Stephen Sondheim and Jeff Romley. | Source: Getty Images
Jeff Romley was Stephen Sondheim's husband during the last four years of the storied Broadway composer's life. They were together since the late 2000s.
Jeff Romley has had a delightfully diverse career since he made his life on the island of Manhattan. He has worked in sales, events, and media. The Emmys have recognized his skills as a producer with multiple nominations.
He is a licensed ski instructor, a passionate triathlete, and loves taking his dogs, Willie and Addie, for country walks.
All That Is Known about Jeff Romley's Early Life
Romley was reportedly born in either 1978 or the following year and raised in a town an hour's drive north of New York City. In 2000 he received his bachelor's degree in business administration from James Madison University in Virginia, where he also took classes in theatre "for his sanity."
At college, he was in the theatre society and volunteered with March of Dimes. After graduation, the young performer embarked on his eclectic career in theatre and media from his Manhattan home base.
The New Yorker has been an avid photographer for the past 30 years. His latest work is a black-and-white study of people in classic Americana settings, like the carnival. At some point, the producer also trained in massage therapy.
Jeff Has Worked in Several Fields over the past Decades
At Romley's first job out of college, he got very close to the theatre scene as an assistant at the William Morris Agency between February 2001 and mid-2005, where he developed the agency's theatre department newsletter.
As an assistant to a Broadway/West End producer, the thespian got to work the business end of productions such as "The Producers," "Hairspray," and Sondheim's biggest hit, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."
He worked various sales and marketing jobs at Bustle, CollegeHumor, and Broadband Enterprises. The JMU grad launched Romley Ventures at the beginning of 2018, through which he produced "The Chris Mann Show" and "The Randy Rainbow Show."
Romley received Outstanding Short Form Variety Series Emmy nominations for producing "The Randy Rainbow Show" on YouTube for three consecutive years from 2019 to 2021.
Despite their fifty-year age difference, Romley and Sondheim became an item..
His photography will be displayed at Artsee Eyewear, a trendy commercial space that doubles as a gallery, in the Spring of 2023. The photographer previewed the event with an eerie photo of a man in a Ronald McDonald get-up, smoking.
Laura Lofaro Freeman, Stephen Sondheim, Jeff Romley and James Dinan attend the Museum of the City of New York hosts CABARET! and the Presentation of the 2013 Louis Auchincloss Prize to Stephen Sondheim at the Museum of the City of New York on November 19, 2013, in New York City. | Source: Getty Images
Jeff Romley Was the Only Husband of Stephen Sondheim
The man responsible for Broadway staples such as "Into the Woods" and "Westside Story" saw himself as a "late bloomer sexually." Stephen Sondheim only came out as a gay man in his forties.
The author discovered what love is when he fell for dramatist Peter Jones when he was 60. They remained close friends and collaborators long after the end of their ten-year love affair.
Despite their fifty-year age difference, Romley and Sondheim became an item in the late 2000s. The May-December couple split their time between NYC and Connecticut, where the photographer set up his dark room. They got married in 2017.
Stephen Sondheim attends the 2019 American Songbook Gala at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on June 19, 2019 in New York City. | Source: Getty Images
What Did Jeff Inherit When Stephen Sondheim Died?
Romley, then 41, remained with Sondheim until his unexpected death at 91 a day after Thanksgiving at his Roxbury, Connecticut compound on November 26, 2021.
According to news reports, the Broadway darling left behind an estate of $75 million, which was put in the Stephen J Sondheim Revocable Trust. A knowledgeable source praised the writer's careful estate planning which will benefit 20 people and charities.
Signage at Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" on Broadway as it begins previews at The St. James Theater, on June 29, 2022 in New York City. | Source: Getty Images
Romley, and Sondheim's first love, Jones, and his gardener, Rob Girard, were some of the recipients of his generous legacy.
The lyrist put his good friend and lawyer, F. Richard Pappas, and an unnamed person in charge of his estate. Some of the beneficiaries of his generosity, like the Irish Repertory Theater co-founders, found the bequest a "lovely surprise."
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