Gil Friesen, Entertainment Executive, Dies at 75

Gil Friesen, who achieved success in films and television but was best known for helping to establish A&M Records as an artists’ haven for an eclectic stable of performers that included Carole King, the Police, Barry White and the Carpenters, died on Dec. 13 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75.

The cause was complications of leukemia, said Herb Alpert, the trumpeter and band leader who co-founded A&M Records with the music promoter Jerry Moss in 1962 and hired Mr. Friesen as one of its first employees. (In the company name, “A” stood for Alpert and “M” for Moss. Mr. Friesen was known as the ampersand, Mr. Alpert said.)

Named president in 1977, Mr. Friesen helped make A&M one of the largest independent record labels in the country as well as a successful independent film studio. He resigned in 1990, after the company’s sale to PolyGram Records.

A&M’s artists during the ’70s and ’80s — most of them young, virtual unknowns when they signed with the label — included Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam), Joe Cocker, Squeeze, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Janet Jackson, Al Green, Amy Grant, Suzanne Vega and Peter Frampton. Mr. Friesen was known as the young artists’ ally, providing them time to develop musically, as well as giving them books to read, sharing his enthusiasm for modern art, and involving them in decisions on business matters like sales and marketing.

Mr. Friesen “treated us like adults,” the singer and songwriter Sting said in a 2006 interview, recalling his years with the Police.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Alpert, winner of seven Grammy Awards as a musician and leader of the Tijuana Brass, called Mr. Friesen “our organizer and our visionary.”