Part II : Childhood Tidbits from Bronx Raised Celebrities

Photo by Alan Kotok

Alan Alda

Hawkeye Pierce was quite the lady’s man on MASH, and because of his background, maybe that was an easy transformation for the Bronx raised actor. His father Robert worked in vaudeville and burlesque so young Alan often had a seat backstage. "My earliest memories are standing in the wings watching my father singing, while the chorus girls danced half-naked. And then the chorus girls would take me up to their dressing rooms and they sort of made me their mascot," he told Martin Bashir in a 2005 20/20 interview.

Inevitably, the girls would disrobe, but always insisted that he turn around. Still, the subtleties did not go over the toddler’s head. "I could smell the perfume and the sweat and I can hear them changing their clothes behind me. And I'm 2-and-a-half, 3-years-old. And you might think this doesn't make an impression on a kid that age. It does. It does,” Alda continued for Bashir on ABCNews.go.com.

We know. We know Hawkeye... Life did get a lot more serious, though. At seven years old, Alan contracted polio and wrapping his legs in scorching hot blankets was the treatment. “I would scream and beat the bed with my first,” Alda remembered.

Fortunately, the Emmy Award winning actor came away unscathed. However, the difficulties weren’t over, and his mother's paranoid schizophrenia definitely tried the boy. "She thought people were trying to kill her. She thought I was trying to kill her. She thought I was trying to kill her very often," Alda said.

The illness induced significant trauma for Alda and required skilled navigation. "In order to survive, I had to watch very carefully what was happening. What was that look in her eye? Was she telling me about something that was really taking place, or was this a psychotic fantasy," he told Bashir.

But the tragedy did have an upside and translated to his future life. "It made me super aware of what was going on around me, and I think eventually that was helpful to me as an actor and as a writer, because even when I'm on the stage, I'm focused on the other person," he said.

In turn, we’ve become the lucky ones, because our eyes have been on him ever since.

Penny Marshall

The Odd Couple, Laverne and Shirley, A League of their Own - it’s not hard for Penny Marshall to pinpoint the source of her sense of humor. "You were a miscarriage, but you were stubborn and held on," Marshall conveyed her Mom’s words to Ashley Lee of the Hollywood Reporter.

One of many Mom lines from Marshalls book, My Mother was Nuts, but learning to speak and survive her mother’s invasive language was a painful journey for the young Bronx girl. "Those words are implanted in your soul, unfortunately. It's just the way it was. You had to learn at a certain age what sarcasm is, you know,” she told Lee.

So she dreaded spending her days at the Marjorie Marshall Dance School, where the director’s inclusive mindset wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “Everyone should have a shot at the spotlight -- " 'even the fat girls,' Penny recalled for Lee.

Of course, laughter often hides pain and the business was Majorie’s outlet. “She lived at that dancing school, and it saved her life. It gave her something to do that she loved when they had a bad marriage -- and I got the brunt of that. But they never got divorced. Back in that day, divorce was unpopular,” asserted Marshall.

Thus, there was a long estrangement, but once again, a difficult upbringing shined the light of a brilliant star on the rest of us.

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