Mortimer V. Halpern

Mortimer V. Halpern (May 12, 1909 – January 3, 2006) was an American actor and production stage manager whose Broadway career spanned approximately 60 years and encompassed more than 45 productions. Born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish immigrants Harry and Rose Halpern, he grew up in that borough and worked as a pharmaceutical salesman in his early years. His father, originally from Russia, was employed as a garment cutter in New York, while his mother, who had been born in Austria, later worked as a sewing machine operator at a dress factory following her husband's death.

Halpern made his Broadway debut on May 13, 1930, playing Murray Codner in Kith and Kin, a three-act play written by Wallace A. Manheimer that opened and closed at the Waldorf Theatre on the same date. His next Broadway appearance came fourteen years later with the 1944–1945 musical revue Sing Out, Sweet Land, directed by Walter Kerr and staged at the International Theatre on West 59th Street. The production featured Alfred Drake and Burl Ives, and Halpern served in it both as a chorus performer and as assistant stage manager. The following year he worked as stage manager for the Theatre Guild Shakespeare Repertory Company, where he met actress Jennifer Howard, daughter of Sidney Howard and Clare Eames; the two married but later divorced before Howard remarried in the summer of 1950. Halpern subsequently married actress and Broadway stage manager Sherry Lambert.

As a production stage manager, Halpern worked on a substantial number of notable Broadway productions. These included Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan with Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff, Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952 and New Faces of 1956, The Disenchanted with Jason Robards Sr., Jason Robards Jr., and George Grizzard, and The Andersonville Trial with George C. Scott. He also served as production stage manager on Rhinoceros with Zero Mostel, I Had a Ball with Buddy Hackett and Richard Kiley, Purlie with Cleavon Little and Sherman Hemsley, In Praise of Love with Julie Harris and Rex Harrison, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom with Charles S. Dutton and Theresa Merritt. His final Broadway production was The Cemetery Club in 1990, a play that was later adapted into a film of the same title.

Beyond his Broadway work, Halpern spent 23 off-seasons as stage manager for Guy Lombardo's summer musicals at the Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York. A rule change in 1958 made him eligible to hold a dual role, and he became the first stage manager to serve simultaneously as an Actors' Equity representative, doing so during a 1959 production of Song of Norway. At the time of his death at age 96 in New York, Halpern was regarded as the dean of Broadway stage managers. He was survived by his wife, Sherry Lambert.