By Larry Teren
Baby boomers recall the popular television commercial from the 1960’s of Charlie the Tuna in cartoon form trying to convince fishermen that amphibians with good taste also taste good. If you aren’t aware, Charlie’s voice is dubbed by Hershel Bernardi. Bernardi’s other claim to trivia fame is a short-lived television series (48 episodes) called Arnie, in which he plays a typically put-upon husband at home who gets promoted from his blue collar to white collar job at work.
Hershel came from a theatrical family- in the Yiddish theater, that is. In 1971, his brother Jack authored a book about the life of their father Berel, a famous comic actor in the Yiddish circuit from the turn of the century until his death in 1932. Jack recounts a macabre incident when Berel took on a job for a short run in Toronto, Canada. Continue reading “The Suicide Club”