Herbert Samuel Schlosser (April 21, 1926 – August 6, 2021) was an American television executive.
His father, Abraham, ran his own furniture store; his mother, Anna (Olesker), was a housewife.
[3] Schlosser began his career as a corporate lawyer for the New York firm Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon,[4] where he first started working on television projects.
[7] While at NBC, he helped champion the careers of Flip Wilson, Diahann Carroll,[8] and Redd Foxx,[9] among others.
[11] Schlosser played a key role in the creation of Saturday Night Live, authoring a February 1975 memo[12][13] that proposed a new variety show to replace weekend re-runs of Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.
[15] Schlosser worked with NBC's then head of late-night entertainment, Dick Ebersol, who recruited Lorne Michaels to create Saturday Night Live, which premiered on October 11, 1975.