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Allen Funt was an American television producer, director
and writer, best known as the creator and host of Candid Camera from the 1940s
to 1980s, as either a regular show or a series of specials. Its most notable
run was from 1960 to 1967 on CBS.
Funt
achieved a BA in Fine Arts from Cornell University in 1934 and studied business
administration at Columbia University. He began the show on ABC Radio in 1946
as Candid Microphone and soon experimented with a visual version by doing a
series of theatrical short films also known as Candid Microphone. These film
shorts served as a springboard for his entrance into television on August 10,
1948. In the 1963–1964 season, he appeared as an albino orangutan on the
episode, "Smile, Todd, You're on Candid Camera," of The New Phil
Silvers Show, starring comedian Phil Silvers as factory foreman Todd Deal. Funt
wrote several books, beginning with Eavesdropper at Large: Adventures in Human
Nature with "Candid Mike" (Vanguard Press, 1952). He followed Candid
Kids (Bernard Geis, 1964) with Candidly, Allen Funt: A Million Smiles Later
(Barricade Books, 1994). During the 1970s, Funt made two documentary films
based on the hidden camera theme: What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? (1970) and Money
Talks (1972). Funt also produced a syndicated version of Candid Camera from
1974 to 1979; his co-hosts included, at various times, John Bartholomew Tucker
and Jo Ann Pflug. In the 1980s, Funt produced a series of adult-oriented videos
called Candid Candid Camera. He amassed a collection of works by the Victorian
painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, but was forced to sell them just before the
painter's reputation revived and the prices of the paintings shot up. Born in New
York City, Funt lived for a short time in Westchester County, New York in Croton-on-Hudson.
His White Gates estate was sold to opera singer Jessye Norman in the early
1990s. Following a stroke in 1993, he became incapacitated and died in Pebble
Beach, California. Candid Camera continued with his son, Peter Funt, as host.
Source:
wikipedia