Garth Drabinsky was born in Toronto, Canada.
He graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1973.
He produced several films in the late '70s and early '80s and in 1979 he helped co-found Cineplex Odeon, the predecessor of Cineplex Entertainment, the largest Canadian operator of movie theaters.
In 1995, he was made an Officer in the Order of Canada, an honour for merit that is the highest order administered by the Governor General-in-Council in the Canadian system of honours.
He also operated Livent, the publicly traded theater company.
Livent acquired the Lyric and Apollo theaters in New York City and remodeled them into the Ford Center of Performing Arts, later renamed the Hilton Theater.
Drabinsky's productions won 19 Tony Awards.
However, some productions were too lavish and the company was losing money. In 1997 alone they lost over $40 million.
In November of 1998, Drabinsky sought bankruptcy protection in the US, claiming a debt of $334 million.
After investigations by both US and Canadian securities regulators, Drabinsky and his partner, Myron Gottlieb were found guilty of fraud and forgery for misstating the company's financial records.
On August 5, 2009, Garth Drabinsky was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the half billion dollar fraud at Livent.
"Ragtime" was the inaugural Livent production in the Ford Center.
It had a long run but was financially unsuccessful.
Some Broadway insiders consider its lavish production to have been the financial "undoing" of Livent.
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