Born in Brooklyn on May 2, 1921, Gottlieb attended Erasmus Hall High School and majored in drama at Yale University.
[1] His 1963 production of Joseph Stein's comedy Enter Laughing launched Alan Arkin to fame and ran for 419 performances into the following year.
A film adaptation of the play, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz debuted in 1972, while the show was still running on Broadway.
[1] Gottlieb was an "old-fashioned producer" who preferred to work with original scripts that he would take to the stage and on to film, focusing on "middlebrow" material.
While most producers preferred to have a very small number of large investors, allowing them to avoid Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure rules, Gottlieb felt that "[i]t's fun to have as many people as possible", with a diverse group of investors ranging from stagehands to millionaires, with whom he was happy to disclose details of his prior successes and failures.
[1] In 1972, Gottlieb bought a set of four interconnected barns in Warren, Connecticut, parts of which dated back to 1769, which he called "Hodgepodge Farm".