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Robin French, a talent agent who worked with legends including Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor and later headed production at Paramount Pictures in the late 1970s, has died. His family said he had been in declining health for the past few months and died September 6 in Palm Desert, CA.

“Dad left knowing that we love him so much, and that we are all safe and secure thanks in large part to his fierce devotion to us,” his children said in a statement. “He was so smart, funny, loyal, friendly, grumpy, opinionated and just a one-of-a-kind guy. We will all miss him forever, but feel so lucky that he was our Dad.”

French began his career as an agent at Chartwell, working with his father, Hugh French — a former actor who become an agent whose clients in the 1950s and ’60s included Brando, Taylor and Richard Burton — and Jerry Perenchio.

During his agenting days,...

Singer, dancer and theatrical agent who represented Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

Bernard Hunter, who has died aged 92, was a precocious young performer, a popular singer and dancer, and, later, a theatre agent who represented many stars in Britain and the Us, including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia de Havilland. He continued to represent clients into his late 80s. Hunter's approachable good looks and air of a casual boulevardier seemed to attract consistent good luck.

Born in London, Hunter described his childhood in Islington as full of "maniacal happiness". Asked what his father did, he was apt to quip affectionately: "As little as possible." His father was in fact devoted to horses and the racetrack. Through gambling, he lost the money that was supposed to be for his son's education. However, at 16, Hunter won a singing competition at a local cinema. The prize was an appearance in a week's variety at the Winter Gardens,...