Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Allan Funt, 'Candid Camera' host, dies at home at age 84

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

Tuesday, September 7, 1999

Allan Funt, 'Candid Camera' host, dies at home at age 84
TV show coined phrase, 'Smile, you're on Candid Camera'
Associated Press

   PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. - Allen Funt, the television prankster whose "Candid Camera" thrived on America's willingness to laugh at itself and created a trademark phrase, has died. He was 84.
   Funt died Sunday at his home of complications from the 1993 stroke that forced him into retirement, representatives of the show reported in a statement.
   "Candid Camera," which aired off and on from 1948 to 1990 with Funt as host, secretly filmed people confronted with talking mailboxes or trick coffee cups. "Smile! You're on 'Candid Camera!' " was the victim's tipoff.
   Startled bowlers would see balls returned minus finger holes. A car would roll down a hill and stop, and passers-by asked to check on the trouble would find it lacked an engine.
   CBS now airs "Candid Camera," with Funt's son Peter Funt and Suzanne Somers as hosts, on Friday evenings.
   Funt himself appeared in many of the gags, along with such regulars over the years as Dorothy Collins (in the 1960s) and comedian and author Fannie Flagg in the 1970s. A young Woody Allen appeared in some early shows.
   Throughout the years, Funt was never trapped by a hidden camera.
   "When I'd travel, a location station might try it," he told The Associated Press. "But it's awfully hard to catch someone who does this for a living. . . . No, nobody ever really turned the tables on me."
   Funt was born in New York City and graduated from high school at age 15. He later earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
   After his stroke, Funt remained an inspiration to his family, Peter Funt said.
   "He endured many hospitalizations and treatments, yet did so with good spirit and a ferocious will to live," he said in a statement Monday.
   Funt is survived by his five children.

| Talk about this story | Next Story | Home |