Henry Leff(1918-2007)
- Actor
Veteran radio, television and film actor Henry Leff headed the
Broadcasting Department at City College of San Francisco for 35 years.
He passed away on August 12, 2007 at the age of 88. From 1949 to 1951,
radio listeners knew him as "Lieutenant Mallard," the love interest of
private detective "Candy Matson, YUkon 2-9209," on the NBC West Coast
To listeners on the other side of the Pacific, he was one of the voices
of Radio Free Asia, also broadcasting from the old NBC studios in San
Francisco. In the early 1960s, television viewers across the country
saw him as both Karl Marx and Josef Stalin in KQED's groundbreaking
series on the history of communism, "The Red Myth. He had been a
founding officer of KQED. He also appeared in the television programs
"Love on A Rooftop," "Lineup," "Follow the Sun," "Criminal Man," and
"The Three Musketeers," as well as commercials for Nabisco Chips Ahoy
cookies, Busch Bavarian Beer and Kraft Dressing. In 1948, he developed
the newly created Broadcasting Department at San Francisco City
College, overseeing its expansion from radio to television. He was also
a pioneer in the distribution of video lessons directly into the
classroom He helped start the careers of hundreds of students,
including Bay Area radio legends Carter B. Smith and Stan Burford,
former Miss America Leigh Ann Meriwether, and actress Barbara Eden. A
native of Brooklyn, Leff attended Brooklyn College and received a
Masters Degree in Theater from Cornell University in 1939. He was
married to Sylvia in 1942, who acted under the name "Bobbie Lyons."
