R.I.P. Herbert Leonard, 1922-2006

[Reza]

November 9, 2006 - NY Times

Herbert Leonard, 1922-2006


HERBERT LEONARD, a film and television producer who left an indelible mark on American popular culture with television series including Route 66 and Naked City, has died in Hollywood. He was 84.

Leonard, a New Yorker by birth, moved to Hollywood in 1946, after serving in World War II, and eventually became a production manager for Screen Gems, a division of Columbia Pictures, and an independent producer. In a career that spanned more than 40 years he produced hundreds of television projects and several movies.

One of his early television productions was The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, which ran from 1954 to 1959. A hit with children, it made a western star and a pet of a German shepherd character originally featured in movies after World War I.

Naked City, adapted from the 1948 movie

The Naked City, was shown from 1958 to 1963 and marked a sharp departure from his children's western.

The episodes, which followed two fictional New York detectives, were shot on location throughout New York City, something that was rarely done for television in the 1960s, and its stark urban realism sometimes approached that of cinema verite.

Route 66, which began in 1960, followed two men in a Chevrolet Corvette along what might have been America's most famous highway. Each week, until the series ended in 1964,

they encountered a different town and a different story. It was also shot on location, in about 25 states.

A romance of the road that emphasised a sense of rootlessness, it stood out from many of the dramas and situation comedies that were its contemporaries.

Ron Simon, a curator at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City, said that Leonard was one of the first to show that television did not have to be live and in the studio, or shot on a Hollywood backlot.

"He was shooting America as it looked, especially Route 66," he said. "It became a great symbol of America on the move."

Leonard went on to produce movies, including The Perils of Pauline, starring Pat Boone, in 1967, and Popi, a comedy set in Spanish Harlem, in 1969.

Leonard is survived by six daughters and three grandchildren.