Remembering Toby Talbot: The Visionary Who Brought Art Films to New York

Toby Talbot, a remarkable woman who, alongside her husband, Dan, cultivated an appreciative and diverse audience for foreign and independent films across New York City and the entire country, passed away peacefully on September 15th at her Manhattan residence. She was 96 years old.

Her daughter, Sarah Talbot, confirmed that the cause of death was complications stemming from Guillain-Barré syndrome.

For an impressive six decades, Toby and Dan Talbot were the driving force behind four pioneering art-house cinemas on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Their ventures included the New Yorker Theater (active from 1960 to 1973), Cinema Studio (1977 to 1990), the Metro Theater (1982 to 1987), and the beloved Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (1981 to 2018).

Through their dedicated efforts, the Talbots introduced American audiences to the groundbreaking works of avant-garde filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, Robert Bresson, Claude Chabrol, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Ousmane Sembène.

“We often will play a film that we know has no, quote, commercial value,” Ms. Talbot candidly shared with a major newspaper in 2017, “but we admire it and respect it and would like to share it with our audience.”

Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, then a young man residing in the neighborhood, became a friend of the Talbots, suggesting classic and lesser-known movies for the New Yorker to screen under the banner “Forgotten Films.” The theater’s entryway even famously served as the backdrop for communications theorist Marshall McLuhan’s memorable cameo in Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning 1977 film, “Annie Hall.” (By that time, the Talbots had sold the theater, though it continued operations under new ownership until 1985.)

Beyond her contributions to cinema, Ms. Talbot, who held a bachelor’s degree in Spanish, also served as the education editor for the Spanish-language newspaper El Diario Nueva York. She gained recognition for her English translation of “Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number” (1981), the harrowing memoir by Argentine journalist Jacobo Timerman, detailing his experience of being kidnapped and tortured by his country’s military junta. Ms. Talbot also taught Spanish at East Rockaway High School on Long Island, and Spanish literature at institutions including Columbia and New York University, in addition to leading a documentary film class at the New School.

Her extensive literary output included numerous books, notably the memoir and biography hybrid “A Book About My Mother” (1980), and a novel, “Early Disorder” (1980, published under the pseudonym Rebecca Joseph), which explored the life of a teenager battling an eating disorder. Following the passing of her husband in 2017 at the age of 91, she meticulously edited his memoir, “In Love With the Movies” (2022), which featured a compelling foreword by Werner Herzog.

From 1965 to 2009, the Talbots’ New Yorker Films distributed over a thousand titles, including cinematic masterpieces like Claude Lanzmann’s monumental nine-and-a-half-hour Holocaust epic, “Shoah” (1985).

While Dan oversaw the daily operations of the New Yorker Theater, Toby, who initially opposed his decision to sell the theater to concentrate solely on film distribution, held crucial veto power over which films would be screened. Her mother managed the candy concessions, which uniquely included lox and carrot cake, while her father acted as a welcoming presence in the lobby, which quickly became a vibrant salon for film enthusiasts.

The New Yorker, situated on Broadway and West 88th Street, was formerly known as the Yorktown before the Talbots acquired it. They affectionately renamed it after a Miami Beach hotel owned by Ms. Talbot’s uncle Harry and renovated it, installing 900 seats salvaged from the recently closed Roxy theater.

The theater began its journey as a revival house, opening with a captivating double feature: Laurence Olivier’s “Henry V” (1944) and the 1956 French short “The Red Balloon.” It also showcased screwball comedies starring legends like the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields. Furthermore, it bravely presented “Point of Order!” (1964), a documentary about the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings that Mr. Talbot himself helped produce, and notably, the city’s first full-length public screening of “Triumph of the Will” (1935), Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous propaganda film chronicling the 1934 Nazi Party Congress rally.

“The theater became a cocoon for young people getting schooled in film,” Ms. Talbot reflected in her 2009 memoir, “The New Yorker Theater and Other Scenes From a Life at the Movies.” She added, “We thought of it as our living room, playing movies we wanted to see.”

“We were our best audience,” she continued. “It was a place of communion, where the customers, the owners, the programmers and the filmmakers all seemed to be part of the same family.”

The Lincoln Plaza, a six-screen multiplex located in the basement of an apartment building, was distinguished by a statue of Humphrey Bogart and walls painted lavender, adorned with posters for intricate French films.

Tragically, Dan Talbot passed away just a week after the landlord of the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas opted not to renew its lease. As movie critic Richard Brody observed in an prominent publication at the time, “The Talbots have been crucial to the formation, sustenance and perpetuation of film culture in New York — for that matter, in the United States.”

The final film screened at the Lincoln Plaza, on January 28, 2018, was “Darkest Hour,” the acclaimed 2017 biopic that earned Gary Oldman an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill.

Toby Tolpen, the elder of two daughters, was born on November 29, 1928, in the Bronx to Jewish immigrants from Poland. Her father, Joseph, owned a window-washing company, and her mother, Bella (Neger) Tolpen, managed the household.

Toby grew up in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx and earned a bachelor’s degree from Queens College in 1949, after graduating from Christopher Columbus High School.

She is survived by her three daughters, Sarah, Nina, and Emily Talbot, as well as her sister, Roslyn Gamiel, and four grandchildren.

Toby, a passionate moviegoer since childhood, met Daniel Distenfeld en route to a Bronx cinema. They married in 1951, the same year Dan, then a book editor, changed his surname due to prevalent antisemitism in the publishing industry, as recounted by their daughter.

Their decision to open a movie theater just around the corner on Broadway was quite serendipitous. Dan had initially envisioned opening a bookstore in New Hampshire, and the couple would often discuss their favorite films during their drives to scout potential locations. When they discovered that her sister’s accountant had purchased the Yorktown movie theater, the Talbots impulsively decided to lease it.

Her husband’s subsequent decision in 2009 to sell the New Yorker and concentrate solely on film distribution was, she famously stated, “the only moment I considered divorce.”

A correction was made on Oct. 14, 2025: An earlier version of this obituary misstated the location of East Rockaway High School, where Ms. Talbot once taught Spanish. It is on Long Island, not in Queens.