Nov 7, 2009 7:27 am US/Eastern
NYC's Village Gate Club Owner, Art D'Lugoff, Dies
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Art D'Lugoff, whose famed New York City nightclub, the Village Gate, featured performers from jazz great Duke Ellington to 1960s counterculture rocker Jimi Hendrix, has died at age 85, his brother said.
D'Lugoff, who lived in the Bronx, died Wednesday at a Manhattan hospital. His brother, Dr. Burt D'Lugoff, said an autopsy was performed Friday to determine the cause of death.
D'Lugoff hired blacklisted singers Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger and fired Dustin Hoffman as a waiter. Hoffman, then a struggling actor, later said he was so distracted by the performers that he neglected customers.
D'Lugoff booked jazz greats John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk and standup comics Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. Hendrix and Jim Morrison performed at a 1970 benefit the club hosted for counterculture icon Timothy Leary, a proponent of LSD experimentation.
"He was involved in so many things, music, politics, the city's culture," his brother said. "He was quirky and he had a flair for promoting things."
Music lovers flocked to the Village Gate from 1958, when D'Lugoff opened the Greenwich Village club, until it closed in 1994.
He was born on Aug. 2, 1924, and raised in New York City. After serving in the Army Air Forces in China during World War II, D'Lugoff graduated with a bachelor's degree from New York University.
D'Lugoff is survived by his brother, his wife, Avital Achai, a son and three daughters.
The Gate first opened in 1958.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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