Career
Rollins" work as a film and television producer was closely tied to the artists that he managed. He was credited as an executive producer on many of the films directed by Woody Allen from 1969 to 2015. From 1970 to 1972 he was an executive producer on The Dick Cavett Show and from 1982 to 1992 he was an executive producer of Late Night With David Letterman.
Born Jacob Rabinowitz in Brooklyn, Rollins was the son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Russia.
In 1933 he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, and in 1937 earned a bachelor"s degree from the City College of New New York He spent two years working for an orphanage in Chicago before being drafted into the United States Army during World World War World War II Rollins worked as a decoder of communications in India during the war where one of his commanding officers was actor Melvyn Douglas.
Rollins assisted Douglas in staging shows at the China-Burma-India theater and developed a friendship with him. After the war, Douglas assisted Rollins in developing the professional contacts he needed to begin working as a producer on Broadway.
Rollins" work as a Broadway producer during the late 1940s and early 1950s proved to be difficult and ultimately unfruitful.
He abandoned this pursuit in 1951 when he established a one-man talent agency in Midtown Manhattan. He worked with the then-unknown Harry Belafonte. Joffe focused more on Allen, with Rollins focusing on others
Rollins turned 100 in March 2015 and died on June 18, 2015.