TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1957)

spaghetti and a hamburger for twenty cents. . . . Lana Turner was one of the students — her name was Judy Turner then. She was a year or two behind me." But it was during the years working behind the counter of his dad's delicatessen store that Hal Mendelson developed the great compassion which, coupled with his charm, would someday prove the magic combination that would give him the largest audience in the nation and make him so warmly welcome in their homes. His father was a man of great compassion and a true "good Samaritan," the philosopher and the philanthropist of McAllister Street. "My father was no business man. Not that we did badly. We never starved in the Thirties, when others were in the breadlines — and neither did anybody else, if my father knew it. He was an intelligent man, and he preferred to spend his time reading and in discussion with priests and rabbis who would gather in our store. He had no money — he gave it all away." Leon Mendelson early impressed on each of his children to give the customer a fair measure, and they would often find him giving a customer three ounces too much. If they mentioned it, he would say, "But she has three children. She needs it — and we have lots of it—" Now, it filled Hal with warm pride, to be remembering: "I found out, after my father died, that he had been supporting as many as sixty families during the tough times — and he'd never mentioned it. There were a thousand people crowding into the temple for his funeral — and outside in the street, for a block. He was a giant among men." On McAllister Street, Hal learned to know and to weigh life in all its dimensions. He absorbed the human drama all around him — as well as the dialects and characteristics which proved invaluable in the human characterizations he later gave on the Burns And Allen and other top Hollywood radio shows. "It was a very cosmopolitan section. We had a lot of nationalities in our neighborhood, and I have a good ear for sounds. I'd learn the dialects from customers who came into our store and mimic them," Hal was saying now. But he never ridiculed them when he used their voices on radio, his family proudly noted later on: "Hal would always portray them with kindness and warmth." And during one interval, while working behind the counters, Hal and Sam Elkind even worked up a cooperative teen-age band. Sam played the piano, as Sam had recalled, "and Hal was front man in a white jacket and baton. He also sang the vocal refrains." They called their group, "Tommy Parker and His Orchestra," and their insignia was a teepee. "It was a fictitious billing, calculated to throw the Musicians' Union off guard. None of us had the hundred dollars to join the union. They'd say. Who's the orchestra leader? We'd say. Tommy Parker. It was a dodge, but it worked ... for a while. This was during the Benny Goodman era, and we used to all go in a group and 'absorb' music." Hal was absorbing the vaudeville shows at the Golden Gate Theater then, too: "I went down there every Friday night and watched the show with my tongue hanging out. Maybe someday I'd be on the bill, too." He was frequently "on" in the store, however. "The customers all loved him," his mother had said, the memory bright in her brown eyes. "Hal always came into the store with a song. He was always so I full of life and sunshine. The Salvoni I Brothers — Italians who had a market across the street from ours — would sing 'Pagliacci' and Hal would join in with them. We also had a butcher who sang, and they were always singing and dancing and making opera in the store. But Hal cared nothing about the delicatessen business. He was so good-natured he wouldn't say no, about helping us. But sometimes he would say to me, 'Mama — I hate the store. If I'm fifty years old, I'll be an actor— no matter what anybody says." True, Hal was saying slowly now, "I felt as if I were in prison there. I couldn't wait to leave, but my dad was sixty-five years old, and it was traditional for the son to help out the father in the business." r or Hal Mendelson, the fever to act was becoming a burning thing inside of him. McAllister was a dead-end street, and he was living for the day when he could break out. . . . "My father was really the kind of man who wanted me to do what I wanted to do, but nobody in our family had ever even talked show business, and this came from 'way out of left field. He just couldn't see the point of my wanting to be an actor." A practical aunt put it this way, "How can you make a living? You have no background at all." Hal's sister Bessie and his mom wanted him to go to college or to Pasadena Community Playhouse, where he had been offered a free scholarship, and prepare for his profession. But he was too impatient to begin. "I can learn while I'm doing. I don't want to take that time," he said, having no way of knowing just how many long years it was going to take. To Dave Apfelbaum, the kind old barber who had cut Hal's hair since he was eight years old, he would bare his heart. In those days, he spent a lot of time in the old barber shop across from the store. He would bring the barber his favorite "imported German liverwurst" when his dad got it in, sit down and relax and start dreaming out loud. Talking of show business. The actor he would be some day. "Sure," the barber would say affectionately. "Sure you will. You're going to get a good, heavy stepladder and you're going to be on top — high up — " But there was another merchant on the street who was ready to kick down every hope Hal voiced to him. "What makes you think you can act? Who are you kidding? You'll wind up on McAllister Street just like all the rest of us. You wait and see," he would scoff. . . . Going back to McAllister Street now — to Hal March, this seemed like only yesterday. The wound so deep and still so sensitive in his memory. "I made the mistake of letting him know I wanted to be an actor and wanted to go to Hollywood," he was recalling. "And he broke my heart when I was a kid. He was the successful merchant on the street. I was the son of the small merchant. I remember he used to say, 'How in the world are you going to be an actor? How will you do it?' I didn't know how. There's no set way. "After I got to Hollywood, the first time I got a national network show, I drove up in front of his store in a brandnew Cadillac. 'How are things in McAllister Street?' I asked him. The next time, I went back in a brand-new Jaguar." "How you doing down there?" the merchant had asked. Then, "Must be doing all right," he said, looking at the car and obviously impressed. "Well, no — it's a little slow," Hal had breezed. "I'm just making two thousand a week now. 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