HALE AND HEARTY: Marvin Kaplan, 74, of Marvin S. Kaplan Insurance Agency Inc., specializes in arts and entertainment. His clients have included strip-tease artist Gypsy Rose Lee and Boston's First Night production. Staff photo by Mark Garfinkel
By Patricia Resende
Walking into Marvin Kaplan's office is like walking through a tunnel of achievement.
Thank-you notes, congratulatory letters and certificates adorn the walls. Black binders marked A to Z hold bulging files. The clutter expected in a busy office is nonexistent.
Sitting behind the desk of his South Boston office, 74-year-old Marvin Kaplan doodles on his blotter. It's jammed with appointments.
Kaplan thinks back to 1939, when he began his journey into the world of insurance by starting a business from scratch. Little did he know he'd be handling business that involved everything from a famous stripper to a fabled fireworks show.
"I had a desk, a chair, and a phone and rented some space on State Street," he says. "Back then it was called desk space."
It was great, he says. He had few expenses and was able to save money because he was still living with his parents.
A graduate of Brookline High School, he decided to attend Boston University but was drafted into the Army during the first semester of his freshman year.
After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, he attended Georgetown University for a year, then returned to BU, to finish an undergraduate degree in business - and to reign as president of his fraternity, Tau Delta Phi.
It was in business that Kaplan excelled. Numbers came easy to him. "The easiest course seemed to be insurance, so in June of 1949 I took the (insurance) exam," he says.
He has been dealing in insurance ever since. But he's no typical insurance agent: Kaplan specializes in the arts and entertainment, dealing with clients who are handling everything from films to marathons to concerts and fireworks shows.
Kaplan, of Marvin S. Kaplan Insurance Agency Inc., has insured celebrities like Gypsy Rose Lee, known in the 1930s and '40s for her strip-tease act, and events like Boston's now-famous First Night production, a New Year's Eve celebration that attracts hundreds of thousands of people each year.
Geri Guardino, executive director of First Night Inc., said she was delighted to know Kaplan would handle First Night's account.
"He always goes that extra mile," she says. "Marvin is a really outgoing guy who understands the insurance business really well and makes it user-friendly."
Outgoing is one way to describe Kaplan. Involved is another. He is a member of more than 50 organizations.
Although Kaplan has accomplished a great deal, he's the first to tell you it's not a big deal. He just loves what he does.
"This is truly the most magnificent of all industries - we deal in fact; doctors and lawyers can only give opinions," he says.
After 49 years in the industry, Kaplan has seen a lot of change. The Internet is something new to him. "We don't use the Internet in this office yet, but we're looking into it," he says.
For now, Kaplan is happy with his typewriter, his loose-leaf notebooks, his plastic binders and most of all his electronic stapler.
"It's great - I love this stapler," Kaplan says. And "the man who services my IBM-tank" - as he calls the typewriter - "said it should be exhibited in a museum."
Joel Feingold, of Joel Feingold Inc. in Framingham, a producer of big events such as the Boston Brewers Fest and Quincy Family Day, has worked with Kaplan for almost 10 years.
"He's very well respected in the event insurance industry," he says. "He's still hale and hearty."
