Buddy Freitag: 'Angel' who backed a series of hits

Freitag with his wife Barbara (AP)

Edgar "Buddy" Freitag, who died on 30 May of a brain tumour at the age of 80, helped back some of Broadway's most talked about shows, including the musical 1920s pastiche The Drowsy Chaperone, Memphis and Edward Albee's The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia? He died less than two weeks before the Tony Awards, with several of his shows, including the hit revival of Porgy and Bess, Nice Work If You Can Get It and End of the Rainbow - vying for honours.

Freitag had a 17-year career at Grey Advertising Agency in New York and then co-founded United Financial of America, a national mortgage banking and brokerage firm. After the sale of his company, he and his wife began investing in off-Broadway and Broadway shows.

In 2007, he began his Broadway producing career backing the revival of Harold Pinter's 1964 play The Homecoming and went on to back such shows as Passing Strange, The Miracle Worker, Catch Me If You Can, West Side Story, Legally Blonde, In the Heights and All My Sons.