Ida Engel, 98; After Late Start Became a Star of Commercials

As a child growing up near Temple Street in downtown Los Angeles in the days when movies were silent, Ida Engel would occasionally run into film companies shooting in the streets and dream of one day becoming a star like Charlie Chaplin or Mary Pickford.

Engel never reached those heights, but she did prove that if you live long enough in Los Angeles just about anything is possible.

Engel, who landed a Hollywood agent in her 90s and went on to appear in a string of commercials, including a current series for Holiday Inn in which she plays a laughing granny, has died. She was 98 and was one of the oldest working members of the Screen Actors Guild.

Engel died of natural causes Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Over the last five years, she appeared in more than a dozen commercials, including spots for Church’s Chicken.

In the three-part series of chicken commercials, she managed to burn down not just one but three houses--and the fire station next door to the third house--while frying chicken.

In the ongoing series of Holiday Inn commercials, she is seen as the grandmother of a demanding thirtysomething slacker who is still living in his parents’ home. The commercials always end with the punch line, “What do you think this is, the Holiday Inn?”

Then Engel would explode with laughter.

“It made you laugh when she laughed because it was such a funny laugh,” said Engel’s daughter, Ruth Zebrack. “I mean, she was a real comedian, my mother.”

Engel, a formally trained pianist and vocalist, always enjoyed being the center of attention.

The 4-foot-8 great-grandmother with the bubbly personality “would sing at the drop of a hat,” Zebrack said.

“Everywhere she went, she just brought down the house, this tiny little thing.”

For years, Engel had been the hit of local synagogues, senior citizen centers, convalescent hospitals, showers, bar mitzvahs and family gatherings, where she performed solo or with various groups.

Engel was a member of the Chansonettes choral group for more than 50 years. She also organized weekly talent shows at a senior center and served as emcee.

In 1985, she appeared on “The Gong Show,” winning first prize with a rousing rendition of her signature song, “Second Hand Rose.”

At 90, she appeared in the documentary “Young at Hearts,” about a group of eight Los Angeles women, all over 80 and all with upbeat attitudes about life.

The documentary filmmaking experience revived Engel’s old show-business aspirations. She joined a commercial acting class at the Claude Pepper Senior Center and landed an agent.

“My mother has always wanted to be a star all of her life, and she ended up a star, she really did,” Zebrack said. “They picked her up for these commercials in limousines, and they had a stand-in for her so she wouldn’t have to stand there with all the lights. They’d say, ‘Go get Ida. We’re ready to shoot.’ I mean, they just carried her around in a chair like a queen.”

The daughter of Russian immigrant parents, Engel moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of Winnipeg, Canada in 1907, when she was 4.

Home was on Victor Street in the Temple Street area. Her father, Harry Mandel, owned a clothing store on Main Street. Her mother, Bessie, was known for opening their house to immigrants from Europe and the East Coast.

At 15, Engel began serious piano lessons. After high school, she enrolled at UCLA--the campus at the time was still on Vermont Avenue. She studied music for two years, going to school in the mornings and working afternoons for a wholesale jewelry company downtown on 5th and Broadway.

In 1924, she married Murray Engel, a Czech immigrant who had stayed at the Mandel home after arriving in Los Angeles.

In her 40s, Engel began taking singing lessons. She performed whenever she could.

“I’ll tell you,” said Engel’s other daughter, Sylvia Zamel, “my mother performed because she loved it so much. She gave so much pleasure to everyone. She saw a smile on their faces and that’s all she asked in return.”

When Engel began auditioning for commercials in the mid-1990s, she wasn’t discouraged by her initial lack of success at auditions. “We kept saying, ‘What are you wasting your time for?’ She’d say, ‘I don’t care, I’m having the best time,’” Zebrack said.

On commercial sets, Engel was known to entertain cast and crew members by launching into “Second Hand Rose.”

Engel made her final Holiday Inn commercial six weeks ago. It aired for the first time in mid-April, the same day she went into intensive care for a a medical condition.

“It must have come on eight times that day,” Zebrack said. “Every time it would come on we’d wake her up. She’d say, ‘Be quiet. If you didn’t talk so much I could hear it.’”

In addition to her daughters, Engel is survived by five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. today at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Culver City.