Leonard Hirshan, the longtime manager of Clint Eastwood who also counted Edward G. Robinson, Greer Garson, Sophia Loren, Angela Lansbury, Sammy Davis Jr. and Bruce Beresford among his clients over the course of his six-decade career as an agent and manager, died January 31 in Beverly Hills of Merkel cell carcinoma. He was 86.

Hirshan had repped Eastwood since the 1960s, continuing to do so even after leaving WME in 2004 to form his own eponymous management firm.

Among other notable accomplishments for the longtime former William Morris agent was negotiating Elvis Presley’s first WMA contract.

The native New Yorker got his start in the New York WMA mailroom in 1951, and quickly rose through the ranks when he pushed his first client, Eva Marie Saint, for the film “On the Waterfront,” for which she won a supporting actress Oscar.

In 1955 he moved to Hollywood, where he began representing actors including Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. He was known for long-term relationships with his clients.

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In 2012 the Talent Managers Assn. presented Hirshan with its Seymour Heller Award for Lifetime Achievement in Management.

Survivors include two daughters, two granddaughters and two former wives, Isobel Chanin and Susan Dey.

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