Though the show was not a hit, he had also invested $1,250 in 1967 film The Happiest Millionaire, which gave him the success he needed to leave school and embark upon a career in entertainment.

In Chicago in the 1960s, he opened the Civic Theater and financed The World of Carl Sandburg starring Bette Davis and Gary Merrill, as well as Eva Le Gallienne in Mary Stuart, directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and Tennessee Williams's Garden District, featuring Cathleen Nesbitt and Diana Barrymore.

Some of the other entertainment figures whose careers he managed were Ann-Margret, a string of whose television specials he also produced: Nancy Walker, Marvin Hamlisch, Joan Rivers, Peggy Lee, Cass Elliot,[4] Paul Anka, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, George Maharis and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

[5] Carr is also credited for having discovered numerous celebrities, including some who also became his clients, such as Mark Hamill, Michelle Pfeiffer,[6] Steve Guttenberg[7] and Lisa Hartman.

[1] Producer Robert Stigwood hired him in 1975 as marketing and promotion consultant, with his first project being for the film version of the rock opera Tommy.

In 1977, Stigwood asked him to produce the ad campaign for Saturday Night Fever, and he turned the film's premiere into a star-studded television special.

Carr not only helmed the ad campaign and produced the premiere party and television special for Grease, but also co-produced the film for six million dollars, casting his then client Olivia Newton-John.

With a book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, the show opened in 1983 and was a huge success, running for five years and 1,761 performances.

Carr's reputation for hosting expensive and lavish parties and creating spectacular production numbers led AMPAS to hire him to produce the 61st Academy Awards on March 29, 1989.

Merv Griffin started the show with his 1950 hit “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts!”, complete with a re-creation of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub that featured a collection of established stars such as Vincent Price, Alice Faye, and Roy Rogers.

Two days later, the Los Angeles Times dedicated its entire letter section (ten in total) to hate mail about the ceremony, titling it “For Some, the Oscar Show Was One Big Carr Crash."

Carr elected to have retailer Fred Hayman get designers to dress the stars for arrival on the red carpet, which became its own segment of focus in later years.

Still in development for a full Broadway production, the music has been recorded by Domingo with Dionne Warwick in English and Gloria Estefan in Spanish, and a version of the duet "Till I Loved You" was a top-40 single for Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson.

His ashes were scattered in front of his former Diamond Head house on Oahu by Ann-Margret, her husband Roger Smith, and Martin Menard.