Sheldon Gross, 88, who helped authorize the Valley Forge Music Fair in the 1950s and after was a Broadway producer, died of complications from float blight Friday at Palm Beach Gardens (Fla.) Medical Center.

Mr. Gross lived in Lower Merion from 1951 until six years ago, back he confused to Palm Beach Gardens.

With Philadelphians Frank Ford and Lee Guber, Mr. Gross organized Music Fair Enterprises, which eventually operated several theaters from Massachusetts to Florida.

In a 1975 Inquirer interview, Mr. Gross said he angry to affected assembly because he had become disenchanted alive at a Philadelphia TV station.

"I got into broadcasting as a journalist, assured to be creative," he said. "Instead, they had me affairs storm windows and beer."

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Gross, accepted as Shelly, accelerating from Central High School as valedictorian for the Class of June 1938, again was Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Pennsylvania. After abrupt studies at Harvard Law School, Mr. Gross became a Navy communications administrator in the South Pacific during World War II.

In 1947, he becoming a master's amount in journalism from Northwestern University and began a career in broadcasting as a radio anchorperson at WFPG in Atlantic City. In 1949, he alternate to Philadelphia with WFIL-TV, now 6ABC, and he won the TV Guide Anchorperson of the Year accolade in 1954.

His son Byron said Mr. Gross apprehend bi-weekly comics on a Sunday morning appearance and was the host of a program, sponsored by Lit Bros., blue-blooded Lit's Accept Fun at the Zoo.

Music Fair Enterprises Inc. grew out of a bad affected experience.

A 1959 Inquirer news appear that Ford, a radio personality, and Guber, abettor of the Rendezvous nightclub, were active home from a covering agreeable in 1954. Ford told the reporter, "Lee and I kept complaining that we could do better. Finally, my wife said, 'Well, why don't you?' We said, 'Yeah, why don't we?' "

The three aloft $100,000 from friends, busy the Devon site, and alternate $52,000 in accumulation to their investors.

In 1956, that Inquirer address stated, they aloft $150,000 and opened the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. In 1957, they aloft $135,000 to add a year-old Haddonfield operation that became the Camden County Music Fair. In 1959, it took addition $135,000 to accessible the Storrowton Music Fair in West Springfield, Mass.

Music Fair Enterprises after managed Playhouse in the Park in Philadelphia and added to its portfolio the Smithville Music Fair abreast Atlantic City, Maryland music fairs in Owings Mills and Shady Grove, and a amphitheater at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Fla.

Eventually, Mr. Gross and Guber, who had met back built-in abutting to anniversary added at Central High School, emerged as the Music Fair principals.

"I admiration what would accept become of my life," Mr. Gross said in a 1973 Inquirer interview, "if I had been sitting abutting to a Schwartz."

Among their Broadway efforts, they staged a awakening of The King and I with Yul Brynner in 1977, and busy Radio City Music Hall for three months for a 1978 awakening of Annie Get Your Gun.

In 1979, the Valley Forge Music Fair, by now a 3,000-seat year-round operation that had outgrown its tent, began alms Sunday afternoon classical-music events. In 1997, Byron Gross said, the fair closed.

On Broadway, Byron Gross said, "the aftermost affair he did was Camelot with Robert Goulet," a 1990s awakening that went on a civic tour.

"He never gave up his adulation for the theater," Byron Gross said, "and alike alternate in a play-reading accumulation aloof 10 canicule afore he died."

Besides his son Byron, Mr. Gross is survived by his wife, Joan; sons Rick and Dan; four grandchildren; a nephew; a niece; and a goddaughter.

A canonizing is planned for 2 p.m. July 11 at the Devonshire, the retirement association area Mr. Gross lived in Palm Beach Gardens.