The Punk Who Made Good

On 3.7 acres of Hollywood real estate, he is king. Nine sound stages sound the alert when his footfall is heard; five companies now shooting television series await his Brooklynese benediction. He controls three of TV's top shows: Corner Pyle, Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke. I Spy, a rising comedy-adventure show, he owns outright. Yesterday, however, it was a different story. Producer Sheldon Leonard's climb has largely been from rags to rags; the riches are a very new addition.

Light Heavy. Born Sheldon Leonard Bershad on Manhattan's East Side, Leonard went through Syracuse University on a scholarship, then began a Wall Street job on Black Friday, 1929. The job failed with the market, and after a while, Leonard decided to try acting. Broadway, inundated with epicene chorus boys, welcomed the swarthy, unsubtle Leonard, cast him as a light "heavy" in seven long-running shows, including Three Men on a Horse, until the Depression caught up with the theater.

To survive he moved to Hollywood and quickly established himself as a character actor in the tough-guy tradition--a kind of punk's Bogart. Today old movie buffs still see him on TV reruns, barking at his moll, Gloria Grahame, Vivian Blaine or Marie McDonald: "I fought I told ya to wait in da car." He ran his luck through nearly 150 movie roles, but by 1941 gangster parts were declared bad for the image of a nation at war. As the clean-cut types moved in, Leonard moved out to the one medium where he could be heard but not seen: radio.

Just for laughs, Jack Benny, Judy Canova, Phil Harris all used him--usually as the voice of a sleazy racetrack tout. But Kiss-of-Death Leonard, as he was beginning to be called, soon found himself in still another dying medium. Radio was moribund, television was thriving and once again Leonard was jobless. He had no compunction about trying his hand at TV scriptwriting. "The minimum price in those days was $550 for a half-hour show," Leonard recalls. "No respectable writer would sell for that, but I would." Leonard was no Paddy Chayefsky, but he was cheap, and in Hollywood cheap is good.

Clever Ape. His luck finally turned when his work struck the fancy of Danny Thomas, who made him the director of his show, later elevated him to coproducer. The fat years, when they came, were obese. He has made and sold eleven pilot films, now sells shows on his name alone, without bothering to film a trial episode. His 1965 income for the first nine months is $350,000.

What makes him so successful in a field where the mortality rate of new shows is over 75% ? "Native arrogance," admits Leonard. A rival producer at Ashley-Famous Artists takes a tougher view: "Leonard doesn't think. That's why he's successful. He's like those gangsters he used to play. What he likes in his gut the public likes in their guts--or else. He has the primitive instincts of a clever ape. On television, that's worth more than a crystal ball."

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