Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/957795
For Leder, Persistence Pays Off A trailblazer in movies and television, Mimi Leder has learned that knowledge is power, and tenacity is the key to success By Margy Rochlin Photographed by Shayan Asgharnia A C K I N 1 9 8 5 , Mimi Leder, then a script supervisor on Hill Street Blues, directed Short Order Dreams, a short film starring Lainie Kazan she hoped would get her hired to direct an epi- sode of the Emmy-winning police drama. Because Leder's life is noth- ing if not filled with dramatic plot twists, she eventually made her professional directorial debut two years later, not on Blues, but on its creator Steven Bochco's hit ensemble law show L.A. Law. Yet even today, Short Order Dreams holds a special significance for the New York-born, Hollywood-raised trailblazer. "It's about pursuing your dreams, something that's been a part of the landscape of my life. My father always told me never to give up and never be afraid. So, of course, I'm always afraid—but I never give up." If bottomless reserves of persistence are key to Leder's story, it's because for more than 30 years she's often had to deal with being taken seriously. This, despite the fact that as the daughter of low- budget filmmaker Paul Leder (I Dismember Mama, A*P*E), she'd grown up on a set, and, as the first-ever woman graduate at AFI (class of '73, cinematography), knew how to take apart and rebuild a Mitchell standard 35 mm camera. B