Jeff Manes: Schererville man making film on Shepherd
February 17, 2012 5:00PM
At a glance
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Updated: March 20, 2012 8:02AM
“Hohman, Ind., is located in the extreme northwestern corner of the state, where the state line ends abruptly in the icy, detergent-filled waters of that queen of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan. It clings precariously to the underbody of Chicago like a barnacle clings to the rotting hulk of a tramp steamer.”
— Jean Shepherd,
from his book “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.”
I met with Nick Mantis at his studio in Merrillville. Among many other media-related projects, he created the show “Around the Region,” which promotes Northwest Indiana in a positive way.
Mantis, 47, graduated from Lake Central High School and Indiana University Northwest. He lives in Schererville with his wife, Julie. They have two sons, ages 11 and 8.
Mantis recently embarked on a documentary about the life of late Hammond native, author and radio personality Jean Shepherd.
***
I remember an Angelo Mantis about your age who was a good basketball player for Lake Central. Is he your brother?
“No, probably a distant relative,” he said. “I believe it was Angelo’s father, also named Nick Mantis, who played in the (National Basketball Association) years ago.”
Lived in Schererville all your life?
“I’m from Hammond; we lived on State Street in between Calumet (Avenue) and Columbia (Avenue), then we moved to St. John. I would have gone to Hammond Tech, but it was closed the year we moved.”
Are you of Greek ancestry?
“My mother and father met at a bus stop in East Chicago. My father is from Greece and my mother is from Mexico. My father looks like Anthony Quinn, who was born in Mexico. My mother is very fair complected for a Mexican lady. When they first saw each other, my dad thought, ‘Hey, here’s this good-lookin’ Greek chick. My mother was thinking, ‘Here’s this good-lookin’ Mexican guy.’ ”
Sounds like love at first sight.
“My dad hit on my mom; he introduced himself in Greek, and my mother responded in Spanish. They didn’t know what the hell they were saying to each other; my father’s English was very poor.
“My mother was a telephone operator from Youngstown Sheet & Tube; she came here from Monterrey to learn how to speak English better via a couple she met from Whiting who were staying at the hotel she was working at in Mexico.”
The Whiting couple sponsored you mother.
“Exactly; that’s how she ended up in the region. I went from living in a very tough neighborhood near downtown Hammond to a new subdivision on the edge of the woods. I don’t know if you remember the Kmart incident.”
Yeah, back on May 28, 1985; that was horrible.
“I’m the guy who called the cops and showed them where the shooter was hiding. I also was shot at by that guy. My dad and the two cops flipped his body over and he died in front of them.”
Three innocent people also died in St. John that day. You were one of the lucky ones.
“The ironic thing, I had just pulled into our pizza place, it was called Marciano’s Pizzeria back then, and started talking to my father about a minute before it all happened. All of sudden, boom, boom, boom! It was coming from behind our pizza place. In Greek, my dad shouted, ‘Nick, he’s got a gun; he’s crazy!’
“My degree is in criminal justice; I learned that you can live in the richest, safest neighborhood or the poorest. Crime can happen to you at anytime or anyplace.”
You’ve been involved in television since high school.
“At the time, Lake Central had the only television station in Northwest Indiana. I had the good fortune to be selected as the hall monitor. I got to meet a lot of the Channel 56 people, and they became my friends.”
Other career paths?
“I worked for 10 years at various law firms in Chicago. The people I worked with would say, ‘You’re from Northwest Indiana and you work in Chicago?’ As if it were a three-hour hike to get there.”
So, in their minds, NWI was to Chicago what New Jersey was to New York City.
“Basically, what came out of their mouths was that we were steel workers and corn farmers.”
Nick, I’ve known some pretty good steel workers and corn farmers.
“Their image of us was very poor. I had to deal with people from all those ‘elite’ suburbs like Barrington and Winnetka.”
Local television?
“In 1998, I helped start ‘The Northwest Indiana Open House Show.’ It focused on local Realtors, real estate, builders and so forth. That’s what launched my television-media career. After two years of that, I realized the power of local television. The only other person to do anything like I was doing was Fred Halpern of Albert’s Jewelers.”
Fred’s a good man. Tell me about your documentary.
“Jean Shepherd influenced the lives of so many people, including Howard Stern, Hugh Hefner, Jerry Seinfeld and Donald Fagen. In New York, they consider Jean Shepherd (as they do) Mark Twain.
“You can go into to Flick’s Tavern in Hammond and ask, ‘Hey, do you know who Jean Shepherd is?’ And they’ll say, ‘Yeah, he’s that guy who wrote the movie ‘A Christmas Story.’ And that’s it.”
Shepherd was an incredible raconteur and a cult hero because of his radio program on the East Coast.
“That’s the purpose of my documentary — to show there was way more to Jean Shepherd than ‘A Christmas Story.’ I recently interviewed the author of the only book written about Jean Shepherd; his name is Gene Bergmann.”
What’s the book title?
“ ‘Excelsior, You Fathead: The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd.’ Last month, at the Paley Center for Media in New York, for the first time since Shepherd died in ’99; they held an official public remembrance of this great storyteller. It was an amazing event.
“I was the only person there from Northwest Indiana. I sat right next to Jerry Seinfeld; we had a great talk. He worshiped Jean Shepherd. It was surreal.
“Here’s these 300 New Yorkers who loved Jean Shepherd and loved his stories about Hammond, Ind. They became familiar with Hammond.”
About 10 years ago, for Christmas, my mother bought me Shepherd’s “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash” and “Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, and Other Disasters.” They’re hilarious.
“While driving to New York, I listened to his CDs that I got from the Lake County (Public) Library; I was in stitches. One of them is entitled, ‘Will Failure Spoil Jean Shepherd?’ ”
Without giving away too much, what were some of Shepherd’s favorite pastimes?
“Fishing and rooting for the Chicago White Sox.”
Do you have a narrator?
“I approached Jerry Seinfeld about it; he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”
Nick, if Jerry declines, I’ll do it for free.
“I appreciate that.”
Do you have a title?
“ ‘Shep.’ ”
***
The main thing is that someone is going to tell Jean Shepherd’s story on film.
But I’m elated it’s gonna be one of Shepherd’s home boys from “Hohman” makin’ the “Flick.”
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