Biography

He launched Woody Allen's film career. After discovering him making a living as a scriptwriter, he got Allen a role in What's New Pussycat (1965). He went on to produce nearly all of Allen's films.

Jack Rollins and his longtime business partner, Charles Joffe, liked to find young talent to nurture. Joan Rivers told the Chicago Tribune in 1986, "they could take a grain of sand and make it into an industry." That was never more true than with Woody Allen, who came to Jack Rollins' and Charles H. Joffe's Manhattan office in the late 1950s because Woody Allen wanted to write for Nichols and May, the hip comedy act of the era. That wouldn't work out because the comedy duo created their own material, but Rollins and Joffe saw something in the young TV writer. "He'd be dead serious when he read a sketch of his, but it hit us funny," Rollins told the New York Times in 1985. "He didn't know why we were laughing. He'd give a 'what's so funny?' look." Rollins and Joffe encouraged the deadpan Allen to do stand-up night club comedy. It was painful at first. "The first 18 months as a stand-up comedian were horrendous," Jack Rollins said in the 1986 Tribune interview. "Woody was the worst comedian you can possibly imagine -- zero grace as a performer." Finally the tide turned. "He got a smile, then a laugh, and then a cult.".

He studied journalism before working for Jack Rollins in the 1950s as a manager for comedians. They managed a wide range of comic talent, including Lenny Bruce, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.

Inducted into the Personal Managers Hall of Fame in 2015.

Stepfather of director Nicole Holofcener.