Sheldon Leonard

From 1945 to 1955 Leonard played an odd racetrack tout on The Jack Benny Program on radio, and kept the part on Benny's TV series. Source: Wikipedia: Sheldon Leonard

The tout would stop Benny in train stations, on street corners or in department stores with "Hey, Bud. C'mere a minute.", ask what he was about to do, then try to talk him out of it with pointless racing logic. Source: Wikipedia: Sheldon Leonard

For all his racing talk, the tout gave no horse tips unless Benny insisted. One of his excuses was "Who knows about horses?" Source: Wikipedia: Sheldon Leonard

The tout was first played on the Benny show by Benny Rubin before Leonard made the part his own. Source: Wikipedia: The Jack Benny Program

On The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show he was a regular as Grogan, a criminal thug who sometimes decided to "help" Phil Harris. Dick Lane had played Grogan first. Source: Wikipedia: The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show

He was a regular on the radio comedy The Adventures of Maisie in the 1940s, was in the voice cast of Damon Runyon Theatre (1948-1949), and often played gangsters and heavies on Dragnet and The Adventures of the Saint. Source: Wikipedia: Sheldon Leonard

On film he was typecast as smooth gangsters, including bartender Nick in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and on television he went on to produce The Danny Thomas Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Spy. Source: Wikipedia: Sheldon Leonard

Born Sheldon Leonard Bershad in Manhattan, New York City, on February 22, 1907, he died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on January 11, 1997, aged 89. Source: Wikipedia: Sheldon Leonard