstein. “She was a great role model for many other women who have since gone the distance.”

Among Rothstein’s many credits as executive producer are “Descending Angel,” starring George C. Scott for HBO; Joseph Wambaugh’s “Echoes in the Darkness,” a five-hour miniseries for CBS; and “Crisis at Central High,” starring Joanne Woodward, for CBS.

A New York City native, Rothstein attended the High School of Music and Art in the late 1940s. While a student, she spent her summers with a Library of Congress research group that toured the South recording songs that had been passed down in families for generations. Six of the more than 200 field recordings she worked on are in current release in the Library of Congress catalog.

Rothstein majored in directing in the Drama Productions Department at Carnegie-Mellon University, then transferred to New York University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in drama. She then attended the Graduate School of Dramatic Art at Columbia University.

Before she began her television career, Rothstein produced and directed the New Century Singers for WNYC in New York; served as editor of Promenade, a magazine on American folklore; and produced an off-Broadway play, “Take a Giant Step,” by Lou Peterson.

She spent her earliest years in television in the 1960s in daytime soap operas for CBS, where she served as production assistant on “Search for Tomorrow,” associate producer of “Where the Heart Is” and executive producer of “Love of Life.”

Moving to Paramount Television as East Coast director of program development, she developed movies for TV, prime-time network series and daytime programming.

In the mid-1970s, she worked as East Coast director of network development for David Susskind at Talent Associates. Her association with Susskind continued as East Coast vice president of network development at Time-Life Films.

In the late 1970s, she established Freyda Rothstein Productions and moved to Los Angeles.

Rothstein, who had a leg amputated in 1997 as a result of vascular disease, continued to work into her 70s. This year she served as executive producer of two movies for Lifetime: “Dangerous Child” and “Snap Judgment.”

She is survived by two sons, Aron and Daniel.

A memorial will be held at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 9 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.