Probably best known to audiences these days as Nick the bartender who kicks George Bailey out of his bar, actor Sheldon Leonard took up acting after the stock market crash of 1929.
It took him 5 years to score a role and that play failed. His next two Broadway shows were unqualified successes, and soon Hollywood called.
Leonard established himself as the go-to tough guy in a series of popular films, culminating in his performance as Harry the Horse in Guys & Dolls.
In the mid-50’s, tired of playing essentially the same part every time, Leonard transitioned to becoming a television producer, within 10 years producing 4 top 10 hits for CBS, including The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy & Gomer Pyle, USMC.
Often regarded as the inventor of the TV spinoff, he was awarded 5 Emmys, an honorary lifetime membership in the DGA, and is memorialized to this day as the namesake for CBS’s hottest comedy – Sheldon & Leonard of The Big Bang Theory.