Kathy Oliver, who worked as Leah’s manager early in her career, described how Leah was “always putting people down, always condescending, always treating them as if they weren’t good enough for her.”
When I really truly looked at Leah and her behavior, not only towards me but towards others, I realized that she was the biggest baddest bully I’ve ever encountered in my life. She was ugly in the way she behaved to people and the way she treated people. Always trying to rip them apart. And it is just not somebody that you want to be around. That destructiveness was really awful. She’s an awful being, an awful person. Awful ugly bully.
Leah was one of the chief sponsors of an event that I was producing. The stage was all set. The lighting was all done. The podium was in place and she came in, and Leah looked at the podium and she went, “I don’t like that. Get rid of it. Put something else there.” Without considering any of the production. It was just such a selfish move for her to do something like that. And this was a charity event.
Leah always had to be the center of attention in telling people what they should do and wanting to change something just on a whim that she felt she needed changed, instead of coming in and being kind about it and working with what we had. Because everybody else did that, but not Leah. She showed up and everything had to change just because of her.
As I got to know Leah more and more and I spent more time with her on the set and other areas of her life, I saw that she was treating other people in that put down, condescending, actually very evil way. And I looked at that and I went I’m not going to work with somebody like that. I couldn’t work with somebody like that who didn’t appreciate others. I thought it was just me that she didn’t appreciate, but then when I saw her with others it was true evil the way she was treating other people. And that’s when I decided I couldn’t work with her anymore, and didn’t want to work with her because I didn’t want to help somebody who was harming others all the time.
Always putting people down, always condescending, always treating them as if they weren’t good enough for her, you know. And that’s the way that she was treating me as well too.
It actually bothered me so much that I decided not to work with other actors as well, because I, wrongly, I thought maybe all other actors are like that. But one of the interesting things I found was that another young man that I was working with, he was at beginning of his career as well too. When I told him I was going to stop managing, he couldn’t have been kinder. And he said you know, “Kathy you’ve worked so hard for me. You didn’t get paid enough. I really didn’t give you enough in return for everything”—me enough in return for everything that I did for him and he, if I ever needed help along the way he’d be more than happy to help me. And it was such a complete opposite of the way that Leah treated me. And treated others. I saw it all the time with her.
