As Marshals closed out its freshman season, it paid tribute to one of its own.
The CBS series included a card at the end of the episode before the credits that said, “In Loving Memory of Leonard “Lenny” E. Hancock Jr.”.
Hancock was the prop master for the show. He died in December in the Lake Havasu neighborhood of Arizona as a result of a crash involving an off-road UTV.
It comes after a memorial on CBS’ Radford Lot earlier this year.
Sherill Watts, who had worked with Hancock and set up a GoFundMe page after the accident, said, “Losing Lenny has been heartbreaking. He touched so many people, and the outpouring of stories and love says everything about who he was. He showed up fully for his work, for his friends, and for the community we share.”
Hancock was the prop master for the CBS Yellowstone spinoff and had previously worked on series including S.W.A.T and CSI: New York as well as films including Transformers and Jarhead.
CBS also paid tribute to Hancock in a “Power of Props” social video as part of its Making of Marshals series (above).
In the video, Hancock revealed how he put the characters in specific Marshals vests so that the audience can differentiate them.
“One of the things that I care about a lot when I do a show is that it’s really accurate, like on this show, the police vest they wear, that is what the Marshals wear,” he said.
“Cal and Kayce being ex-SEALs, I used the drag bags that they would have used at that time, little things that people at home who know will pick up on. Cal, being that he was in the dirt a long time, he loves his tan, his coyote, so all of his stuff is coyote. Belle is a cowgirl, so we put her in green. She’s been on a horse her entire life. Then we get down to Andrea, and she’s from DC, so she came out of the metro area, and they generally wear all black,” he said. “It’s easier for the audience to tell who’s who, and so this gives them their own individual backstory without actually telling anybody the backstory.”
Hancock gave a short tour of its “prop house on wheels”. “It’s a 48 foot trailer of dreams, and hopefully you have what they dreamed of,” he said.
But the prop master joked that in the TV industry, you just have to figure out what the job is. “There’s no way you can really learn this in a book. No one can really tell you how it’s done. I still can’t even explain to my parents what I do,” he added.
Marshals stars Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton, reprising his role from Yellowstone, as he joins a group of U.S. Marshals protecting Montana. It also features Logan Marshall-Green, Arielle Kebbel, Ash Santos, Tatanka Means, Brecken Merrill, Mo Brings Plenty and Gil Birmingham with Brett Cullen, Morgan Lindholm, Ellyn Jameson and Riley Green recurring.
Marshals is produced by Paramount Television Studios and 101 Studios. It is exec produced by Hudnut, Grimes, Sheridan, David Glasser, John Linson, Art Linson, Ron Burkle, David Hutkin, Bob Yari, Michael Freidman and Greg Yaitanes.
