Allen Mondell
Allen Mondell was born in Baltimore in 1941, just months before Pearl Harbor. His father joined the Army Air Corps and worked on B-29 bombers, arriving in the Pacific as the war was ending, while Allen, his mother, and his aunt lived with his grandparents in West Baltimore. His father's parents came from Russia, and the family name, originally Mandel, was altered because it sounded too Jewish; his mother's parents came from Lithuania, and his maternal grandfather was a shoemaker. An only child, Allen spent much of his youth playing sports on the streets of Baltimore, including lacrosse, and served briefly as a ball boy for the Baltimore Bullets. He attended Baltimore City College, a well-regarded all-boys high school, and graduated in 1959.
After Williams College in Massachusetts, Allen surprised his parents by joining the Peace Corps rather than entering a profession. He served from 1963 to 1965 in Sierra Leone, teaching world history and English literature at a secondary school and introducing volleyball, basketball, and a school newspaper. He was in Sierra Leone when President Kennedy, who had founded the Peace Corps, was assassinated in November 1963, a moment he remembered vividly. Returning to Baltimore, he worked for a Hearst newspaper and the Baltimore Sun, hoping to become a foreign correspondent, then moved into television documentary work at a Westinghouse-owned station. He served six years in the Army Reserve during the Vietnam War, which he opposed, spending several months on active duty and years attending monthly meetings.
Allen met his wife Cynthia Salsman while researching a story at the Maryland Port Authority; they married in 1969, and their daughter was born in Vermont in 1972 while they pursued writing. Needing income, they applied for jobs and Allen was hired at KERA in Dallas, arriving expecting to stay only a couple of years. That was some forty years before this interview. After about five years at KERA, he and Cynthia founded a documentary production company in 1978, dedicated not only to producing films but to distributing them to people who could benefit, on subjects such as depression and suicide among young people. Among their films was West of Hester Street, about Jewish immigrants who came through Galveston. Allen speaks warmly of grandparenthood and his young grandson as a great joy of his later life.
Full Transcript
all right alen 1941 going back a little bit of a way there to Baltimore Maryland let's go back talk to me about when you were just a little boy well uh in 41 I was born just a few months before America before Pearl Harbor right so my father joined the army okay and for a while we moved from Baltimore to Warner Robbins Georgia where my father was kind of in training and you know Advanced infantry training so I lived at at wner Robbins Georgia and then came back to Baltimore but my father went off to uh to the Pacific and my mother my aunt uh
and I live with my grandparents in in West Baltimore and what I remember most about that was one day I was out playing with some kids in the in the uh in the alley uh and the next day there there were some kids who who were roughing me up so the the next day I was out and I I must have been about four or five but back in those days you were know you were allowed to be on the streets you know when you were a kid you know that's not so you know so true anymore so I saw these kids who had roughed
me up up the alley and uh I I ran across the alley fell in the middle of the alley and and got 10 stitches finally in in in in my chin so uh what I remember a little bit about those times was just my you know with in a neighborhood that was Jewish but I I I had some difficulty and then I mean and then we my my father came home from the war and we moved from my grandparents house into our own house now tell me did your dad uh ever talk about the war he did but he was reserved I mean as so
many World War II veterans are or Vietnam veterans are they just don't like to talk about now my father arrived in you know in um in the Pacific as the war was ending but they were still having to go into the kind of the the hills you know to try to root out you know the Japanese who who were still left so while he was there the war is over but so he he didn't see you know the the the hardest part you know the most difficult part of of the war was he in the Army no he was in the Army aircore the Army
aircore yeah so he he he worked on you know on the b29 bombers back then now tell me about your grandparents well my father's father and my father's mother came from from from Russia and my last name is Mandel but I found out some years later that when they came to the the states uh this was in the early 1900s their name was mandal m n dle and what happened was at some point my father's older sister decided that mandal was sounding a little bit too Jewish so it became M Mandel my father talked about his his father being in one of the zor's uh
uh forms you know and he took care of the the horses my grandmother I don't I don't think worked then but both died when I was pretty young so I just remember them speaking Yiddish uh and I don't remember much else my grandfather died before my grandmother and my grandmother was there for my bar mitzvah and I still have movies from you know that that 8 mm footage you know and I can see my my grandmother there that's that's my that's my father's my my mother's parents came from Lithuania and um and so it was interesting in my house there always the difference between the
Russians and the lvx you know um so my grandparents my my oh my my grandfather or my mother's side was a uh was a shoe maker and uh and that's where I lived during during the war again my grandmother just you know was was a housewife and um you know and a and a mother did they ever tell you about their travels to this country what it was like to come here no no I never heard from my grandparents about how they traveled here I had to learn about Jewish travels to this country when Cynthia and I did a documentary called west of Hester Street
and we talked to lots of immigrants and of course these immigrants that we talk to came through galvaston into the you know into the interior of the country but no I have I have no stories about you know their travels to to to to Baltimore in the early 1900s now when you were a kid growing up um involved in sports at all like formerly I played lacrosse I played one year of of I entered High School in the ninth grade and I went out for the soccer team but it's funny I didn't really like soccer as much I played on the junior varsity and I
just kind of focused on you know on Lacrosse although outside of school I played you know tackle football on a club team I played basketball on a club team so Sports were very much part of of my growing up in fact I spent more time you know in the streets on the streets of Baltimore than I did you know in home at home reading where' you go to high school I went to high school Baltimore City College which is a high school uh I know it sounds strange it says Baltimore City College but at one point it was kind of part high school and part
college and it just the name never changed but it's a school that's like 160 years old I me all male which Baltimore had two schools that were all boys and two schools that were all girls and then a bunch of other schools you know that were mixed but the school I went to had this wonderful kind of reputation you know you know college 80% of my class went went went to college uh wow yeah it was it it was a big deal you know so uh and it had that tradition but it was in the middle of the city and it was nice about it
it brought guys from all over the city so it brought the Jews um but not in our neighborhood it wasn't like in a Jewish neighborhood and ukrainians Greeks Italians were there any of the professional teams that you followed when you were a kid when I was about 12 years old my Uncle Joe Colton uh who who sold socks to the Baltimore bull said Allan would you like to become a ball boy for the Baltimore Bulls yeah basketball team I said what do you mean what I like to become a of course so there I was in the early 50s you know being a ball boy
for the Baltimore Bullets with you know meeting guys like Bob Koozie Frank charman Ray Felix Frank selvie selvie was like leading a leading scorer in that era who played for Baltimore but what happened is and boy you know there were so many George mikin Freddy scoler who had a oneand jump shot I mean know he didn't leave the floor it was one-hander but anyway there were just a whole bunch of guys well the Baltimore Bullets lost their their franchise That season so I lo you know I lost the job but it was it was absolutely wonderful and probably you were the star of the neighborhood
well yeah I I was much admired for for being able to do this the other was and and I was a Colts fan a Baltimore Colts fan I was a fan with with when Unitus was there Alan amichi was there you know um these were those days uh John Mackey who was a tight end but U Donovan well after high school now was it work service or College college I mean I graduated high school in 1959 and then I went on to college for four years a small Liber arts college in Western Massachusetts called Williams College I mean I had applied to to to to
several schools I applied to to Williams I applied to Dartmouth I applied to Princeton and I applied to to Johns Hopkins to my parents a son going my parents didn't finish high school you know and and many of their peers didn't finish high school or finish High School certainly didn't go into college right but for me to go on to to to college was really something special for them you know their son and I was the only child their son was going on to college I mean how how how wonderful now what what their son did after college was something that we we had a
little difference of opinion about but going to college was something very important to them what what happened after college well you know uh like any Jewish parent they were hoping uh that their son would become a doctor a lawyer you know an accountant something like in the professions but their son you know was was a liberal arts major you know and decided that instead of going on to one of those professions he was going to go into the Peace Corp so here here I am it's 1962 I'm waiting tables in a fraternity house someone comes and says Mandel your father's on the phone he wants
to talk to you so you know 1962 I'm I'm waiting tables I get a little concerned you know why my father's calling so I go on the phone he said Allan this is your father I said I know that I know it's my father I said he said you know as an young adult I've never told you know about what what you were doing but I just got this in you know this note from the Peace Corp that they wanted me to kind of write something about you and I've never told you no but I don't want you to go into the Peace Corp so
why he said I mean all I'm hearing is that a bunch of beat Nicks there weren't hippies yet beat Nicks uh Anarchist um homosexuals Etc he went on to this kind of litany of stuff that in his mind you know was bad and uh and I went I mean you I finally went so I I spent 2 years in Sierra Leone West Africa and and and there's a very interesting story I was teaching tropical Africa in world history and I was teaching English literature I was teaching in a secondary school and what that meant it was part of the British system so what that meant
is 7th grade through the 12th grade actually 13th grade is is is what that would have been and it it wasn't too long after I was there I was teaching tropical African world history we got to a point where we were going to teach the Western religions you know uh Judaism Christianity and Islam so I'm in the class and you know we're talking about what what is Christianity okay you know they Define what the Christianity is then you know they talk about Islam because most of my students would have either have been Christian or muslim okay then I say this is like I'm just there
for maybe a couple months two to to 3 months and uh I remember I said what what is Judaism there's this kind of Blank Stare I said okay have you ever heard the term Hebrew and in the back of the room I can still picture this today David funa David funa who's a big strapping you know uh CER leonian stands up David was probably 14 years old and he said Mr Mandel yeah the uh the Hebrews they were the ones who killed Christ I'm thinking uhoh you know here I am I'm a Hebrew and what they think the Jews are the ones who killed Christ
so we then had a a rather lengthy discussion and comparison of the of the three you know Western religions but it was okay I mean there wasn't any kind of anti-Semitism there it was just they they didn't know anything about Jews they knew a lot about Christians and Muslims now when you were out there what did your dad think after you were out there I joined the peace score in ' 63 in in in in June of 63 the peace SCP began the first group went over in ' 61 so no one had come back from from from the Peace Corp uh By the time
my father you know had heard about the peace SCP he just heard negative opinions about the Peace Corp mainly from Congress uh so when I when I was going in he wasn't hearing anything that was really positive fortunately I went into training for the summer of 1963 I came home and between before I went off to Sierra Leon I brought a friend who had been uh in the Peace Corps and had just returned from the Philippines and Stanley maerov came to lunch Stanley maerov was Jewish Stanley maerov said I was in the peace score it was a wonderful experience I mean here I am you
know today it's made it it's changed my life in terms of what I'm going to do so my parents felt much better about the Peace Corp because you know here was this Jewish guy from Baltimore who had survived so so anyway so so that was that was good and then they would get I mean I would be a I was a good correspondent right so you know but of course there was always this kind of concern that there was some trouble in the Congo in you know uh back back then and my parents you know wrote me and said is there are you okay well
it's like saying right now if there were trouble in in Portland Oregon you know uh would your would your parents write and say are you okay you know you live in Dallas Texas but they they didn't know so it was that kind of concern but but they they finally kind of understood and and what I what I wanted to do I mean I wanted to make a difference I you feel like you did yeah yeah I mean if I hadn't been in that classroom there wouldn't have been a sier leonian teacher so I wasn't taking his place it was mainly his I mean mainly male
teachers uh cuz it was a boy School I mean I wasn't taking someone else's place there wasn't going to be a teacher in that classroom and so I I do do feel you know that that I made a difference I also I mean I it wasn't just teaching I also began uh introduced volleyball and basketball to to the kids I mean they mainly played soccer I mean that was the you know the sport and uh so they they they came a little bit kicking and you know and to that but no no pun in to volleyball and to uh and basketball so and then I
also started a school newspaper so you made a difference I feel I did I although I mean what Al often happens is with the with the peace score we we went to change the world you know back back then in the early 60s not that it's changed I mean in in terms not the world hasn't changed but but the thing is it's not like it's different today people join the it's still there's still a peace SCP people still join for a lot of different reasons but we changed the world and we went we we joined the peace courp to changed the world and as so
often said and it changed us because I I started that started me on a path that I've kind of followed the rest of my life so when you come home now what are you going to do I had an offer from um Joseph A banks Joseph A banks started in Baltimore I mean Joseph Banks uh P had passed away his son Howard who was our parents my parents generation uh had two sons they were part of a boys club that I was a junior advisor to in high school and the banks got to know me and like me and and Howard Banks called me in
and said Allan you know um we'd like to kind of offer you a job to come to work at Joseph A Banks and but that's not where I was heading although I think about how successful Joseph A banks is today I mentioned I started a school newspaper and and it was kind of it got me really interested in journalism so what I thought I'd like to do when I came home was to be a a foreign correspondent to travel the world I mean as a as a newspaper reporter so when I came home I got a job as as a working for a Hearst paper
in in Baltimore because I came back to Baltimore then I had to go off to this to 6 months of active duty and when I came back I I went to work for paper called the btim were sun and where there might have been opportunity to become a foreign correspondent but there were a lot of men and women who were ahead of me I mean who were my age but but they had started already in newspaper work so I wasn't going to kind of get there so I I wound up going to a television station to talk to them about perhaps getting into documentary uh
this was in the mid late 60s and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time and they were looking to start a magazine of the air in Baltimore uh at the westing house owned station this was preceding first Tuesday in 60 minutes Westinghouse was very experimental back then so they they they started something like like that we did a pilot uh and they weren't happy with it they had hired people from around the country they hired me as a reporter uh from Baltimore who who knew the city it was born and raised there so there one other guy and I
who producer writer right yeah so that's that's the skill that I brought I mean I wasn't you know in front I wasn't in front of the camera yeah yeah now now when did you meet your wife during this television job I went with a group of guys and it was a cameraman another producer director myself went to do research at the Maryland Port Authority and Cynthia my wife Cynthia salsman uh was was there doing public information for the Maryland Port Authority and um she uh she she met us she took us around and uh I I had heard her name before it's kind of interesting
uh the the city editor for the for the son was a guy named Ernie imhof Ernie imhof taught a a Class A journalism class at the University of Baltimore and he had mentioned to me he said Alan i' really you know I have in my class this very pretty enthusiastic Jew Jewish girl uh from Baltimore and you might be interested in in in meeting her I said I'm not interested Ernie I sort of left that part of Baltimore even though I was living in Baltimore I left that part of she was from this part of Baltimore it was It was kind of Jewish Prejudice you
know I I left that part of Baltimore you know when when I went off to college into the Peace Court so thank you but no thanks well it was that person that that that I met so Cynthia asked me out out and um she asked me out to a to a con a concert I thought she was inviting me to a a play and it was actually to this to this con concert I said no okay that I couldn't go there was a bar in downtown Baltimore she was living downtown and so was I I was there with some friends and I'm sitting there and
I'm smelling what I think is someone smoking grass in in in this bar restaurant and I no that's that's not really possible I mean um so I go I but I recognize the guy so I go over to talk to him and Cynthia is the one who was with him smoking this lettuce leaf cigarette so I mean she wasn't smoking grass I mean but uh in any case we saw kind of saw each other again there so then I invited her out and she she turned me down and you know so but then we we finally got to together and uh that was in '
68 and we married in ' 69 yeah so U it's not a smooth story about how we met but it it's it's pretty close I think now you were in the service during the Vietnam War I was and you didn't have to go to Vietnam uh H how did you see the the country back then how was it to you with Vietnam going on and the turbulent times we were having well I said when I went into the Peace Corp in 1963 there were about 18,000 American soldiers in Vietnam when I was coming out in 1965 there were about 125,000 I mean the war had
really been escalating well it really kind of upset me that we were involved because what I read and heard the the Vietnamese whom we were there to save I felt like I'm I knew them the people I knew were black and they were farmers they were peasants they were just trying to eek out a living they didn't care whether there was communism or capitalism they were just there trying to survive and what I saw the same thing was happening in Vietnam we were intervening in a place where most of the people didn't care whether they were communist or whether they were capitalist they were just
trying to kind of survive M uh so I was really kind of anti-vietnam from from a distance so I I I had some serious thoughts about coming back I knew I'd be drafted I mean the peace score was just an you know a deferment it wasn't an exemption so um but I you know I came back I mean I I spent two years away I really missed being in in America so I came back but for me I was able to get into I mean I was going to be in an induction pretty quickly and I was able to join a reserve erve unit and
I spent 6 years you know five 6 months on active duty uh several months after I joined and then another 5 and A2 years going to meetings once a month on on a week week night and then during the summer spending two weeks at at one what brought you to Dallas cynthy and I were living in Vermont uh I was writing the Great American as yet unpublished novel Cynthia was writing the Great American as yet unproduced screenplay and since we weren't independently wealthy we were living on a friend's Farm a 500 Acre Farm in Vermont it was ideal our daughter was born there in 1972
uh but we started to run out of money and we weren't independently wealthy um so and we had been traveling for a while and so it been a 2-year period where we were traveling this was the early '70s traveling and then living in Vermont and both of us applied around you know Cynthia in the area of public information public relations me you know because I had been in television I I applied to public television stations I thought maybe rather than commercial television public television so I I applied around and K here in Dallas uh said they they'd be very interested so cyy and I uh
took our daughter to Baltimore uh where she stayed with with family and we flew to Dallas got off at Lovefield out of the plane and got a taxi from Lovefield down Harry hindes to to K okay this was driving down Harry Hines Boulevard having come from Vermont we sort of looked at each other and said wait a minute I this ain't Vermont you know do we really want to be here but I had a really good interview at the station I lik the people that I met but we figured we'd just be here for a couple years you know I mean I would finish the
novel she would finish the screenplay it would get produced and then we'd find our ideal place to live right well that that that was 40 years ago you know so here we are we're we're still here I stayed at k for about k for about 5 years yeah so that cynthy and I could then uh work together um now in your lifetime was there an invention that came along that you went wow how' we ever get along without this well it's not so much an invention but the the the the airplane I mean the first time I was on a plane was was was you
know when I was leaving to go from from Idle Wild airport uh Idol wild is now JFK but it was called Idol wild airport back then and so that was the first time I'd been on a plane so this is 1963 so you know you know so that was a pretty major adventure for me um something else the electric toothbrush yeah yeah AB pretty major deal you know I I didn't have to expend as much energy brushing my teeth um the computer of course you know I mean I wrote this 400 and some page still un you know unpublished novel on an Underwood typewriter I
didn't take typing in college or in high school so it was hun you know PE yeah I resisted the electron in the electric typewriter I didn't I wouldn't use one but then finally I went kicking and screaming to the computer as you look back are you just thrilled with everything or is there that one movie you haven't made yet that you're just wish you had had the opportunity to make or is it still out there waiting for you that unpublished novel that I referred to earlier well I came to Dallas and settled in to to K working and I converted that novel into a screenplay
I thought maybe that's where I should be heading with this uh so I made it into a screenplay and it it's it's been sitting there now for for 10 15 years so I've been thinking about maybe trying to convert it it's it you know we raise money to do the films most of the films that we make we're occasionally commissioned we don't really solicit that but we know we get commissioned occasionally to do a film that we want to make and a feature film is just a whole different ball game I mean we set up nonprofit so either foundations or individuals can do it you
know individuals as a as a tax deduction if they want foundations can only you know uh fund nonprofits of 501c3 so that's where our expertise has been you know the investment hasn't been successful I mean the investment Pursuit has not been successful we tried a little bit of it so you know it's intimidating to me to to think and try trying to raise that kind of money uh for for for for the future but I still want to do documentary I don't think about retiring I I love making films I mean I think films can make a difference in people's lives you know if you
get it to the right people and that's what we did in 78 when we set up media projects we did it to not only produce but to distribute I mean if we do a film about depression and suicide among young people 15 to 24 it's not good enough to to finish the film let it air on television to get an award or awards for it and not present it to people or deliver it to people who can benefit from it you know so that's basically what we what we've wanted to do so um you know that's that's important to me and I guess it a
lot of it all began in the Peace Corp where I do think you know listen I didn't change the world but I made some changes that I think benefited the society in which I lived and I still think that film the films that we make you know for the most part you know can can can make a difference in in some in some way so that so that feature film though is is like I you know that it sounds um it just takes so much money it takes a different type of discipline happiest time in your life it's not not happiest there happy times in
my life a happy time in my life has happened in the last 14 months when our daughter had a baby and we now have a 14 and 1/2 month old uh grandson and I I I love having a grandson he's just I I never thought I would enjoy grandparenthood I mean I listen to other grandparents talk about having grandchildren and I listen politely and I'd leave and I'd say to Cynthia if she were there oh it sounds like it would be fun and then he arrived and I held him in my arms and there was just this kind of magical connection between me and my
grandson and I just love being with him most of the time you know and and that's one of the nice things about being a grandparent you know as you've heard you know if you don't have grandchildren you know you've heard you you can return them to to to the to the parents but just seeing the world through him is just a real Joy a real pleasure so that is you know but there's there's so many the Peace Corp I mean I mean it was at times very very frustrating and very boring but overall it was just you know an important part of my life my
you know the marriage to to Cynthia I mean uh the birth of my daughter in 1972 now in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions of course the Vietnam War era uh that whole turbulent time in the 60s President Kennedy assassination something good in the 60s the moonlanding in 69 of course the tragedy of 9/11 was there something in your lifetime that on the national scene that really stood out that affected you that you really took notice of yeah I mean the assassination of President Kennedy I was in Sierra Leone West Africa MH in the Peace Corp in November of 1963 now you
have to understand that he was he was President Kenny was assassinated in November of 1963 I I can remember as so many people can where where they were that day I remember you know I can remember vividly where I was uh also understand that I was in the Peace Corp I mean because of John Kennedy I mean just two years earlier he had formed the Peace Corp so I mean he had a a tremendous impact on on my life or what was going to be you know two years of my life so that you know was a very strong you know uh affection that that
I had and and for the next two years I mean I would go to even some remote villages in in sier Leon and there on the wall would be a picture of JFK I mean and and sier leonian would tell me how sorry they were you know at what happened to President Kennedy so he he he would be you know a very important part of you know that that that incident um it I it's hard not to have lived through 9/11 to not feel you know the the repercussions of 9/11 and what's resulting from from from 9/11 you know uh a a jihadist movement M
I think that scares me you know uh not just as a Jew but you know as as as a citizen of the world I think you know there's a different uh plan you know and it and and it includes you know something that I don't believe in you know so I think 9 9911 would have that that kind of impact um yeah I I think the Kenedy assassination I'd have to say would probably be the strongest you and uh your wife have one daughter and the one grandson what advice does Granddad want to leave to the Next Generation Um one thing it's not direct answer
to that question but I think one thing I'm 72 I really want to be able to kind of to see my grandson grow into young adulthood well is that 19 20 21 years old that puts me at around n you know 90 years old I I hope I can make it to see him grow into that so so that's one kind of wish now and I I hope that my grandson you know will be adventurous risk-taking uh curious about the world I also hope that he might play uh professional football and give me free tickets you know to to the to the game you know
uh and I'd like him to be a quarterback because right now I'm already kind of throwing the ball with him he doesn't catch he but he can throw he has a really good arm so to me maybe that if if my grandson but I don't want him to play just that I also want him to be able to play guitar in a successful kind of rock band I'd like him to be an artist you know the same level of like a Picasso not the same personality necessarily so so I have kind of you know great you know aims and goals for my grandson uh I
want him to be able to just explore the the world more than Cynthia I thought that maybe I'd like to kind of to move you know I'm not sure when we we' never thought you know exactly when but we've talked about other places that we might like to to go and uh once he was born I mean I ain't going nowhere other than Dallas as long as my daughter's here because I really want to to be able to to have contact and see him a lot and I'm it's a strangest feeling to to feel to feel that way to have this connection thanks for doing
this man you did a great job I bet you tell that to all the guys yeah thank you