Fashion entrepreneur and film producer Max L(ouis) Raab died 21 February 2008 of complications of Parkinson’s disease. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 9 June 1926, he worked for his father, a shirt manufacturer, after serving in the Army during World War II.
In 1958, he and his brother, Norman, started the soon-to-be nationally known clothing label, The Villager, in response to the increasing number of college women buying Brooks Brothers-type button-down men’s shirts. In 1974, Raab started another apparel company, J.G. Hook. Due to his work there, The New York Times, in 1980, called him “The Dean of the Prep Look,” and said he was responsible for “supplying American women with as many blazers and button-down Oxford-cloth shirts as they could wear with the Fair Isle sweaters and Bass Weejun loafers.”
In the 1960s, Raab had also become interested in the film business, and he bought the film rights to Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. Raab was one of the executive producers of the movie Stanley Kubrick directed and produced, which was released in 1971. He produced seven other films between 1969 and 2005.
In 1998, according to the New York Times, Raab “left the clothing business to start Max Raab Productions, a documentary film company. Three years ago, working with Robert Downey Sr., the writer and director best known for Putney Swope, Raab produced Rittenhouse Square, a yearlong look at one of Philadelphia’s cultural hubs. Then, last year, just for fun, Raab opened a shop that sells tin toys and model planes, boats and cars.”
Raab is survived by his third wife, Merle Kass Levin; his daughter, Claudia Raab; two sons, Adam Max Gould and Paul English; and two grandchildren. His first wife, Anita Charkow Mednick, predeceased him. His second marriage, to Mary Flores Raab, ended in divorce. His brother, Norman, died in 2005.