Irving Leonard (accountant)
Encyclopedia
Irving Leonard was an American financial adviser to Hollywood film stars of the 1950s and 1960s and an associate film producer. He began as a cost accountant in Washington, D.C and later moved into the film industry. Amongst his notable clients were James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

 and Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

. Leonard was arguably the most responsible for launching Eastwood's career in the late 1950s and 1960s and whom Eastwood described as being "like a second father to me". Leonard, described by Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....

 as "a small fastidious man" and a "lightning calculator", closely advised Eastwood on his finances, career moves and even personal purchases such as cars and houses, right from the mid 1950s through to their planning of the film Play Misty for Me
Play Misty for Me
Play Misty for Me is a 1971 American psychological thriller film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, in his directorial debut. Jessica Walter and Donna Mills co-star. The original music score was composed by Dee Barton.-Plot:...

in the winter of his death in 1969, Eastwood's directorial debut. It was Leonard who did the groundwork in establishing Eastwood's The Malpaso Company
Malpaso Productions
Malpaso Productions, originally known as The Malpaso Company, is Clint Eastwood's production company. It was established in 1967 by Eastwood's financial adviser Irving Leonard for the film Hang 'Em High, using finances from the Dollars trilogy...

 for the film Hang 'Em High
Hang 'Em High
Hang 'Em High is a 1968 American Western film directed by Ted Post and produced and co-written by Leonard Freeman. It stars Clint Eastwood as Jed Cooper, an innocent man who survives a lynching, Inger Stevens as a widow who helps him, Ed Begley as the leader of the gang that lynched him, and Pat...

in 1967, using the earnings from the Dollars Trilogy
Dollars Trilogy
The "Dollars Trilogy" , also known as the "Man with No Name Trilogy", refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars , For a Few Dollars More , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .A Fistful of Dollars is an unofficial remake of...

. Leonard had served as President of the Malpaso Company and associate producer of Eastwood's films from Hang 'Em High until his death.

Patrick McGilligan
Patrick McGilligan
Patrick McGilligan was an Irish lawyer and Cumann na nGaedheal/Fine Gael politician.McGilligan was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Ireland. He was educated at St...

 describes Leonard as follows:
Leonard died shortly before Christmas 1969, aged just 53. Friends of Eastwood say he was never as devastated in his life as to when he heard the news of Leonard's passing. Leonard had employed two green-shade bookkeepers, Roy Kaufman and Howard Berstein, who after his death formed a new entity, Kaufman and Bernstein Inc., and continued to handle Eastwood's portfolio.
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