Hal Linden Evokes Broadway in Cabaret Show

NEW YORK, March 12 (UPI) -- Hal Linden, the stage and television star best known for the title role in TV's "Barney Miller," is recalling the golden days of Broadway in a new cabaret show rich in show-stopper songs that have outlived the shows they stopped.

"I never stopped any of the 20 Broadway shows I was in, but there's still time," Linden tells his audience at Feinstein's at the Regency, the supper club where he is appearing with a seven-man backup band through March 16. His modesty is admirable but unnecessary. He can be a show-stopper any time he puts his mind to it.

The handsome, gray-haired entertainer opens the show with George M. Cohan's "Give My Regards to Broadway," displaying a thrillingly vital baritone. He recalls his start in the entertainment world as a clarinetist in the Big Band era, performing with Sammy Kaye and Bobby Sherwood. Then he plays a clarinet medley of Benny Goodman favorites, including Goodman's own "Stompin' at the Savoy," to prove his impressive instrumental prowess.

He recalls with pride his finest hour on Broadway as patriarch Mayer Rothschild in the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick show, "The Rothschilds," a role that won him a Tony Award for best actor in a musical in 1971. Putting on a yarmulke, he sings "In My Own Lifetime," Mayer's prideful recounting of his family's successes as bankers to all of Europe.

Linden moves on to such romantic Jule Styne classics as "Long Before I Knew You" and "Just in Time" and Meredith Willson's signature number, "Trouble," from "The Music Man," a tongue-in-cheek admonition that fits the comedy side of Linden's talents perfectly. Then he tops the evening with a memorable rendition of "Mack the Knife" from the Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera," giving it a perfect mock-sinister interpretation.

He speaks amusingly of his bi-coastal life, jetting between his home in Brentwood, Calif., where he lives "halfway between O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky," and the Big Apple. He describes his relationship with his native New York as a love-hate one, and he illustrates his feelings with clever special material arranged by Portia Nelson titled "I Hate/Love New York," which he laces with anecdotes about the city.

Linden's selections for his "Broadway Medley" are sure fire: "The Impossible Dream" from "Man of La Mancha," "Beauty and the Beast," "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof," "Younger than Springtime" from "South Pacific," "One Singular Sensation" from "A Chorus Line," "Memory" from "Cats," "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from "Gypsy," and "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from "Sunset Boulevard."

Just hearing these songs performed so beautifully by a polished artist is solid proof that the American musical is the only original dramatic form created in the mid-20th century, producing an outpouring of stage masterpieces in the same way that Puccini and Verdi turned out a stream of operatic masterpieces in the 19th century and early 20th centuries.

Linden's club acts have been featured in major nightclubs around the world, but none have been more enjoyable than this new show, "Back to Broadway." He's come a long way since he made his Broadway debut opposite Judy Holiday in "Bells Are Ringing" in 1958, and no one has survived into his fifth decade as an entertainer in better form.

It's hard to believe that his show at the Regency is his New York cabaret debut.