TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1957)

This Is Where It All Began (Continued from page 20) want it — all right, we'll sell the store" . . . and freed him to go his own way? Was this success sparked by the taunts of those who were so openly sure he wouldn't make it? Those who'd turned a knife in a young boy's dream? The answers to this one would take more than thirty seconds. For Hal Mendelson, they'd taken thirty-six years. . . . During his triumphant homecoming, accompanied by TV Radio MniROR's reporter, Hal March was to relive those years leading up to today, to go back where the big dream began. And through his eyes and memories, through the words and memories of his mother, his sister Bessie, childhood friends, old neighbors — all those who had known Hal Mendelson very well — the answers and the pieces would fall into place. Pieces of a success story as heartwarming and inspiring as any Hal March himself helps materialize on The $64,000 Question, over CBS-TV. A success story that began in an old, faded flat down in the once-tough Mission District of San Francisco in the days of gang wars, when cops patrolled only in pairs. Here Hal's Romanian-born parents, Leon and Ethel Mendelson, operated their first delicatessen store. And here, one high noon, their youngest — Harold, pride of his parents, his sisters, Frieda, Bessie, and Ruth, and his older brother George — was born. . , . "Right here on Eighteenth Street, between Valencia and Mission," Hal March was saying now. "Many of the kids I knew here are in San Quentin today, but the district's different now — nicer now." Hal was looking about him eagerly for their old fiat. "It was that second one, I think, an old wooden fiat with concrete steps. But they were all condemned — they've put new fronts on all the buildings now. I was born right at home with the aid of a 'lady doctor' — or midwife, as some would say." At an early age, Hal demonstrated the charm which was later to make him so warmly loved throughout the land. He had a very high neighborhood rating, even then. His sisters took care of him after school while their mother worked at the store, and — as Bessie (Mrs. Isadore Friedman) remembers — ""The neighbors were always wanting us to bring him over to their houses and baby-sit. They would even make 'appointments.' " Bessie's was a firm, sisterly hand in intention— but not always in the result. "I was always trying to teach him to speak correctly then, and particularly to always say thank you." But Hal had an early aptitude for the ad lib, too . . . "Hal, do you want a cracker?" a neighbor asked indulgently one day. "Yes," he said promptly. "What do you say, honey?" his sister prompted. "Yes what?" "Put some butter on it," said Hal. As his sister has laughingly commented, "Hal knew what he wanted, even when he was two and a half years old." By the time he was six, Hal had an alert eye for his billing, too: "Our older brother, George, had a baby son, Les, who was only four years younger than Hal and always large for his age. But, from the time Les could talk, our younger brother made him call him 'Uncle Hal.* If he didn't, Hal wouldn't answer him!" ' From the beginning, Hal leaned to show * business hours, too — and to sleeping late. * It was a family project to awaken him, and his sisters spelled each other standing over Hal, shaking him and making 70 sure he was on his feet and scrubbed and, finally, safely on his way to school. As his mom put it, years later, "God was good to you. You got a business where you can sleep as late as you want to." . . . But Hal March was thoroughly awake now, going on to the two-family flat his dad later bought on California Street, in a better neighborhood. Every landmark so keenly associated with teen-age memories was coming alive for him: "This hospital wasn't here then. None of this was here. Just open country. This is California Street now — that's right, they took up the streetcar tracks. That drug store was here then. And that's our house right there!" he was saying excitedly, indicating the two-family gray stucco flat with the familar twenty-five-foot San Francisco front and two small green shrubs bravely substituting for a front yard. "The yard was in the back, really," Hal was remembering, "five square yards of lawn. Why, the house is still the same color! I don't think they've even painted it since we lived here. That front upstairs room on the left . . . that was my mother's £ind father's bedroom . . ." The street where you lived. The house where you lived. There's magic in every memory. Here, in that back bedroom upstairs, an excited teenager would lie awake dreaming of the big adventure ahead of him — the "star" he would be in Hollywood. He'd broken in his first catcher's mitt in the "five square yards" in the back, and also playing catch, during lulls, behind the delicatessen store. For young Hal Mendelson and his gang, for all kids of the Depression, there was little time and little space to play. As Sam Elkind, whose father had a poultry store two doors from the delicatessen on McAllister Street, had put it: "We both did a regular day's work after school. We'd play baseball back of the store and Hal automatically 'caught' — he'd gotten the catcher's mitt for his birthday, and he was so proud of it. I remember how he kept showing us 'how hard the slap' was." During this time, together with Jim Diamond (today a San Francisco advertising man) and Ed Susnow (now a doctor), they organized the "Brandeis Club," named for the late Chief Justice Brandeis, and met in a room at the Hebrew School. By then, too, Hal's singing voice — which later came as a surprise to many, when they heard him on television spectaculars — was showing some promise semi-commercially. Hal and Sam Elkind (today a dramatic teacher) sang with the choir at the Children's Synagogue. Hal was dedicated to one dream from the age of twelve: "I had a comedy part in an operetta, 'Malenka of Astrakhan,' when I was going to Roosevelt Junior High. Feeling the reaction out front — knowing all those people out there were watching you — that did it! I fell in love with audiences then. And I haven't changed," Hal was reminiscing now, heading toward another alma mater, George Washington High. . . . And, from the first, audiences returned Hal's affections, his family noted. "He wore a black suit and a flat black derby and he was very funny," his mom had smiled, remembering. And he was a smash in "Tom Sawyer," she recalled, "The next day, all the customers came into the store talking about it." His dad had been very proud — "very glad to see him so well received, so successful in the part." In the second play — in the role of "Puff Potter," the town dnmk— thirteen-yearold Hal had the audience right in his hands . .' . and, heady with his success, he wouldn't let them go. "When he went on stage, he went down center and hammed it up something terrible," his sister Bessie has noted. "He was so drunk — drunker than fourteen people could be! — and the audience laughed at him so tnuch they didn't hear the others' lines." ITiat night, when they got home, Bessie had a serious talk with him about the way he'd tried to hog the whole show. "Haven't you heard of group spirit?" she chided. "How the play is the thing?" Well, yes, he'd heard of that, he said — "But. Bess, I was having such fun!" On or off stage, even then, with his magnetism and personal charm, Hal Mendelson always had an audience, anyway. He was elected president of the whole student body — numbering 2,000 students! — at George Washington High, his fu'stl_ year there. And you have his sister's word (and Hal's agreement) that scholastic ability had nothing to do with it: "The school was brand-new, and it was quite an honor. Hal promised them bigger and better rallies and less homework — he had a great platform. They loved him and he got elected. My brother always had this basic charm, and it worked miracles. With teachers, too. He never studied, never brought a book home." His puzzled family could only surmise that teachers personally felt he was bright, and just passed him, anyway. At his tritimphant homecoming reception, Hal's high-school counselor and home-room teacher, Frank Morton, had twinkled: "I'd like $64,000 for the two questions Hal and I asked each other when I was his counselor in high school. On his part, 'Will I ever pass — before I pass out?' And, on my part, 'Why don't you study more? You'll never get any where.' " But he'd also observed that Hal Mendelson knew where he was going, even then: "Frankly, Hal didn't require much counseling from the faculty. He knew definitely what he wanted to do — and he did it." Prophetically enough, in his graduation year, the school yearbook featiu-ed a shot of Hal at a microphone. Through the years, he had always tried to reassure his family not to worry about a paper he was supposed to be preparing or a speech he would have to give. "When the time comes — I'll know what to say," he woiild turn it aside casually. And he usually did. Words came easily and forcefully to him. As president of the student body, he delivered a stirring speech before six hundred veterans, with the mayor in attendance— and also Hal's mom, mistyproud. He emceed school activities and entertained with imitations. He was equally active in athletics, primarily track and football. "The football field wasn't here then," Hal was saying now, touring his old alma mater, and filled with memories. "We used to play our games at other stadiums. The auditorium wasn't finished, either — we held our graduation at Commerce High." Hal played center on the team, then fullback — "Got my nose broken that year." This had worried him a little, with his heart set on show business, but having noses rebuilt was considered somewhat of a luxury then. Later, in the army, playing ball with some buddies, he got his nose broken again ("the other way — that straightened it out"). "That store at the corner of the school grounds," he was remembering nostalgically, "that's where we used to go for hamburgers. You could get a plate of