Irene Diamond

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Irene Diamond (born Irene Levine; May 7, 1910 – January 21, 2003) was an American Hollywood talent scout and philanthropist. She grew up in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents and worked as an assistant editor in Warner Brothers’ story division. For about 25 years she advised producer Hal B. Wallis, helping shape scripts including The Maltese Falcon and Dark Victory.

In 1941, while visiting New York, she read an unproduced play titled Everybody Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. She persuaded Wallis to buy it for $20,000, and he later renamed it Casablanca and produced the film.

With her husband, Aaron Diamond, she co-chaired the Aaron Diamond Foundation from the 1950s. After his death in 1985, she became its president. They founded the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in 1991 and the Irene Diamond Fund in 1994 to support AIDS research. In 2000 she helped start the New York Choreographic Institute with Peter Martins.

She received the National Medal of Arts in 1999 from President Bill Clinton and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. Irene Diamond and Aaron Diamond married in 1942, had one daughter named Jean, and lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Irene Diamond died in New York City in 2003 at age 92.