Dr. Marvin and Marion Mandel

Golden Couples of the Palisades – 1946

Marion Hartman was lucky she had a pushy cousin, Monte Korn. He kept badgering his Tulane medical school classmate, Marvin Mandel, to call Marion and ask her out. Marvin finally did when he was home in Brooklyn over Thanksgiving in 1944. He didn’t worry about calling a girl he had never seen, since Korn had shown him her photo. Their date went well, and when Marvin returned for spring break in 1945, they dated every night. “I knew I was going to marry her,” he says. She agrees. “The two of us knew.” Marvin explains that the time was different then. World War II was nearly over and the sense of life was partnerships. Cousin Monte had not only showed a photo to Marvin, he had also sent one to the New York Transit authorities for their Miss Subway contest. They were so impressed with Marion’s beauty that they chose her as their winner for August 1945. Perhaps realizing that all of New York would soon be asking Marion out, Marvin asked her to marry him that same month. Both grew up in Brooklyn. Marion lived a block from the water and every Saturday rode her bike on the boardwalk beyond Coney Island to Seagate. Marvin lived in Borough Park and took a long subway ride to attend Boys’ High, which was considered one of the best high schools in New York. After being married on February 2, 1946, at the Eastern Parkway Jewish Center, they had a one-day honeymoon in New York City, before Marvin reported to Portsmith Naval Institute in Virginia for his medical internship. He was with the Navy for three years, after which the couple moved to Buffalo, where he started a two-year residency. Marion’s father bought an RV trailer and he and his wife started traveling around the country. When they were in the Canadian Rockies in the summer of 1949, they invited the Mandels out for a visit. The couple drove out, but didn’t take enough money along. By the time they reached Billings, in that age before credit cards and ATMs, “we didn’t have a dime in our pockets,” Marion recalls, “and we had a young child in the back of the car.” Marvin called their banker in Buffalo, who wired them money, but in Billings, the man in the Western Union office didn’t want to give it to them, because he said he didn’t know them. They finally prevailed and continued their trip. “Many young people miss out on the spirit of adventure by focusing on how much money they think they need to make,” Marvin says. “The only question you have to answer is: ‘How many hours do you have to work to buy shoes?'” After Marvin’s third year of residency in Detroit in psychiatry, the Mandels moved to California in 1952 and Marvin opened an office in Westwood, where they looked for a home. “We couldn’t afford those places,” Marion says, “so we came to the Palisades. People thought we were crazy coming way out here.” They were one of the first 10 owners on Las Pulgas Road; no one was living in that area in 1952. “My father thought we were crazy to spend $24,500,” Marion says. “We moved in before the road bed was laid on Las Pulgas, so we used to walk down to Bienveneda through what became backyards of later homes,” Marvin said. “”Our house was at 1019 and I remember crying when I looked up the hillside to the north and east of the road and saw a bulldozer simply knock over a cluster of beautiful trees to make way for yet more homes.” “The Palisades was a very small town and everyone knew everyone,” Marion recalls. “When our third child was born, Mayfair Market sent flowers. When the kids had their tonsils out, the market delivered ice cream.” Marvin: “It was small-town living and it was wonderful. The community fought off developers and the oil companies. We had big meetings at the church and school.” In 1958, the Mandels purchased property in Rivas Canyon and built a new home. Over the years, Marvin kept moving his office closer to home, first at Barrington and Olympic, then San Vicente before creating a home office in 1990. At age 83 he claims he’s now “almost” fully retired. He remains an emeritus clinical professor at UCLA, where he has been a faculty member since 1953, a member of the board, and founding president of the psychiatric clinical faculty association. He has held all the major offices of the Psychiatric Society Institute. Meanwhile, Marion was busy with their three children: Michael, who is now a psychiatrist in Seattle; Francine, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has two girls; and Carol, who lives in Washington, D.C. Active in Palisades schools, Marion helped start a foreign student exchange program at Palisades High. She also worked with Shirley Windward, a teacher at Paul Revere (and a founder of the Windward School), to further the cause of integration before it became court-ordered. They raised money to take children from the inner-city who had never flown or been to the beach to do both of those things. Marion also studied life drawing with noted artist Arnold Meshes. “I was determined to become Picasso,” she says. Now, she’s studying Japanese water color painting, at which she displays true talent. Her paintings are detailed, and the depth of color makes her more than a hobbyist. The Mandels, who celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1996 by traveling around Europe, marked their 60th by having dinner with family and friends. How did they make their marriage work? “Tolerance, patience and love,” they both answer. “Understanding each other, thinking the best of each other’all of the things that seem to be in short supply in our narcissistic society,” Marvin says. “Clich’s,” says Marion, explaining that “too many people use the words but they don’t practice them.” “I think it’s a cultural change that’s happened,” Marvin says, “Searching for love makes marriage difficult; it’s harder to commit.”