Ludlum started arguably America's first theater to operate in a
shopping mall - the Playhouse on the Mall in the Bergen Mall shopping
center in Paramus, New Jersey - in the early 1960s, years before
discovering his fiction-writing calling. Some of the actors he imported
for the venture were
Margaret Truman and
Farley Granger ("Sweet Bird of Youth"),
Bert Lahr ("Harvey"),
Chester Morris ("The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial"),
David Wayne
("Send Me No Flowers") and
Burt Brinckerhoff ("Five-Finger Exercise"). Among the first season's apprentices were
Gary Houston, Harriet Hyman and Dennis Metnick.