Handman grew up in the Inwood neighborhood in Upper Manhattan.Ryzik, Melena. "Nearly 60 Years and Counting, Working on the Art of Theater", The New York Times, May 20, 2007. "He grew up in Inwood, on a dirt road, fishing for crabs off a dock on Dyckman Street. "I had a country boyhood in Upper Manhattan," he said." Handman studied acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. In 1949 he created the role of Sentry Hallam in the world premiere of Louis O. Coxe and Robert H. Chapman's Uniform of Flesh; which later was retitled Billy Budd for its critically successful run on Broadway in 1951.
