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'Candid Camera' host Allen Funt dead at 84

Associated Press Arizona Daily Wildcat Allen Funt, creator and the original host of the television show "Candid Camera," is shown in this 1977 file photo. Funt died at his home in Pebble Beach, Calif., Sunday, Sept. 5, 1999, at the age of 84.

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 here of complications from the 1993 stroke that forced him into retirement, the show reported in a statement.

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 yesterday.

Funt is survived by his five children.

''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 tip-off.

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.

The show was a precursor of reality-genre television shows such as ''Cops'' and ''World's Most Dangerous Animals.''

''People toss around the word pioneer all the time, but Allen Funt was really one of those rare people who was a pioneer. He created what has become an entire programming genre,'' said Michael Naidus, a spokesman for CBS-TV.

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 (''Fried Green Tomatoes'') in the 1970s. A young Woody Allen appeared in some early shows.

The TV program was born of Funt's ''Candid Microphone,'' a radio show the New York native originated after his Army service in World War II. He was working as an artist for an ad agency but looking for a different job.

''I learned the power of radio watching Eleanor Roosevelt do her show,'' he recalled in a 1987 interview with The Associated Press. ''I used to go up to Hyde Park and hold her papers. I was just a messenger, but it planted the bug of radio in me.''

''I got my hands on an old wire recorder that was the forerunner of tape recorders,'' Funt said. ''That's how it began. In those days, we had to lug around these enormous recorders and camera equipment and find a place to conceal them.''

The show had its television premiere, still called ''Candid Microphone,'' on ABC in 1948. It bounced from one network to another in its early years, eventually getting picked up by CBS in 1960 for a seven-year run. In 1960-61, it was the seventh-best rated show in the nation.

A syndicated version ran from 1974-78. In the 1989-90 season, CBS aired a number of ''Candid Camera'' specials featuring Funt and son Peter as co-hosts.

In 1991, Funt produced a new version with comedian Dom DeLuise as host.

Throughout the years, Funt was never trapped by a hidden camera.

''When I'd travel, a location station might try it,'' he told the AP. ''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.