Biography

When Harry, an aspiring actor at the time, met future wife Marilyn Lewis, he confessed to her that he had two goals: to play Hamlet and to start a restaurant called Hamburger Hamlet as a hangout for the stars. They spent their first date looking for a location. A few days later she found the perfect spot for the original Hamlet on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. Neither could cook, but they opened their first Hamburger Hamlet in October of 1950 with their savings of $3500. By the mid-'80s, there were more than a dozen Hamlets, one in nearly every part of Los Angeles. They sold the chain in 1997 for $33 million.

Opened "Hamburger Hamlet" restaurant with his wife, Marilyn Lewis, in Hollywood in the late 1940s. It became famous and later expanded into an extremely successful chain.

They opened the famous Hamburger Hamlet chain in October of 1950 with their savings of $3,500; they sold the operation in 1997 for $33 million. Kate Mantilini's dinner house was part of that chain, but the Lewises bought back the restaurant five years later, and have since opened a second one in Woodland Hills (CA) in 2003. The name Kate Mantilini came from Marilyn. It was the name of her uncle's mistress during the 1940s.

Harry and Marilyn Lewis wed in Las Vegas two years after they opened the first Hamburger Hamlet.

Was Warner Bros. stock player during the war-era '40s, playing young soldier types, and later garnered brief notice in film noir, particularly as Humphrey Bogart's nemesis in Key Largo (1948).