In 1934, he joined a Detroit real estate firm. By 1937, before he was 30, his real estate work had made him a small fortune of about $50,000. He led a syndicate (along withBen Tobin and Alfred R. Glancy Jr.)[2] that bought theEmpire State Building in 1951 for $51 million, then a titanic sum; he more than doubled his investment when he sold his interest in the building three years later.[3]
In politics, he made a mark as chairman of the Democratic Party's finance committee in 1956.[6]
He produced more than 100 plays and musicals over his career, includingWest Side Story,Bus Stop, andCat on a Hot Tin Roof. In 1971, he receivedSpecial Tony Award for his body of work. He became known for introducing plays by such adventurous writers as Harold Pinter, Arthur Kopit and Tom Stoppard.[7]
Stevens was the General Administrator of theActors Studio as well as one of the producers of the Playwrights Company, a member of the board of the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA), and one of the members of a Broadway producing company he founded in 1953 with Robert Whitehead, and Robert Dowling. In 1961, he was asked by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy to help establish aNational Cultural Center,[8] and became Chairman of Board of Trustees of what was eventually named theKennedy Center from 1961 to 1988.
Stevens was married toChristine Gesell Stevens, founder of theAnimal Welfare Institute in 1951. He served as the organization's treasurer until his death in 1998. They had a daughter, Christabel.
He had his first heart attack in 1970. In 1993, he suffered strokes that left him partly paralyzed and deprived him of much of his speech.
Harvey Fierstein / Marco Paguia, David Oquendo, Renesito Avich, Gustavo Schartz, Javier Días, Román Diaz, Mauricio Herrera, Jesus Ricardo, Eddie Venegas, Hery Paz, and Leonardo Reyna / Jamie Harrison, Chris Fisher, Gary Beestone, and Edward Pierce (2025)
