Alan Mandell appreciation: The heart of L.A. theater and a friend

It’s hard to describe the magnitude of the loss of Alan Mandell, an actor whose legacy extends beyond the memory of his many fine performances on our stages. For decades, he was, quite simply and quite profoundly, the heart of Los Angeles' theater community. Mandell, who died Tuesday at his home in Westwood at 98, made the most of his golden years, which was the period of his life when I knew him, first as someone who wrote about him and later, after he entered what was an extraordinarily active period of retirement, as the recipient of his warm friendship. During COVID, he and his great friend, Phyllis Moberly, who had left her post at Center Theatre Group’s publicity department, drove by my home to sing "Happy Birthday,” knowing that I was suffering, as all of us were, from the alienation of those social-distancing times.