Hal Stein, 87, was a longtime radio marketing director and respected by all

In more than 40 years as marketing director for the Princeton radio stations WHWH-AM and WPST-FM, Hal Stein made a lot of friends in the business. His wife said it was easy to see why.

“He was a very intelligent man, very low-key,” Sherry Stein said. “He was very good at marketing and doing the special promotions. He had the best sense of humor of anybody I’ve ever known in my life, a very dry sense of humor, which I loved. Without even knowing it, he could make people laugh.”

Mr. Stein, 87, of Langhorne, died Saturday, May 16, at Delaware Valley Veterans Home in Philadelphia of complications from the coronavirus.

Mr. Stein was originally from the Washington Heights section of New York City. He received his bachelor’s degree from New York University before joining the Army during the Korean War. After serving for two years, he earned his master’s at Stanford University.

He met his wife in 1986 at a promotional appearance for the radio stations, and the couple married the following year. It was a small wedding, but the entertainment — the singer Tiny Tim, Mr. Stein’s cousin — sent the guests home smiling.

“My friends thought it was the best wedding they ever attended,” Mrs. Stein said.

Mr. Stein’s work “was his life, and he absolutely loved it,” his wife said. He appeared on the AM radio station talking about movies and movie trivia, and earned the nickname “Hollywood Hal.” He produced shows for the disc jockeys and accompanied them on promotional trips to businesses throughout the area.

Some of the promotions included trips to Walt Disney World and Jamaica, and his wife accompanied him. Late in his career, the parent Nassau Broadcasting Co. honored him as “Mr. Nassau” with a two-week trip to Italy. Then, when he retired at 75, the company gave the couple a two-week cruise to Australia and New Zealand.

“They were very good to him, but he deserved it. He worked hard for all those years,” his wife said.

Mrs. Stein called her husband “an all-round perfect person."

“We never, ever fought,” she said. “In 34 years, we never had an argument. He never raised his voice. He never cursed. He just was the nicest person. That’s what everybody said about him. He always had a smile on his face, always polite. He was like an old-fashioned gentleman.”

In addition to his wife, Mr. Stein is survived by children Haddon and Adrian; stepchildren Dawn and Jason; and two grandchildren.

— Joe Juliano, jjuliano@inquirer.com