California and the West : Allen Funt of 'Candid Camera' Dies : Television: Popular show that captured ordinary people reacting to his practical jokes was the first and longest running reality-based program.

By BETTINA BOXALL

Sept. 7, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Allen Funt, who made a lifelong career out of secretly filming ordinary people reacting to the bizarre and unexpected on his television show “Candid Camera,” has died at his ranch in Big Sur. He was 84.

Funt suffered a stroke in 1993 from which he never fully recovered. He died Sunday afternoon of complications from the stroke, CBS spokesman Michael Naidus said Monday.

“He was a tough guy,” Funt’s son Peter said in a statement released Monday. “When he suffered [the] stroke . . . doctors gave him a few weeks to live, perhaps a few months. Instead, he battled for more than six years--through many hospitalizations and treatments--with a ferocious will to live that was inspirational to me and the rest of our family.”

“Candid Camera” was at the height of its popularity in the 1960s, when it was rated as one of television’s top 10 shows. But the program’s appeal endured, and it continued to run in network specials and in syndication. Last year, Peter Funt brought it back as a weekly program on CBS.

The first and longest running reality-based comedy show, the program premiered on ABC in August 1948.

Funt’s formula was simple, if sometimes elaborately executed. Using hidden cameras and microphones, he would record unsuspecting members of the public responding to carefully contrived practical jokes and pranks.

An egg would be broken over a man’s head. Mailboxes would start talking. A locksmith would be called to remove chains from a secretary tied to her desk.

Someone would coast into a gas station and ask for service. But when the attendant lifted the hood, the engine would be missing.

As the bewildered subject stood with mouth agape, Funt would appear with his signature line, “Smile, you’re on ‘Candid Camera.’ ”

Unlike the dramas and sitcoms that dominated television, Funt’s show was rooted in the everyday--with a twist.

“Generations have been educated to accept the characterizations of the stage and screen,” Funt once wrote of the program. “Our audiences have to unlearn much of this to accept candid studies, although anyone can verify our findings just by looking around and listening.”

Funt was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 16, 1914, to Isidore and Paula Funt. His father, a diamond importer, was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States the year before.

The younger Funt skipped grades, graduating from high school at the age of 15. He attended Cornell University, waiting on tables to help pay the tuition. He planned to become an artist, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1934 and studied at Pratt Art Institute for a year.

Although his first job was in the art department of an advertising agency, his interest in radio quickly led him to become a “gimmick” man creating ideas for radio programs. He wrote and produced audience participation shows relying on gimmicks--a precursor to the televised “Candid Camera.”

One of the most successful shows was “The Funny Money Man,” in which a listener was paid an odd sum like 99 cents for an odd object such as the shirt off his back. Funt called it “the stupidest show on radio.”

During World War II, Funt served in the Army Signal Corps, where he moved further along the path to “Candid Camera.”

He was assigned to record soldiers’ messages to their families back home. But the men self-consciously hemmed and hawed during the sessions, so Funt started turning on the recorder early, catching them in the kind of unrehearsed spontaneity that became the hallmark of “Candid Camera.”

After the war Funt returned to radio and experimented with planting hidden mikes in public places. He soon realized that most of what he picked up wasn’t very interesting, even though he created the radio show “Candid Microphone,” which ran for two years on ABC.

He was inspired to become a prankster provocateur, according to a New Yorker magazine profile, when he was bugging a dentist’s office and a patient walked in, complaining of wisdom tooth trouble. Playing the dentist, Funt examined the woman and informed her that she didn’t have a wisdom tooth, prompting her angry departure.

It was a short leap from radio to television, and Funt soon launched a 15-minute televised version labeled “Candid Mike,” which Newsweek dubbed “the prying-eye version of his prying ear.” “Candid Camera” followed shortly after that.

Although the viewing public was happy to eavesdrop, Funt’s techniques also aroused criticism. Some accused him of making his subjects look ridiculous, of being sadistic and sneaky.

At the same time, his work found its way into academia. His films and tapes have been used in college courses in sociology, psychology and speech.

“I once asked him what he considered his proudest achievement,” Peter Funt noted of his father. “His answer: ‘To be able to go almost anywhere in the world and have people say, ‘Thanks, Allen. You made us smile.’ ”

In addition to his work on “Candid Camera”--in which he last appeared during a 1990 special--Funt wrote three books, produced 40 shorts for Columbia Pictures, made seven record albums and two films, including “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?”

He turned over his “Candid Camera” films and recordings to Cornell and established a fellowship in radio and television for minority students at Syracuse University.

In 1978 Funt moved from New York to an 1,100-acre ranch on California’s majestic Big Sur coast, where he bred horses, raised cattle and became an avid carpenter, making his own furniture.

He is survived by five children: Peter, Patricia, John, Juliet and William.

Memorial services will be private.

The family has requested that donations in Funt’s memory be made to the Laughter Therapy Foundation, which provides “Candid Camera” tapes to critically ill patients in hospitals around the country. The address is Box 827, Monterey, CA 93942.