Leonard Termo

Who was Leonard Termo?

Leonard Termo was an American character actor whose numerous film and television roles included Fight Club, Johnny Dangerously, and Seinfeld.

Termo was born in Brooklyn, New York. He worked as a businessman in Manhattan's Garment District until he left the industry in the mid-1970s to pursue acting as a full-time profession. In a November 1983 New York magazine profiling actor Mickey Rourke, Termo told the interviewer that he had given up much of his life to continue acting, saying he "left it all - my wife, my kid, my money, everything...I love acting. I'm broke. I sleep on a cot." Termo made his film debut in the 1983 movie Heart Like a Wheel.

Termo formed a long personal and professional friendship with actor Mickey Rourke during the 1980s after Rourke saw Termo performing at a theater in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter described the duo as "constant companions" for years. Termo was cast opposite Rourke in five of his films throughout the 1980s, beginning with the The Pope of Greenwich Village in 1984. Rourke and Termo had appeared together in Year of the Dragon in 1985, Barfly in 1987, A Prayer for the Dying, also released in 1987, and Homeboy in 1988.