Martin N. Leeds; Desilu Executive

Martin N. Leeds, entertainment attorney and executive who was instrumental in building Desilu Studios into the largest independent Hollywood television production operation of the 1950s and ‘60s, has died. He was 82.

Leeds died Thursday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, where he had been hospitalized for three weeks after a heart attack.

Born April 6, 1916, in New York City, Leeds graduated from New York University School of Law. He came to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s and joined CBS in 1946 as business manager of the network programs department, where he became the first CBS representative to negotiate radio talent contracts from the West Coast.

When elevated to director of business affairs, Leeds got involved with the budgets for the nascent TV network’s West Coast-based programs. He helped negotiate the start-up of “I Love Lucy” and the then-innovative deal through which stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s Desilu Productions would retain ownership of the filmed program.

In 1953, with “I Love Lucy” established as TV’s top-rated program and a second CBS series, “Our Miss Brooks,” also in production at Desilu, Arnaz hired Leeds away from CBS to serve as the growing production company’s second-in-command, executive vice president in charge of running the studio on a day-to-day basis.

“That [SOB] had given me so much trouble arguing about the CBS money we were spending on ‘I Love Lucy,’ I figured it would be better to have him fighting on my side,” Arnaz later said.

In addition to negotiations, Leeds’ role at Desilu included the acquisition of properties on which to base series pilots, and the sale of pilots to advertisers and networks.

His professionalism, tight business relationships and savvy at negotiation and sales proved formidable in combination with Arnaz’s innate showmanship and knack for nurturing talent. The company flourished in the mid- to late ‘50s with such additional programs as “December Bride,” “Whirlybirds,” “Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse” and “The Untouchables.”

As Desilu acquired property, including the RKO Studios lots in Hollywood and Culver City in 1957 (in a deal in which Leeds represented Desilu), it also became the largest provider of production facilities and services to the TV industry.

At its peak, Desilu owned 36 sound stages and 500 offices on three lots totaling 63 acres, and employed 800 permanent employees and an additional 2,500 craft workers.

Due to a growing estrangement with Arnaz, Leeds left Desilu in 1960, shortly after Ball and Arnaz divorced. Leeds then became involved in a thwarted early attempt to wire Santa Monica for cable television, and later served as senior vice president of American Film Theater, a company that used television production techniques to videotape stage performances that were later transferred to film for theatrical release. Among the projects Leeds was involved in there were “Harlow,” “The T.A.M.I. Show” and Richard Burton’s “Hamlet.”

In 1969, Leeds returned to his old stomping ground as president and chief executive of Beverly Hills Studios, operated on the former Desilu lot in Culver City that Paramount was forced to divest after acquiring Desilu in 1967.

During the years of his private law practice, which he began in 1964, Leeds represented Lassie and the Weatherwax family, the trainers of the dogs that have portrayed Lassie, in the areas of television, motion pictures and pet accessory endorsements.

He also served as first vice president and board member of the Television Export Board Assn. and as a director of the Motion Picture Permanent Charities Committee.

Leeds, who lived in Santa Monica, is survived by his wife, Shirley, and sons, Richard and Jeffrey.

A private memorial service will be held at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills on Feb. 21 at 5 p.m.

The family asks that any donations go to the Children’s Burn Foundation, Grossman Burn Center, Sherman Oaks Hospital, 4929 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91403, or to the children’s refuge center My Friend’s Place-Hollywood, P.O. Box 3867, Los Angeles CA 90078.

Gilbert is co-author of the book “Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz” (Morrow, 1993).