WPIX-FM DJ Jerry Carroll & Crazy Eddie.
Eddie Antar,
retailer and felon who created ‘Crazy Eddie’, dies at 68
Eddie Antar, the Brooklyn-born man
who created the chain of Crazy Eddie electronics stores only to watch it
collapse when an underlying fraud was exposed, died on Saturday, 10 September
2016. He was 68.
His death was confirmed by the
Bloomfield-Cooper Jewish Chapels in Ocean Township, N.J., which did not say
where he died or the cause.
Mr. Antar, who was born on 18 December 1947,
grew his business from a single Brooklyn store, founded in 1969, into the
largest consumer electronics chain in the New York metropolitan area, fueled in
large part by the spread of the VCR. At its
peak, the chain had 43 stores,
with locations as far north as Boston and as far south as Philadelphia.
As it expanded, Crazy Eddie also
became famous for a memorable series of commercials starring an exuberant, fast-talking man many falsely believed to be Mr.
Antar himself.
The real star, a radio disc jockey
named Jerry Carroll, performed in more than
7,500 radio and television
commercials that ran for nearly 14 years,
starting in 1975. The commercials always ended in the same way, with a
signature touting of Crazy Eddie’s “in-s-a-a-a-a-ne” prices. The comedian Dan
Aykroyd lampooned the advertisements on “Saturday Night Live.”
In 1984,
Mr. Antar took the business public at $8 a share. Within two years, its stock
price would hit $79 per share. At its peak, Crazy Eddie reported annual sales
of more than $350 million.
But that success was illusory. In 1987, dissident
stockholders staged a takeover of the company. Within two weeks of the
acquisition, they said they had discover that
$45 million in merchandise was missing. At the same time, federal prosecutors
were building a case against Mr. Antar, charging that he had defrauded shareholders through stock manipulation.
In the end, the authorities accused
him and two brothers of skimming cash and infating the value of the company.
Even before going public, Mr.Antar would fly to Israel with cash strapped to his body as part of the skimming
scheme, they said.
In 1990, Mr. Antar fled the country. He was found and arrested in
Israel two years later, then extradited to the United States.
Sam E. Antar, a cousin of Eddie’s,
was the company’s chief financial officer. He pleaded guilty to fraud and testified against Eddie,
describing how the company inflated inventory
and sales figures. He later became a consultant to government agencies
investigating accounting fraud.
In a plea bargain, Eddie Antar
pleaded guilty to one charge of racketeering conspiracy and served nearly seven years in federal prison. His brother, Mitchell, pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy and a count
of making false statements and also served time in prison.
In 2001, Mr. Antar joined with some
former associates to remake Crazy Eddie
as an internet company, but the effort ultimately fell apart.
Despite its demise, the Crazy Eddie chain became an enduring symbol for
bargain-basement retail. “Futurama,” the animated series about a New York City
pizza deliveryman living a thousand years in the future, for example, features
a car-dealing robot named “Malfunctioning Eddie” known for “insane” prices.
The crimes aside, Mr. Antar had his
admirers. On Sunday, several people posted comments to a Facebook page for former Crazy Eddie employees
acknowledging his flaws, while remembering him fondly.
Larry Weiss, who helped create the
chain’s iconic commercials but left years before its collapse, remembered Mr.
Antar as a complex man.
“He was a character. He was very
charming, charismatic, very powerful, very decisive. He was an incredible
leader,” Mr. Weiss said in an interview. “Really everyone in the company
idolized him. He was a very cool guy. And then there was the dark side that got him into trouble.”
Mr. Antar is survived by four
daughters, Simone, Nicole, Noelle and Gabrielle; a son, Sammy; two brothers, Mitchell
and Allen; and a sister, Ellen Kuszer.
