Sheldon Leonard Bershad was an American film and television actor, producer, director, and screenwriter.
As an actor, Leonard specialized in playing supporting characters, especially gangsters or "heavies". His trademark was his especially thick New York accent, usually delivered from the side of his mouth. His breakthrough role was in Another Thin Man (1939), in which he played a soft spoken but dangerous murder suspect. From then on he was typecast as smooth gangsters or streetwise guys in such movies as It's a Wonderful Life (1946; as bartender Nick), To Have and Have Not (1944), Guys and Dolls (1955), and Open Secret (1948). He was a favorite of director Frank Capra, who asked him to play an executive mobster in his 1961 movie Pocketful of Miracles. Leonard became so associated with tough guy parts that he was occasionally cast against type, as a law enforcement officer, in movies like Street of Chance (1942) and Decoy (1946).
Though he never entirely abandoned acting, by the mid-1950s Leonard was much more likely to be found behind the camera than in front of it, as he transitioned from a character actor into a successful TV producer (often in partnership with Danny Thomas), and also a frequent TV episode director.
