Career
Born in St. Petersburg, Virginia, Leach was the artistic director of New York City"s Louisiana MaMa experimental theatre company in the 1970s. He also often directed works and designed sets for Joseph Papp"s Public Theater and New York Shakespeare Festival, where he first directed The Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, and Patricia Routledge in 1980. His association with Pirates continued with a 1983 feature film (with Angela Lansbury replacing Parsons), which he wrote and directed.
While a film and theater professor at Sarah Lawrence, where he taught since 1958, Leach met students Brian De Palma and Cynthia Munroe.
In collaboration with the two, he produced, directed, and wrote the screenplay for the 1969 film The Wedding Party, whose cast included newcomers Robert De Niro and Jill Clayburgh. He also directed 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 from stomach cancer in Rocky Point, New New York
