Gayle Nachlis, Former WMA Agent and Women in Film Exec, Dies at 72

Mike Barnes
·2 min read
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Gayle Nachlis, who spent three decades as a William Morris agent before serving as executive director and then senior director of education at Women in Film, has died. She was 72.

Nachlis died Sunday of throat cancer at her home in Long Beach, California, her family announced.

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Nachlis joined WMA in 1975 as an assistant to the agent who handled Equity contracts in the theater department. She eventually handled all of the agency’s regional theaters west of the Mississippi and all its summer stock in the U.S. and assisted the New York office with Broadway and off-Broadway productions.

She segued to motion pictures and then became a vice president in the television department, where she represented the likes of Hector Elizondo, Jean Smart and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

In late 2005, Nachlis left WMA and was named executive director of Women in Film. In the new position, she oversaw operating committees and established ties with local businesses, donors and related not-for-profit partners and universities.

“I’d always been interested in the nonprofit world, but I’d had so little free time to devote, because an agent’s job is so incredibly time-consuming,” she told Backstage back then. “This was a tremendous opportunity to do something that I’ve always wanted to do.”

Nachlis segued to senior director of education in 2015 and retooled WIF’s mentoring and internship programs before retiring in 2019.

Born in New York City on June 9, 1951, Gayle Ann Rosenbluth was raised in Great Neck on Long Island. She moved with her family to the West Coast for high school, attended UC Berkeley and graduated from UCLA with a degree in theater arts.

“Gayle had an infectious joy about her,” her family noted. “From the boardroom to youth soccer sidelines to cocktail parties, Gayle was the person you wanted to be next to. She always had the answer to any question, from ‘Who was that actor that was in that one thing’ to ‘Where are my keys?’ to ‘What’s a six-letter word for difficult?’”

Survivors include her children, Alex and Sara, and their respective spouses, Meredith and Brad; her grandchildren, Rosalind and Cai; her mother, Ruth; her sisters, Meryl and Barbara; and her brothers-in-law, Stephen and Roy.

Her husband of 35 years, Marvin Nachlis, a lawyer and high school math teacher, died in 2013 at age 63 from ALS.

Donations in her memory can be made to Women in Film.

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