Alan Abel | |
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_2.jpg) Abel in 2005 | |
| Born | Alan Irwin Abel (1924-08-02)August 2, 1924 Zanesville, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | September 14, 2018(2018-09-14) (aged 94) Southbury, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Ohio State University |
| Spouse | Jeanne |
| Children | 1 |
Alan Irwin Abel (August 2, 1924 – September 14, 2018) was an Americanhoaxer, writer, andmockumentary filmmaker famous for several hoaxes that becamemedia circuses.
Abel was born to a Jewish family inZanesville, Ohio, on August 2, 1924, and grew up in nearbyCoshocton, Ohio.[1] He graduated from theOhio State University with a Bachelor of Science in education. One of Abel's earliest pranks took place in the late 1950s; he posed as a golf professional who taughtWestinghouse executives how to useballet positions to improve their games.
Beginning May 27, 1959, with a story on theToday Show, theSociety for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), was Abel's most elaborate hoax. SINA's mission was to clothe naked animals throughout the world. They are best known today for theirtagline: "A nude horse is a rude horse". As a spokesman for the group,Buck Henry appeared as "G. Clifford Prout" on television and radio several times, including theCBS Evening News on August 21, 1962. Abel himself appeared onThe Mike Douglas Show to discuss the SINA mission.[2] The hoax began as a satire of media censorship, but took on a life of its own with sympathizers offering unsolicited contributions (always returned), citizen summonses for walking naked dogs, and sewing patterns for pet clothes. He orchestrated protests, such as picketing theWhite House in 1963 to demandJackie Kennedy's horses wear pants.[3]
He invented a fictionalhousewife named Yetta Bronstein who ran as awrite-in candidate forpresident of the United States in both 1964 and 1968. A member of "The Best Party", Bronstein ran with the slogan "Vote for Yetta and things will get betta" and a platform which included NationalBingo and asuggestion box in front of theWhite House.[2] Alan Abel and his wife Jeanne both performed as Bronstein for phone interviews, and a photo of his mother was used as the face on campaign posters.[2]
From 1966 to 1967, Abel wrote a weekly syndicated humor column "The Private World of Prof. Bunker C. Hill" that appeared in theSan Francisco Chronicle and several other newspapers.
Following theWatergate scandal, Abel hired an actor to pose asDeep Throat for a press conference in New York City before 150 reporters. Literary agent Scott Meredith offered $100,000 to buy the rights to his story. At the news conference, the Deep Throat impostor quarreled with his purported wife, then fainted and was whisked away in a waiting ambulance.
In the early 1970s, Abel appeared on the game showTo Tell the Truth with his head wrapped in bandages. This was not so that he would not be recognized, but so the panel would not identify his two imposters: well-known actorsLarry Blyden andTom Poston.
Abel wrote, produced, and directed twomockumentaries:Is There Sex After Death? (1971) andThe Faking of the President (1976).
Amid the economic recession of the 1970s, he announced Omar's School for Beggars to train professionalpanhandlers. As Omar, Abel was invited to numerous television talk shows, including theTomorrow Show hosted byTom Snyder and the shows ofMorton Downey Jr.,Sally Jessy Raphael,Mike Douglas, andSonya Friedman, who was especially upset because Omar ate his lunch on camera. The hoax was a satirical commentary on the rise of unemployment and homelessness in the U.S. Omar's TV appearances spanned from 1975 to 1988, though he had been exposed several times.
In 1980, Abel staged his own death from a heart attack near theSundance Ski Lodge. A fake funeral director collected his belongings, and a woman posing as his widow notifiedThe New York Times. The paper published an obituary on January 2, 1980, asserting he had died the day before.[4] On January 3, Abel held a news conference to announce, "[the] reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated", a reference to the similar statement byMark Twain. It was the first retracted obituary inNew York Times history.[5]
On January 21, 1985, on the first program thatThe Phil Donahue Show aired live and in New York, seven members of the audience appeared to faint. Donahue, worried the studio was overheated or that the setting was inducing excessive anxiety, cleared the studio and resumed the show without an audience. The fainting "spell" was orchestrated by Abel, who later said that Phil Donahue enjoyed high ratings after the incident and sent Abel a Christmas card with the message, "Hope nothing causes you to feel faint in the next year."[5]
In 1993, wheneuthanasia andJack Kevorkian were common topics in the news, Abel set up the bogus Florida company "Euthanasia Cruises, Ltd.", which would offer cruises allowing terminally ill participants to jump into the ocean after three days of partying. He revived this hoax in a column in 2006.[6]
In 1997, Abel launched CGS Productions to promote gift-wrapped pint jars ofJenny McCarthy's urine. (A parody of McCarthy's role in a shoe commercial where she appeared sitting on a toilet.) The name of the communications director for CGS Productions was Stoidi Puekaw – "wake up idiots" backwards.
Abel once ran for Congress on a platform that included paying congressmen based on commission; sellingambassadorships to the highest bidder; installing alie detector in theWhite House andtruth serum in the Senate drinking fountain; requiring all doctors to publish their medical-school grade point average in the telephone book after their names; and removing Wednesday to establish a four-day workweek.
In 1994 he appeared onThe Jenny Jones Show to tell a fabricated story about his wife gluing his penis to his butt while he was asleep.[5]
In 1999, Abel appeared in the documentaryPrivate Dicks: Men Exposed, in which he claimed to be the current holder of theGuinness World Record for the smallest penis.[5] Abel, who initially appeared in the video as "Bruce the musician" (later versions of the documentary changed this to reflect that Abel was a prankster), did not disrobe for the documentary crew, and said that he would only do so if they were to have group sex afterwards.[5] Abel stated, "They said no. So I didn't have to take off my shorts."[5]
At the2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Abel introduced a Citizens Against Breastfeeding campaign to ban allbreastfeeding because "it is an incestuous relationship between mother and baby that manifests an oral addiction leading youngsters to smoke, drink, and even becoming antisocial." He said in an interview that he attracted supporters, including one woman fromSanta Barbara mailed him a $40,000 check, which he returned.[5] After 200 interviews over two years, Abel confessed the hoax inU.S. News & World Report.
In 2006, anEsquire profile byJoshua Foer described a "fat tax" campaign spearheaded by Abel (under the name Irwin Leba). He proposed heavy taxes on the obese in order to balance the federal budget, and was described inEsquire as a reclusive and surprisingly heavy Texas multi-millionaire who earned his wealth by working his way up the New York City hot dog stand ladder, moving to Texas, and investing his savings intoMcDonald's stock. In the interview, Abel devoured French fries and extolleddeep-fried Twinkies.[7][8]
Abel died on September 14, 2018, at his home inSouthbury, Connecticut, from complications of cancer and heart failure; he was 94. Owing to Abel's previous death hoax,The New York Times sought independent confirmation of his death from his family, a hospice organization, and a local funeral home before publishing an obituary.[1]
In 2004, his daughter Jenny Abel, along with Jeff Hockett, made a documentary film of Abel's life calledAbel Raises Cain, which played at theBoston Independent Film Festival and the 2005Slamdance Film Festival, where it won first prize for Best Documentary. It has been released on DVD.
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