Hal Linden Live on Game Changers with Vicki Abelson

Does it get better than this? Someone’s gonna have to prove it to me. Wow, what a time with Hal Linden! As nice, charming, handsome, and tall (well, I’m guessing on the last), as his Barney Miller, Hal was all that and a hefty bag of Cheetos. Absolutely age-defying - I want to see his birth certificate. It’s unfathomable that he’s 93. Still dashing, his voice strong, mind sharp, wit crackling, and his talent will be on display next weekend in Flat Rock, co-starring with Marilu Henner in Ed Weinberger’s, The Journals of Adam and Eve. I wanna go! Road trip?

Hal took us through his early days, one of six cousins, all professional musicians, he a clarinetist first, classically trained, in the musicians union at 15, then the sax called, a hysterical story there, the army, and then the theatre… to hear Hal tell it, it all makes sense. From summer stock to Broadway as an understudy in Bells Are Ringing with Judy Holliday. I won’t dare ruin that story. It was 8 years of understudying, and standing in, which led to his Tony-winning starring role in The Rothschilds. Please do yourself a favor and watch Hal sing “Sons,” as seen on the Ed Sullivan Show, his clear ticket to Tony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnztP3vCRko Breathtaking.

And then we got to the meat. Barney Miller. How he got it, what he gave up. The gamble he took. The payoff. We talked the original cast in the first failed pilot and the magical one that replaced it. We talked characters, chemistry, and process. How much Hal was in Barney, how much Barney in Hal. And, the part he turned down afterward, without even looking.

We had two degrees of Kevin Bacon without the Kevin and without the Bacon, all over the place… from our Bronx beginnings to raising our kids on the UWS of Manhattan and then LA, to Marilu and Ed, but most of all, the Catskills and the crooner. Hal started out in the Borscht Belt with his band at the Paramount Hotel. My father started out at the same hotel as an MC. Years later, after Hal’s Broadway and TV fame, my dad lived a dream, introducing Hal, one of his heroes, and opening for him at the Yiddish Theatre in New York. It was one of the highlights and great joys of his career. They were both handsome as heck, charming as can be, and smooth as silk singers. Hal still is. My dad is up there smiling this eve. Larry Katz, this one’s for you.

Thank you, Hal. This will go down as one of the highlights and great joys of my career, and I’ll forever be grateful. But why on a bad hair day?!?

Hal Linden Live on Game Changers with Vicki Abelson

Wednesday, April 3, 5 PM PT, 8 PM ET

Streamed Live on my Facebook

Replay here:

https://bit.ly/43IJ6eE