Stratton P. Leopold (born 13 May 1943; age 81) [1] is a film producer hailing from Savannah, Georgia, and the current Executive Vice President for Production at Paramount Pictures. He was assigned as an executive producer and unit production manager on Star Trek. Leopold worked on the film for months but dropped out before shooting began and was replaced by Jeffrey Chernov. However, Leopold still received credit in the film as a Unit Production Manager.
Leopold began his work on films as an actor before being signed on to serve as assistant production manager and casting director for Wise Blood (1979, starring Star Trek: Voyager guest actor Brad Dourif). After brief stints as an actor (including an appearance in Wise Blood), casting director (The Dukes of Hazzard), a location manager (for films such as 1983's The Big Chill), and as an assistant director (including the 1981 film Great White), he then he began producing in the mid-1980s. He was the supervising producer for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988, starring John Neville, with Robin Williams) and the executive producer of Born Yesterday (1993, featuring Michael Ensign and Celeste Yarnall, among other projects.
For Paramount, Leopold was the co-producer of The General's Daughter (1999, starring James Cromwell and Clarence Williams III), and Bless the Child 2000, featuring Peter Mensah. He later executive produced the Paramount-released The Sum of All Fears (2002, also starring James Cromwell as well as Bruce McGill) and Paycheck (2004). Leopold later worked with Star Trek producer and director J.J. Abrams as the executive producer of Paramount Pictures' Mission: Impossible III (2006).
From the time he began producing films in the mid-1980s up until 2002, Leopold also worked as a film production manager. In this capacity, he handled the budgets for such films as Prince of Darkness (1987) and They Live (1988, starring Meg Foster and featuring Leopold as a "depressed Human"), Tango & Cash (1989, featuring Marc Alaimo, Roy Brocksmith, Teri Hatcher, Clint Howard, Glenn Morshower, Michael J. Pollard and Phil Rubenstein), General's Daughter and Sum of All Fears.
He is currently producing the drama Red Soil for Turning Point Pictures. In addition, he owns and operates an ice cream parlor, Leopold's Ice Cream, in Savannah, Georgia, which has been in his family for generations. Interestingly, the store was designed by Academy Award-nominated art director Daniel Lomino (Close Encounters of the Third Kind). [2]