Product Code Database
Allen Albert Funt (September 16, 1914 – September 5, 1999) was an American television producer, director, screenwriting and television personality, best known as the creator and host of Candid Camera from the 1940s to 1980s, as either a regular television show or a television series of specials. Its most notable run was from 1960 to 1967 on CBS.
Funt graduated from high school at age 15. Too young to attend college on his own, he studied at the Pratt Institute. He later earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Cornell University, studied business administration at Columbia University, and returned to Pratt for additional art instruction.
Drafted into the military during World War II and stationed in Oklahoma, Funt served in the Army Signal Corps, eventually making radio shows.
Funt soon experimented with a visual version by making a series of one-reel (10-minute) theatrical short films for Columbia Pictures. The series began in July 1948, as part of Columbia's "Film Novelties". Each film was called The Candid Microphone Boxoffice, July 31, 1948, p. 14. with the individual entries numbered. Unlike the TV version of the 1960s, where members of the production staff interacted with the unsuspecting victims, the Candid Microphone reels had Funt himself perpetrate all the stunts. The trade press enjoyed these shorts, which used a then-fresh format. The Exhibitor encapsulated a November 1949 release: "His first session is with a woman in an airline office who wants to buy a ticket to Denver. After he gets through, she almost decides to take the train. Next, he plays a clerk in a plumber's supply house, and tries to talk a character out of wanting to build a shower in a closet. The final sequence has him as adviser in the office of a honeymoon service, where he tries to sell a prospective bride a bill of the wrong goods." The reviewer gave this short one of the publication's rare "excellent" ratings. The Exhibitor, March 9, 1955, p. 3934. These theatrical shorts served as a springboard for Candid Camera, which premiered on television on August 10, 1948. The Candid Microphone shorts continued to play in theaters through 1956 and were reissued in the 1960s when Funt became a major television personality.
The show occasionally enlisted guest stars to participate in the stunts. Comedian Wally Cox, in character as a mild-mannered fussbudget, was shown earnestly trying to convince longshoremen to give up their hearty meat-and-potatoes dinners, and had them taste wheat germ and other health foods instead. Silent-era comedian Buster Keaton, always fond of practical jokes, made multiple appearances in the Candid Camera films of the early 1960s. He even supplied the show's famous tagline at the end of the broadcast: he stared at the camera and said with a deadpan expression, "Smile. You're on Candid Camera."
Funt became so synonymous with Candid Camera that whenever he appeared on other TV shows, his own show was always referenced. In 1964, he appeared as himself in an episode of the situation comedy The New Phil Silvers Show. Classic TV Archive The New Phil Silvers Show (1963-64)
CBS canceled both Candid Camera and What's My Line? in September 1967, although it did show Candid Camera reruns as a daytime show from 1966 to 1968.Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory of TV shows, 1946-Present, Ballantine Books, New York, 1979, p. 128.
Funt returned to network television in 1974, when ABC broadcast a Candid Camera retrospective but did not sponsor a series. Instead, Funt sold a new Candid Camera series for syndication to local stations. It was broadcast from 1974 to 1979. Funt was now the full-fledged host, and his co-hosts included John Bartholomew Tucker, Phyllis George, Jo Ann Pflug, Betsy Palmer, and Fannie Flagg.
In 1982 Funt returned to the racier, nude-models version of the format, offering an adult-oriented series called Candid Candid Camera. These programs were shown on cable TV and sold to home-video markets.
He established a foundation that used laughter therapy for seriously ill patients by providing videocassettes of Candid Camera episodes. He also taught psychology at Monterey Peninsula College.
On February 3, 1969, Funt, his wife, and his two youngest children boarded Eastern Airlines Flight 7 in Newark, New Jersey, with a destination of Miami, Florida. En route, two men hijacked the plane and demanded passage to Cuba. Some of the passengers, having spotted Funt, believed the whole thing was a Candid Camera stunt. Funt repeatedly attempted to persuade them the hijacking was real, to no avail. The plane landed in Cuba, finally convincing the passengers. Funt and the other passengers were released after 11 hours of captivity.
Funt resided in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. His estate, White Gates, was sold to opera singer Jessye Norman in the early 1990s. In the early 1970s, Funt purchased a ranch south of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, "where he raised Hereford cattle and " He later purchased the nearby Bixby Ranch where he resided. Both ranches were eventually bought by The Trust for Public Land, which expected to turn the land over to the United States Forest Service.
After a stroke in 1993, Funt became incapacitated. He died in 1999 in Pebble Beach, California, 11 days before his 85th birthday. Candid Camera continued with his son Peter Funt as host.
|
|
