From the New York Post’s Page Six (link courtesy Jon Solomon)
THE life and times of home electronics peddler “Crazy Eddie” Antar may soon become a major movie, thanks to Danny DeVito and his Jersey Films.
DeVito and several other producers are hot for Antar’s story after recently seeing him on CNBC being confronted by his cousin, Sam Antar, whose testimony sent Eddie to federal prison for 7½ years.
“You brought us up to be crooks, Eddie. Everything I became came from you, Eddie,” Sam – the company’s chief financial officer, who hadn’t spoken to Eddie in 20 years – told his cousin.
“Now I don’t blame myself, but every- thing I became I learned from you,” Sam said. “Don’t try to control the topic of conversation. You’re not a big [bleep] anymore, Eddie. You’re a two-bit thug just like I am. So stop playing games.”
Crazy Eddie started with one discount electronics store in Brooklyn and ended up with 43 outlets in the Northeast with annual sales of $350 million. Anyone who was in the tri-state area in the 1970s and ’80s still remembers the hard-sell TV and radio spots where a frenetic announcer claimed his prices were “in-saaaaaane.”
During the glory years, Sam told CNBC, “There was so much money everywhere; in the ceilings, under the mattresses, in the closets. There was so much cash skimmed that we didn’t know where to put it.”