And the Show Goes On

Actor-director-producer Leonard has a real gift for storytelling that he displays to the fullest in a breezy, readable memoir of his life in show business.

Starting out as an actor in 1930s New York in such forgotten hit plays as Hotel Alimony, Fly Away Home, and Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Leonard had the foresight and financial need to leap first to radio and movies, then to television, in which he created or produced such rerun perennials as Make Room for Daddy, The Andy Griffith Show, and the controversial (for its time) I Spy.

Along the way, Leonard met lots of fascinating people: John Garfield, Jack Benny, Danny Thomas, Carl Reiner, and Bill Cosby, to mention just a few of the dozens about whom Leonard has a funny story or three to tell.

Some of these stories are well known, such as those of the closeness of the writers, actors, and staff of The Dick Van Dyke Show; others are not, such as those of Leonard's various, sometimes dangerous, adventures around the world while filming I Spy.