(Photo from Salon.com)
You may have known Leonard from his essays for CBS's "Sunday Morning" program, or from his prolific writing about culture. He passed away Wednesday. There's a nice tribute here and anotehr one here and a laudatory obit here. Mega-link to some of his work is here.
I was a frequent reader of Leonard when I was younger, and would still come across his work from time to time. It was not always good, since his love of language could at times overwhelm what he was trying to say. But it was always swinging for the fences and his slugging percentage could be formidable. Ken Tucker has called him the first great TV critic. Let's agree that in a time when TV critics were often and unfairly dismissed as snooty haters of the medium they wrote about, Leonard was a counter-argument, an enthusiast, and no less articulate or engrossing for being so.
