Leo Brady

Who was Leo Brady?

Leo Brady was a multidimensional American writer and theater artist who also achieved great success as a teacher of young playwrights.

After writing some well-received plays as an undergrad at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Brady published a play version of Richard Connell’s short story Brother Orchid, which became a staple of the Samuel French catalog and inspired Hollywood to adapt the story for a film starring Edward G. Robinson. In collaboration with Walter Kerr, he wrote Yankee Doodle Boy, a musical about the life of Broadway showman George M. Cohan, which debuted to great success in Washington and received national media exposure along with the endorsement of Cohan himself. Again, Hollywood lifted this idea whole cloth without giving the authors credit, and subsequently released the film version, Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney. Brady received his first major New York credit as the coauthor of a 1942 Broadway musical revue called Count Me In. After serving in World War II, where he continued creating as a writer and radio producer for the Army Recruitment Service, Brady returned to civilian life as a drama teacher at his alma mater.