Life and Career
Linden was born Harold Lipshitz in New York City, the son of Frances (née Rosen) and Charles Lipshitz, a printer. Raised in The Bronx, Linden graduated from Manhattan's School of Performing Arts. He began his career as a saxophonist, clarinetist and dance band singer with bandleaders Sammy Kaye, Bobby Sherwood], and others in the 1950s. He and his violist brother Bernie took their stage names from a gas storage tank in where the town's name, Linden, New Jersey, was written in huge letters.
He became a staple of Broadway upon succeeding Sydney Chaplin in Bells Are Ringing in 1958, and made a further breakthrough on the New York stage in 1962 when he was cast as Billy Crocker in the revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes. He went on to a successful stage career, winning a Tony Award for his performance in the musical The Rothschilds (1971).
Shortly thereafter, he landed the starring role in the ABC television police comedy Barney Miller (1975-1982), playing the titular captain of the beleaguered 12th Precinct in bohemian Greenwich Village, dealing with mordant wit, compassion and occasional frustration at the comedy-of-manners misfits brought in for arrest or questioning, or who came to lodge a complaint or stop by on bureaucratic business or to just stop and say hi. He earned seven Emmy Award nominations, one for each season of the show, earned four more as narrator-host of the ABC children's shows "Animals, Animals, Animals" and "F.Y.I." before finally winning a special Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement. "There was a lawsuit at one point that led to the outright sale of 'Barney Miller' to Columbia ," Linden recalled in 1992. "I sold out my share about five years ago." Nor did the cast stay much in touch, he added. "Occasionally we'll see each other at social events or professional events or charity functions" such as the Hal Linden Celebrity Classic Golf Tournament, inaugurated in 1988 to benefit the March of Dimes.
After Barney Miller came TV-movies and specials, plus an unsuccessful 1984 CBS pilot about a small-town magazine editor, "Second Edition", and a short-lived 1986 NBC series, Blacke's Magic. By 1992, Linden was touring a one-man song-and-dance show, played guest clarinet with the Baltimore Symphony, and was in rehearsal for a play in Los Angeles.
In 1984, Linden carried the Olympic Torch and ran a portion of the Los Angeles segment. A close friend of the late Alan Jay Lerner, Linden performed in a tribute concert of his works in 1988, singing, among other Lerner songs, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" and "One More Walk Around the Garden".
In 2002, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.
Hal Linden is on the Live on Stage 2013-2014 roster for a national tour of community concert associations.
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