Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie

Eddie Antar, known as Crazy Eddie, was a home electronics empire that changed the world but turned out to be one of the biggest business scams of all time. His story has never been told, but his legacy has endured, with ex-Crazy Eddie employee web pages still attracting fans. In Retail Gangster, investigative journalist Gary Weiss takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most unbelievable business scam stories of all time, reaffirming the old adage that the truth is often stranger than fiction.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 23 August 2022
Publisher: Hachette Books

A biography of the spectacular rise and fall of Eddie Antar, better known as Crazy Eddie, whose home electronics empire changed the world even as it turned out to be one of the biggest business scams of all time

Back in the fall of 2016, we heard the news about the passing of Eddie Antar, Crazy Eddie as he was known to millions of people, the man behind the successful chain of electronic stores and one of the most iconic ad campaigns in history.

Few things evoke the New York of a particular era the way Crazy Eddie! His prices are insaaaaane! does.

The journalist Herb Greenberg called his death the end of an era and that couldn't be more true.

What's insane is that his story has never been told.

Before Enron, before Madoff, before The Wolf of Wall Street, Eddie Antar's corruption was second to none in the U.S.A.

The difference was that it was a street franchise, a local place that was in the blood stream of everyone's daily life in the 1970s and early 80s.

And Eddie pulled it off with a certain style, an in your face blue-collar chutzpah.

Despite the fact that then Attorney General Ron Chertoff called him the Darth Vader of capitalism after the extent of the fraud was revealed, one of the largest SEC frauds in American history after Crazy Eddie's stores went public in 1984, Eddie was talked about fondly by the people who worked for him.

They still do - there are myriads of ex-Crazy Eddie employee web pages that still attract fans.

Many years have passed since the franchise went down in spectacular fashion, but Crazy Eddie's moment has endured the way that iconic brands and characters do - one only needs Google the media outpouring that accompanied his death.

Maybe it's because it crystallized everything about 1970s New York almost perfectly, the merchandise and rise of consume.

Weight: 562g
Dimension: 161 x 238 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780306924552