Toby Talbot, a remarkable figure who, alongside her husband Dan, profoundly shaped American appreciation for world and independent cinema, passed away on September 15th at her Manhattan residence. She was 96 years old.
Her daughter, Sarah Talbot, confirmed that her passing was due to complications from Guillain-Barré syndrome.
For an impressive six decades, Toby and Dan Talbot were at the helm of four influential art-house cinemas on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Their portfolio included the iconic New Yorker Theater (1960-1973), Cinema Studio (1977-1990), the Metro Theater (1982-1987), and the beloved Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (1981-2018).
Through their dedicated efforts, the Talbots introduced American audiences to groundbreaking avant-garde works by cinematic giants such as Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, Robert Bresson, Claude Chabrol, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Ousmane Sembène.
In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Ms. Talbot articulated their philosophy: “We often will play a film that we know has no, quote, commercial value, but we admire it and respect it and would like to share it with our audience.”
Future filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, a young local resident at the time, became a friend of the Talbots and suggested showcasing older, overlooked movies under the ‘Forgotten Films’ banner at the New Yorker. The theater’s entryway also famously served as the setting for media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s unforgettable cameo in Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning 1977 film, ‘Annie Hall.’ It’s worth noting that the Talbots had sold the theater to the Walter Reade Organization by then, which continued its operation until 1985.
An image shows Toby Talbot in 1980, reflecting on her six decades alongside her husband, Dan, operating groundbreaking art-house cinemas on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Beyond her work in cinema, Ms. Talbot, a Spanish graduate, served as education editor for El Diario Nueva York and translated Argentine journalist Jacobo Timerman’s gripping memoir, ‘Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number’ (1981), detailing his kidnapping and torture by the military junta. Her academic contributions included teaching Spanish at East Rockaway High School in Queens, lecturing on Spanish literature at institutions like Columbia and New York University, and leading a documentary film class at The New School.
Her literary output was extensive, encompassing numerous books. Among them were the memoir and biography ‘A Book About My Mother’ (1980), and the novel ‘Early Disorder’ (1980), penned under the pseudonym Rebecca Joseph, which explored a teenager’s struggle with an eating disorder. Following her husband’s passing in 2017 at 91, she meticulously edited his memoir, ‘In Love With the Movies’ (2022), which included a foreword by Werner Herzog himself.
An image displays the cover of ‘A Book About My Mother,’ one of Ms. Talbot’s many published works.
From 1965 to 2009, New Yorker Films, the distribution company founded by the Talbots, released over a thousand titles, notably including Claude Lanzmann’s monumental nine-and-a-half-hour Holocaust epic, ‘Shoah’ (1985).
While Dan oversaw the New Yorker Theater’s daily operations, Toby, initially hesitant about his choice to divest and concentrate solely on film distribution, held the final say on movie selections. The cinema was a true family affair: her mother managed the concessions, offering treats like lox and carrot cake, while her father acted as a welcoming presence in the lobby, which often transformed into a vibrant gathering spot for film enthusiasts.
Located on Broadway and West 88th Street, the theater was originally named the Yorktown before the Talbots acquired it. They rechristened it the New Yorker, inspired by a Miami Beach hotel owned by Ms. Talbot’s uncle Harry, and thoughtfully renovated it, furnishing it with 900 seats salvaged from the recently closed Roxy Theater.
This image displays the cover of ‘The New Yorker Theater and Other Scenes From a Life at the Movies,’ Ms. Talbot’s 2009 memoir, designed to evoke a classic movie theater marquee.
The theater debuted as a revival house, showcasing a double feature of Laurence Olivier’s ‘Henry V’ (1944) and the French short ‘The Red Balloon’ (1956). Its diverse programming also included classic comedies featuring the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields, as well as the documentary ‘Point of Order!’ (1964), which Mr. Talbot co-produced, covering the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings. Notably, it hosted the city’s first full-length public screening of Leni Riefenstahl’s controversial 1935 propaganda film, ‘The Triumph of the Will,’ depicting the 1934 Nazi Party Congress rally.
In her 2009 memoir, ‘The New Yorker Theater and Other Scenes From a Life at the Movies,’ Ms. Talbot fondly recalled, ‘The theater became a cocoon for young people getting schooled in film. We thought of it as our living room, playing movies we wanted to see.’
She further elaborated, describing it as ‘a place of communion, where the customers, the owners, the programmers and the filmmakers all seemed to be part of the same family.’
The six-screen Lincoln Plaza, a six-screen cinema nestled in the basement of a high-rise apartment building, greeted patrons with a statue of Humphrey Bogart and lavender-hued walls adorned with posters advertising obscure French films.
Images show the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on its final day in January 2018. Dan Talbot passed away just a week after the landlord chose not to renew the theater’s lease.
Dan Talbot’s death occurred only a week after the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas’ landlord opted not to extend their lease. Reflecting on their impact, film critic Richard Brody remarked in The New Yorker that ‘The Talbots have been crucial to the formation, sustenance and perpetuation of film culture in New York — for that matter, in the United States.’
On January 28, 2018, the final film screened at the Lincoln Plaza was ‘Darkest Hour,’ a biographical drama about Winston Churchill.
Born Toby Tolpen on November 29, 1928, in the Bronx, she was the elder of two daughters to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. Her father, Joseph, owned a window-washing business, while her mother, Bella (née Neger) Tolpen, managed the household.
She grew up in the Pelham Parkway area of the Bronx, attended Christopher Columbus High School, and earned her bachelor’s degree from Queens College in 1949.
A 1958 photograph shows Ms. Talbot, two years before she and her husband took ownership of an Upper West Side movie theater and transformed it into the New Yorker.
She is survived by her three daughters, Sarah, Nina, and Emily Talbot, as well as her sister, Roslyn Gamiel, and four grandchildren.
A lifelong movie enthusiast from her youth, Toby met Daniel Distenfeld en route to a Bronx movie theater. They wed in 1951, the same year Dan, then a book editor, changed his surname, reportedly due to the prevalent antisemitism in the publishing world at the time.
Their venture into cinema ownership was somewhat serendipitous. Initially, Dan envisioned opening a bookstore in New Hampshire, and during their scouting trips, the couple would discuss their favorite films. However, upon discovering that Toby’s sister’s accountant had purchased the Yorktown movie theater, the Talbots impulsively chose to lease it instead.
Ms. Talbot candidly admitted in 2009 that her husband’s decision to sell the New Yorker theater to concentrate exclusively on film distribution was ‘the only moment I considered divorce.’