Leonard Sillman (May 9, 1908 - January 23, 1982) was an American Broadway producer. Born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

on May 9, 1908, he was the brother of

June Carroll June Carroll (1917 – May 16, 2004) was an American lyricist, singer and actress. Born June Sillman in Detroit, Michigan, Carroll appeared in the Broadway musical ''New Faces of 1952'', introducing the now-standard ''Guess Who I Saw Today'', by ...

, the brother-in-law of

Sidney Carroll Sidney Carroll (May 25, 1913 – November 3, 1988) was an American film and television screenwriter. Although Carroll wrote most frequently for television, he is perhaps best remembered today for writing the screenplays for ''The Hustler'' (1961 ...

and the uncle of

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...

and

Jonathan Carroll Jonathan Samuel Carroll (born January 26, 1949) is an American fiction writer primarily known for novels that may be labelled magic realism, slipstream or contemporary fantasy. He has lived in Austria since 1974. Life and work Carroll was b ...

.IMDb Trivia
/ref> He produced a series of musical revues, ''Leonard Sillman's New Faces'', which introduced many major stars to Broadway audiences, such as

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics. Born and rai ...

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...

Imogene Coca Imogene Coca (born Emogeane Coca; November 18, 1908 – June 2, 2001) was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on ''Your Show of Shows''. Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and wishe ...

Inga Swenson Inga Swenson (born December 29, 1932) is an American actress and singer. She appeared in multiple Broadway productions and received two Tony nominations. She also spent seven years portraying Gretchen Kraus in the ABC comedy series '' Benson''. ...

, John Lund,

Van Johnson Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II. Johnson was described as the embodiment o ...

Carol Lawrence Carol Lawrence (born Carolina Maria Laraia; September 5, 1932) is an American actress, appearing in musical theatre and on television. She is known for creating the role of Maria on Broadway in the musical '' West Side Story'' (1957), receivin ...

Madeline Kahn Madeline Gail Kahn ('' née'' Wolfson; September 29, 1942 – December 3, 1999) was an American actress, comedian and singer, known for comedic roles in films directed by Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks, including '' What's Up, Doc?'' (1972), ' ...

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and

Maggie Smith Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the mid-1950s, Smith has appeared in more than sixty films and seventy plays. She is one of the few performer ...

. Versions of ''New Faces'' were produced in 1934, 1936 (made into the film ''

New Faces of 1937 ''New Faces of 1937'' is a 1937 American musical film directed by Leigh Jason and starring Joe Penner, Milton Berle and Harriet Hilliard. Its plot is similar to '' The Producers'' (1968). Intended as the first film of an annual RKO Pictures r ...

''), 1943, 1952 (made into the film ''

New Faces ''New Faces'' is a British television talent show that aired in the 1970s and 1980s. It has been hosted by Leslie Crowther, Derek Hobson and Marti Caine. It was produced for the ITV network by ATV, and later by Central. Original series: 197 ...

''), 1956, 1962 and 1968. The very first ''New Faces'' in 1934 included actors

and Frances Dewey Wormser. Songwriter Arthur Siegel, who contributed many songs to the ''New Faces'' series and radio show, described Sillman's philosophy: "He believed that a revue should be a potpourri, a bouillabaisse, in which there was something for everyone. Pace was very important. He didn't want to give an audience a chance to think about what it just saw. The music had to be nonstop." Sillman also produced many other plays from the 1930s into the late 1960s, including ''All in Fun'' (1940), ''Mask and Gown'' (1957) and ''the Family Way'' (1965). His autobiography ''Here Lies Leonard Sillman: Straightened Out at Last'' was published by the Citadel Press in 1959. Sillman died on January 23, 1982 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.Gaiter, Dorothy J
"Leonard Sillman, Producer, Dies"
''New York Times'', January 24, 1982

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sillman, Leonard 1908 births 1982 deaths Businesspeople from Detroit American theatre managers and producers 20th-century American businesspeople