The actual story behind the hoax

I can count on one hand the number of times I saw Alan, my favorite cousin. My earliest memory is our New York family’s trip to Coshocton, Ohio (a small town near Columbus) to celebrate Thanksgiving with my aunt’s family. Alan was then at Ohio State. Even though I was a child, I was old enough to have a crush on my handsome older cousin who was a drummer and even had his own band. He used the money he earned from playing at weddings to pay for his college expenses and anything left over he contributed to his hard-pressed parents.

My mother and I also saw Alan during World War II. He was the principal drummer in Glenn Miller’s Air Force Band which had a limited run on Broadway. A decade later, in the mid-’50s, Alan threw a pre-launch party in Manhattan for a movie he was making with his friend Buck Henry attended by celebrities, family and friends. The last time I saw him was about 10 years later when he visited me in San Mateo. It was a short visit but wonderful to see him.

Then, much later, with the help of the internet, I was able to catch up with him. He sent me a copy of the documentary his daughter had made of his life, “Abel Raises Cain.” In the video I saw a very old and overweight Alan who with his wife was living in Connecticut in a friend’s small outside unit and eating mostly canned food. But he seemed happy if not jovial describing his current circumstances. Then a few years later when he was in his 80s after some more email exchanges he wrote how he had passed a test to receive major heart surgery, had lost weight and was feeling fine. That was our last correspondence. I thought about driving to Connecticut on one of our visits back East but never did. So the most recent news of Alan came in the obituaries.

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They describe his most successful hoaxes. The first, a campaign to clothe animals, garnered nationwide publicity. When I read the story, I was both horrified and embarrassed. Why was someone so talented as Alan doing this? Then came the woman who won the $35 million lottery, a sensation on TV and other media. Even Walter Cronkite was duped. Alan, with some help from friends, planned these hoaxes as carefully as if he were planning the perfect crime. Deliberately leaving false clues along the way. There was his own obituary in The New York Times which created a family backlash. One of my aunts would never speak to Alan after she spent weeks in needless grieving. My favorite in the documentary was Omar’s School for Beggars, an organization to teach the homeless the art of panhandling listed in the Manhattan phone directory. There is a clip of Alan with a black hood over his face as Omar on a panel with a real homeless advocate — a scene worthy of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

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While Alan loved making people laugh and journalists squirm, he was not able to use his unique talents as a first-rate drummer. Unfortunately, he could not make a career of it. He was on the road with Gene Krupa’s band after college and found the lifestyle — heavy drugs and alcohol — was not his. He never drank or smoked cigarettes or took drugs. He tried making a living by performing one man drumming shows and giving lessons. A family friend arranged a meeting with Sam Goldwyn hoping he could find a niche in Hollywood. Instead, that led to an audition with the New York Philharmonic where he was offered a job as a percussionist. He didn’t take it because he was a jazz, not classical, musician. He then tried some unsuccessful standup comedy. Then he got the idea for the campaign to clothe animals. That initial success and the hoaxes which followed brought in enough funds — he became the warmup act at big corporate retreats — so he and his wife could buy a home in Connecticut which he eventually lost. There was never a steady source of income. Still, Alan never complained. He loved being a hoaxer. And he would have relished the publicity his real death received.

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.