Leach was born in
Petersburg, Virginia, on August 26, 1928. A performance of
Pygmalion he saw as a teenager inspired him to work in theatre. After graduating from the
College of William & Mary in 1953, Leach went on to earn both a master's degree and a doctorate from the
University of Illinois. Leach began teaching at
Sarah Lawrence College in 1958.
Demon,
The Only Jealousy of Emer,
Renard, and
Gertrude, a musical about the title character based loosely on
Gertrude Stein. Leach also directed works for
Joseph Papp's
Public Theater and the
New York Shakespeare Festival, where he directed a production of
The Pirates of Penzance in 1980 with
Kevin Kline,
Linda Ronstadt,
Rex Smith, and
Patricia Routledge. The production transferred to
Broadway with the same cast in January 1981, with
Estelle Parsons replacing Routledge. Leach won a
Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the Broadway production in 1981. Leach directed a film version of
The Pirates of Penzance in 1983 with the same cast, with
Angela Lansbury replacing Parsons. Leach's additional theatre directing credits include two projects that originated at the Public and then transferred to Broadway:
The Human Comedy (1984) and
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1986), for which he won his second Tony Award. While teaching at Sarah Lawrence, Leach met then-students
Brian De Palma and Cynthia Munroe. In collaboration with De Palma and Munroe, he produced, directed, and wrote the screenplay for the 1969 film
The Wedding Party, whose cast included a young
Robert De Niro and
Jill Clayburgh. He also directed the films ''
All's Well That Ends Well (1978) with Frances Conroy for television and a straight-to-video version of Coriolanus'' (1979) with
Denzel Washington and
Morgan Freeman. The protagonist of Brian De Palma's film
Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Winslow Leach, is named after Wilford Leach. Leach died at the age of 58 from AIDS-related
stomach cancer in
Rocky Point, New York. ==References==