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Hollywood 'Superman' Freezes Self To Death
By Robert Kistler

Washington Post-Los Angeles Times
News Service

HOLLYWOOD-The Superman of Hollywood is dead.

Police found him Tuesday, sitting in his apartment refrigerator-frozen stiff. He had been there about four weeks. The discovery clears up the disappearance of Arthur W. Mandelko, 24, a quiet, slightly built young man who, since last March, had waged a peculiar fight against crime.

Police now say Mendelko was one of Hollywood's oddest. Quite a distinction in this town. But, until Mandelko committed suicide, few people knew the extent of his strange world.

The story begins at its end: Tuesday afternoon, Peter D. Marchman, manager of the Bungalow Court apartments in which Mandelko lived, entered Mandelko's unit to inventory the contents. Mandelko had been officially evicted as of Sept. 3, but had remained after that with Marchman's permission. Then, Mandelko disappeared. The inventory was needed to Mandelko's possessions could be stored.

In the course of the inventory, Marchman went to the kitchen. He tried to open the refrigerator door, but it wouldn't budge. It has a magnetic seal and should have opened easily.

With the help of a neighbor, Marchman got the door open enough so he could see that a rope was holding it tight. He cut the rope and found Mandelko, fully clothed, sitting with his knees up to his chin. The dead man's hands held the rope, which the had tied to the inside of the refrigerator door.

Both rope and Mandelko were frozen solid.

The police were called and they found:

-A man-sized robot made of metal, cardboard, rags and tape. It was equipped with elaborate electronic devices, none of which seemed to work.

-In the closet were a police officer's uniform, complete with motorcycle helmet and boots, toy badge and bullets, and a cap pistol in a holster.

-A Superman suit. Red cape, high boots, skin-tight blue underwear stuit with the big red "S."

Acquaintances said Mandelko moved to Los Angeles from Chicago in March. During the day, he fiddled with electronic gear, took photographs of people in the neighborhood and subsisted on a diet of Cutty Sark Scotch and Hostess Twinkies.

His real world began at night. It was then that he donned his policeman's uniform and patrolled Hollywood streets-sometimes on foot, often on his small motorcycle. The cycle had once been equipped with a red light and siren, but police made him take the emergency gear off. In June, Mandelko told a detective that he maintained his "Police" patrols to protect the sleeping citizens and that his robot and other electronic gadgets were used to sniff out illicit drugs.

When his police equipment failed to quell the criminally inclined, Mandelko emerged from his apartment as Superman. "One of the reasons I had to ask him to leave," said apartment manager marchman, "was that the neighbors were complaining about the Superman bit. He'd climb on the roofs of the bungalows and jump from one to the other in that Superman outfit. People couldn't sleep. Everytime he jumped, he'd land with a 'thump' on the next roof."

Police took no action against Mandelko because he had no history of dangerous conduct. Also, after neighbors complained, he seemed willing to give up his nightly roof jumping. He combined his two identities. Recently, Mandelko, 5-6 and 120 pounds, had been seen leaving his apartment in his police uniform during daytime hours. But he wore the Superman suit underneath his police uniform.

Police began receiving reports from Hollywood pedestrians of a "guy in a Supuerman suit" jumping out at them from telephone booths. Photographs found in the apartment show Mandelko entering a phone booth in police garb, stripping off the uniform and emerging - arms above his head in Superman's "take-off" position.

"He tried and tried to make adult friends," Marchman recalled. "But most of his conversation was about comic book stuff. I don't think he was mentally retarded because there were times when he talked like an adult. He just seemed most happy when he was playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers with the neighborhood youngsters."