Depending on what decade you were in, you may have encountered Leonard Finz on a beach in the South Pacific, onstage in a smoky nightclub, presiding over a courtroom in New York City or on the cover of a pulpy paperback.
The soon-to-be 89-year-old, who has lived in the Village of North Hills’ Gracewood community for the last 15 years, has lived a life that has seen its share of unexpected turns as a soldier-turned-jazz singer-turned-lawyer-turned state Supreme Court justice, but each has led to his current professional undertaking, that of a novelist.
Finz’ latest book, a thriller called “Reservation to Kill,” released last week by Roundtree Mysteries Inc., follows Justice Department agent Matt Connors as he investigates the murder of a top ranking federal officer and in the process unravels a shady plot to build an Indian casino in the Catskill Mountains.
“As a trial lawyer, it’s important to tell a story to a jury so they could get the essence and depth and meaning and emotion of a human issue, and that’s what I try to do in my writing,” he said at his home Saturday.
Finz grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and entered New York University’s pre-med program in 1942, but midway through his first semester he was drafted into World War II and left school having earned no college credit.
Finz grew up playing the clarinet and saxophone, and after entering the army in 1943 he began performing shows on his base that caught the eye of the military’s bandleader.
“He said, ‘Lenny, I’ve got to get you in,’” Finz said.
The gigs were steady but unrewarding, he said, as those he entertained were the ones seeing action on the front lines.
“I didn’t want to have to tell my future children and future grandchildren that I spent my time playing the clarinet on play grounds while others were sacrificing themselves on the beaches of an attack in the pacific,” Finz said.
In an effort to get closer to the fight, Finz applied for Officer’s Candidate School in a move that may have seemed a bit facetious at the time.
Finz had only achieved the rank of a first-class private, and entered the highly competitive Field Artillery School in Fort Sill, Okla. for an intensive four-month training program during which candidates were cut and released each week.
One hundred enrolled at the start of class, Finz said. Thirty-two graduated on May 5, 1945.
Finz was among them.
“I knew full well that when I applied for Officer Candidate School that I’d be going overseas and getting into battle,” Finz said. “I knew that and I wanted that.”
Now a 2nd lieutenant specializing in artillery in the U.S. Army, Finz was sent to California for training in Japanese language and customs, weaponry and military strategy, participating in daily beach assault runs.
Assigned to Okinawa, Japan as part of the 27th Division overseeing the first wave of an attack, Finz was in the Pacific for 32 days when he learned the United States had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that the Japanese had surrendered.
Finz was re-routed to the Philippine island of Leyte and tasked with repatriating Filipinos who had been driven from their homes during the war by the Japanese.
After a number of months on the job, Finz was called upon by his commanding officer for a somewhat unconventional assignment.
“He called me into his office and said, ‘Finz, I would like you to accept an assignment, and I want you to know that you do not have to accept it, but I would like you to,’” Finz said. “He went on to say that there were hundreds of G.I.s that were rotting in our guard houses and jails and that he had to gather a court marshaled board to handle these trials. There was only one lawyer on the island, but he had to serve as the prosecutor, and according to the Court Marshal’s Manual, defense counsel had to be an officer.”
At the time, Finz had only a high school education, but accepted the task and began reading legal manuals to learn the procedural process, traveling into the jungles at night to gather witnesses and evidence to use in court.
“It was a dangerous assignment because some of the Japanese were still hiding out in caves, either not knowing the war was over or not wanting to admit they lost,” Finz said.
Finz tried the cases and earned 1st lieutenant honors before his discharge in August of 1946, and met his soon-to-be wife Pearl while on terminal leave from the service.
When Finz returned from the war, he enrolled again at NYU on the G.I. Bill majoring in history and English, later graduating from law school and passing the New York state bar examination in 1951. He also joined the local Associated Musicians of Greater New York, joining a band that sought a saxophone player who could sing.
“I figured I’d try this out for two years and if I make it I’ll stick with it,” Finz said.
Before long, Finz was playing five club nights a week and attracting the likes of Al Jolson, who saw him perform at a Milwaukee lounge in 1949 and complimented his style after the show.
“I had a big belting kind of voice,” Finz said. “I was compared to Al Jolson, not that I played his kind of music but I was that kind of performer.”
Finz was later invited to sing at the Al Jolson memorial concert at Madison Square Garden after the singer’s death in 1950, and Billboard Magazine referred to Lennie Forrest and Steve Lawrence, a contemporary, as “Singers of the Future,” Finz said, and he even came close to landing the lead role in the 1952 version of “The Jazz Singer,” which went to Danny Thomas.
“You’ve got to remember, Danny Thomas was a big name at the time,” Finz said. “Lenny Forrest, I was just getting started.”
By the late 1950s, Finz had abandoned music and gone on to practice law, and his prestige rose such that he ran for Congress in 1962 and became President John F. Kennedy’s spokesman in Queens and Nassau on Medicare, which would later be passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 1965, Finz was elected as a judge to the New York City Civil court, and would later be elected a state Supreme Court Justice, where he would serve until 1978 before stepping down to practice as a trial lawyer.
”It was unheard of that a young judge would resign from the state Supreme Court,” Finz said.
Finz said he considers his landmark case to be a successful 1979 lawsuit against the pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lily and Company, whose medication to curb miscarriages resulted in daughters born to those patients to have vaginal cancer.
To reach a favorable verdict, Finz had to specifically link Lily to the vaginal cancers springing up, a difficult task because of the variety of copycat drugs on the market at the time.
But Finz argued on a theory that if Lily hadn’t initially put its drug, known as Diethylstilbestrol, on the market, the copycats would not have existed.
“It opened the gates of justice for other victims to go ahead with their own proceedings,” Finz said.
In 1984, Finz founded the medical malpractice firm Finz & Finz, P.C., which has offices in Mineola and Manhattan and is currently operated by Finz’s son Stuart.
The Finz family may soon be able to operate as its own firm, as Stuart’s wife Cheri is a lawyer, their daughter Jacqueline recently graduated from Toro Law School and is studying for the bar exam, and their son Brandon graduated from the University of Miami School of Business and will attend Georgetown University’s law school this fall.
Leonard Finz’ daughter Saundra is married to Jerrold Parker, a founding partner of the medical malpractice firm Parker Waichman LLP, whose Long Island office is based in Port Washington. Their daughter Brittany is set to graduate from the University of Baltimore’s School of Law, and their son Sean will enter Loyola University New Orleans College of Law this fall.
“To think, it all started in 1945 when I was assigned as a defense counsel as a high school graduate,” Finz said.
Finz said he draws upon his life experiences as a soldier, entertainer and judge to come up with the “plenty of ideas” he has for future novels, hoping to build upon a possible Connors series following two unrelated works, “Arrowhead” (2005) and “The Paragon Conspiracy” (2011).
“I’m hoping someone is at the other end of my words and being moved by what I have to say and what I have to write about,” Finz said.
He added, “If the good lord is amenable, I hope to write a dozen more.”
