THE SEYMOUR HELLER AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN MANAGEMENT WILL BE AWARDED TO LEONARD HIRSHAN

Leonard Hirshan launched the careers of such icons as Eva Marie Saint ("On the Waterfront") and Elvis Presley ("Love Me Tender") as well as repping such stars as Sophia Loren, Angela Lansbury, Greer Garson, Edward G. Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr., and Bruce Beresford.

Hirshan, longtime manager of Clint Eastwood, will be honored at the 11th Annual Heller Awards on Tuesday, October 2, 2012. The Talent Mangers Association announces today that they will bestow the Seymour Heller Award for Lifetime Achievement in Management to Leonard Hirshan (Leonard Hirshan Management) at the 11th Annual Heller Awards being held on Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at the Universal Sheraton. Hirshan is a Hollywood institution. After spending fifty years as an agent at the William Morris Agency (WMA), he left to form his own management company where he represented clients such as Sophia Loren, Angela Lansbury, Stu Rosenberg, and has served as the exclusive representative of longtime client Clint Eastwood.

"I had no interest or intention to produce,” Hirshan has said in the past. “I am strictly a manager in the truest sense of the word." Hirshan is a legend within the William Morris institution. He started in the agency's New York mailroom in April 1951. By 1954, he was pushing to his first client, a then-unknown Eva Marie Saint, a role in the feature film "On the Waterfront." Saint earned an Academy Award for supporting actress in the film. She also helped to establish Hirshan's reputation for client loyalty, trust and longevity. After helping to negotiate Jack Lemmon’s seven-year contract at Columbia Pictures, WMA transferred Hirshan was transferred to Los Angeles in 1955 to concentrate solely on motion pictures.

"If the quality of an individual is, indeed, reflected in the standards they set for themselves, then Lenny Hirshan leaves a legacy of honesty, integrity and great agenting that are hallmarks of the William Morris Agency,” stated WMA CEO Walter Zifkin when Hirshan left the agency in 2004. “We are respectful of Lenny's decision to move into management and of Clint's to make the move with him. Our gratitude and appreciation for Clint's loyalty to William Morris over the more than 35 years we've been privileged to represent him cannot be overstated.”