The Mayor of Third Street : Brian Bialick has found fame and lots of friends in his neighborhood. And after he was brutally attacked, they helped restore his will to live.

Brian Bialick’s mother calls her son “the original Forrest Gump.” Others know him as “the Mayor of Third Street.”

He is not a millionaire shrimp-boat captain, like the big screen Gump; nor has he ever been elected to office.

But Bialick, 39, developmentally disabled and blind in one eye, has made his mark on the world.

His stout build, thick glasses and exuberant voice are known not only to folks who frequent the shops on Third Street in West Hollywood, but to anyone who has recently caught a commercial for Little Caesar’s pizza.

Bialick stars in the “Focus Group” campaign, playing a researcher who queries everyone from aging war veterans to opinionated orangutans on how to improve a pizza.

“That was a lot of fun,” says the star in his short, explosive style of speech between sips of coffee in a cafe where everyone knows him. He comes across as the happiest man on Earth.

But Bialick’s buoyant nature belies a life full of struggle and courage.

In December, he was mugged and beaten for the second time in two years on Third Street, where he has carved out a niche running errands, helping passersby with packages and watching the time on shoppers’ parking meters.

The attacker got little from his victim’s wallet, but left Bialick’s good eye bruised and bloodied. The attack also left family and friends worried about the viability of Bialick’s lifelong dream to be part of the mainstream.

“Brian loves people,” says Sylvia Bialick, his mother. “He’s so trusting. He’s vulnerable.”

Friends on Third Street wondered if “the Mayor” would ever be back. If so, would he be different? They showed their support by festooning parking meters and telephone poles with yellow ribbons.

“Brian is wonderful,” says shop owner Dolores Vinci. “He’s friendly, outgoing, and he likes to make people feel good. He looks after everybody. Every community, every street needs a Brian.”

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Bialick has worked hard for that kind of acceptance. Encouraged by his parents to be independent, he spent much of his youth riding buses to various Hollywood boys clubs. When the people at one club forgot his name, Bialick vowed never to return. And he didn’t.

At Fairfax High School, he split his time between mainstream and special ed classes. Although his words sometimes get caught in a repetitive loop, he delights in conversations with friends as well as strangers.

“Some people are at first intimidated,” Vinci says. “They see him just standing in front of the store and they’re not sure. You have to explain he’s part of us.”

He has always been sensitive to the way others perceive him.

“He knows when people are looking at him or talking down to him,” says sister Shari Ilene Bialick Rosemblat. “And he doesn’t have a problem with telling people they’re not his mother or father and they can’t tell him what to do.”

After completing a two-year program in basic living skills, Bialick settled into a studio apartment off Third Street, two blocks from his parents’ home. He participated briefly in a workshop for the disabled, stuffing plastic spoons and forks into see-through plastic envelopes.

“He hated it,” says Sylvia Bialick. “He’s a people person. He wanted to be out with people.”

So Bialick quit and the next morning took his place on Third Street. That was eight years ago. By 1993 he had become such an institution that at a neighborhood AIDS benefit, he was introduced to Mayor Richard Riordan as “the Mayor of Third Street.” The two addressed each other as “Mr. Mayor” and enjoyed, by all accounts, a thoroughly diplomatic (if brief) conversation.

The year before, Bialick had suffered a brutal beating on Third. The three youths who battered him didn’t take anything. Apparently they simply didn’t like the way Bialick looked.

But any lingering anxiety was shoved aside by what Bialick says has been the high point of his life, the television commercial.

It happened like this: Bialick and friend William Seymour, an actor, were strolling Third Street last July when a roving camera crew asked Seymour if he would audition for a pizza commercial. Seymour, already cast in a rival promo, passed. Bialick, however, eagerly volunteered.

The next day, Seymour escorted Bialick to a callback, where his unaffected, down-to-earth charm disarmed everyone. It didn’t take long until Bialick was the official choice.

“He has sweetness, an earnestness,” says Cliff Freeman, head of the New York agency behind the campaign. “I think he has a lot of appeal.”

Of the 100 or so actors Freeman worked with last year, he chose only three to submit for Clio nominations (the ad world equivalent of an Oscar). One of those was Bialick.

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The TV spot, however, gave Bialick something more valuable.

“For the first time, people were interested in talking to Brian right off the bat,” Seymour says. “It gave people a context to come up to Brian, rather than Brian always coming up to them. It turned the tables. There was something beautiful about that.”

From the Beverly Center to Las Vegas, people flocked to Bialick, asking for autographs and requesting he repeat lines from the ad. Says Vinci: “His self-esteem went through the roof.”

But even though he savored the attention, Bialick didn’t go Hollywood. The star answered any kidding about his leaving Third Street for a big future with a stern, “No way.”

“He’s very honest and very real,” Seymour says. “In L.A. that’s a very valuable thing.”

Life seemed perfect. Until the attack.

Night had just fallen. Fascinated by police and even given to speaking in cop lingo, Bialick had long taken it upon himself to make sure the Third Street merchants got to their cars safely after closing. That done, Bialick was on his way home. The attacker, as Bialick remembers, jumped him, snatched his wallet, repeatedly smashed his face into the asphalt, and snarled, “I hope you lay here and die.”

After receiving 10 stitches around his good eye, Bialick moved back in with his parents, where, depressed, he kept a low-profile. His eye soon became swollen shut. Believing himself blind, Bialick muttered to his family, “This is too much. I want to die.”

But friends and family across the country rallied around him, calling and streaming in for visits. In addition to tying yellow ribbons, Third Street merchants organized a community defense program and lobbied the Police Department for a walk-in station.

All of this heartened “the Mayor.” With his eye healing, Bialick began making trips to Third Street again--to visit clothing boutique owner Wendy Freedman-Borsuk and make suggestions on her wardrobe for the week, to seek the advice of Wendy’s husband, Neal, in balancing his checkbook. (Although he has an almost uncanny recall of phone numbers, Bialick is often stymied by math problems.)

With Seymour by his side, he even ventured out to another commercial audition and made it to the callback.

Finally, in the middle of January, despite his mother’s uneasiness, Bialick moved back into his own apartment.

The greetings from friends and neighbors were warm and hearty, but Bialick bears scars, physically and emotionally. At the mention of the mugging, his enormous smile turns to a deep frown. He clams up and shrinks into any available corner. “It’s made him leery,” Vinci says.

Nonetheless, “the Mayor” is back. He’s considering carrying pepper spray, if a police officer will teach him how to use it. He says he’s trying to “look around when I’m out and be more aware.” His sister wants him to get a dog.

In the meantime, merchants on Third escort him to his front door every night at dusk. Once he’s in, he stays in. His once-frequent dinners at Jans Restaurant--where he used to josh with waitresses, cops and other regulars by name--are a thing of the past.

“He can’t walk the streets after dark,” his mother says. “He told me he feels like a prisoner. Can you blame him? But what else can you do?”

Show biz, however, didn’t give Bialick much time to wallow. He landed a role as a professor in a tongue-in-cheek radio campaign for a Michigan power company. But this taping didn’t go as smoothly as the Little Caesar’s shoot. Bialick struggled with the script’s made-up Latin words.

Then, late in the day, old pal Seymour showed up. Ecstatic to see a familiar face, Bialick found his second wind and soon had the ads in the can.

“It turned out pretty good,” he says, relieved. “But I think I’d like to take a month off from commercials.”

At the moment, ensconced in his apartment cluttered with Frank Sinatra cassettes and notebooks, Bialick is joyously ripping through his mail. With the envelopes all opened and the contents dissected, talk turns to the pile of notebooks. They’re full of phone numbers of the many people across the country Bialick has befriended. He keeps in touch with every one.

“One of the most important things in life is friends,” he says. “As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anything more important. I have quite a few friends. . . . My life is pretty good. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Then he is off composing a brief speech. One of the shop owners is throwing a birthday bash. And the Mayor of Third Street has been invited to be the master of ceremonies.