Eddie 'Bozo' Miller, 99; Record Setting Eater (Guinness Book of Records)
Bill Schenley
His Guinness page:
http://eatfeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/guinnesseatingrecords1988-1.jpg
FROM: The San Mateo County Times ~
By Dave Newhouse, Staff Writer
Eddie "Bozo" Miller, a gustatory giant whose eating and
drinking prowess landed him in the Guinness Book of
Records, died Monday at his Oakland home. He was 99.
Miller had struggled with diabetes, a weakened heart and
kidney failure, though his family said he died of natural
causes.
Miller once ate 27 2-pound chickens in a row and drank
two quarts of liquor in the same hour. Both feats earned
him a listing by Guinness.
"I never really had indigestion," he said in an Oakland
Tribune story in November, his last public interview.
Miller was one of Oakland's true characters. He was a bookie,
gambler, horse player, fight manager and restaurant owner.
But his legend was made at the dining table.
"Before lunch, I'd have 10 to 12 martinis ... every day," he
said. "In Las Vegas, I ate 12 club sandwiches in a row. I ate
400 raviolis a couple of times. I'd eat 6,000 to 12,000 oysters
on a half shell.
"Sometimes I'd eat the entire menu."
Eating 27 chickens at one sitting, at Trader Vic's in
Emeryville, earned Mr. Miller $10,000 from a bet. But most
people avoided wagering against his extraordinary eating
habits, knowing it would be a lost cause.
"I'd eat 20 hors d'ouevres faster than they could eat one,"
he said. "That discouraged them."
Miller, who was 5-foot-7, weighed 330 pounds at the height
of his trencherman glory. He was given the nickname "Bozo"
by Chicago sportswriter Arch Ward, who's known as the
founder of baseball's All-Star Game in 1933.
Miller was such a character that he attracted the rich and the
famous, including Hollywood celebrities. He counted as friends
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jimmy Stewart, Judy Garland,
Burt Lancaster, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren
Bacall.
Quite a chef himself, Miller invited many of these stars to his
home for sumptuous dinners.
"Martin was a real good guy. Sinatra was miserable at times,"
he said in November. "Sinatra could drink. Martin couldn't."
Miller also knew movie producer Mike Todd, Elizabeth
Taylor's third husband. Todd invited Miller to fly with him
and Todd's publicist, former Oakland Tribune sports columnist
Art Cohn, to a middleweight championship fight between
Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio.
Miller couldn't go and Todd and Cohn perished in a plane
crash.
"I had to go to a horse race," he said. "Mike died owing me
$160 playing gin."
Miller was married 47 years, though his wife, Janice, was an
invalid the last 20. They had three daughters, one of whom,
Honey, was killed in a car accident.
Miller kept a sense of humor until the end of his life.
"They're going to stuff me," he said, envisioning his funeral.
His family is planning a private funeral, but will hold a "Bozo
Bash" in a few weeks to celebrate his life.
He is survived by daughters Cooky Logan and Candice (Steve)
Blackman, and grandchildren Zachary and Zane Blackman and
Linzie and Lacey Logan.
Brad Ferguson
<stra...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
> Record-Setting Eater Dies at Age 99
>
> His Guinness page:
> http://eatfeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/guinnesseatingrecords1988-1.jpg
>
> FROM: The San Mateo County Times ~
> By Dave Newhouse, Staff Writer
>
> Eddie "Bozo" Miller, a gustatory giant whose eating and
> drinking prowess landed him in the Guinness Book of
> Records, died Monday at his Oakland home. He was 99.
>
> Miller had struggled with diabetes, a weakened heart and
> kidney failure, though his family said he died of natural
> causes.
>
> Miller once ate 27 2-pound chickens in a row and drank
> two quarts of liquor in the same hour. Both feats earned
> him a listing by Guinness.
My God! This is one of those I was sure was long gone. Bozo Miller
was pretty famous in the mid-'60s for his eating, and he'd make the
rounds of the talk shows. He even encouraged a rumor that he could eat
as much as he did because he had four stomachs.
Bozo would say that it was his ambition one day to eat an entire ox at
one sitting. Bozo would consume as much as 25,000 calories in a day,
and he's one of the reasons why Guinness no longer accepts eating
records.
Here's a newspaper article from last November about him, from the San
Jose Mercury News (sorry, no pics anywhere that I can find):
Oakland eating ace remains spry at 99
Bozo Miller Dined, Voraciously, with Hollywood Royalty
By Dave Newhouse
Bay Area News Group
Bozo Miller ordered a French dip sandwich for lunch Thursday [15 Nov
07].
Just one French dip when he used to devour six to eight of them at a
single sitting - as appetizers. And he took half of Thursday's sandwich
home.
Well, a man can't possibly have the same gargantuan appetite at 99 that
he did as a younger man, when Bozo was a gustatory Goliath, a human
smorgasbord worth two inserts in the Guinness Book of Records.
No one could eat or drink like Bozo, and he took on all comers. He once
ate 27 two-pound chickens in a row. He drank two quarts of liquor in an
hour, chug-a-lugging each quart separately. Both feats landed him in
Guinness.
Such drinking could kill a man. But everyone Bozo knew at his age, even
those who observed sensible diets and drank moderately, is dead.
Bozo - no one calls him Eddie or Miller - is the last of Oakland's true
characters. When he managed to push back from the table, he was a
bookie, a gambler, a fight manager and a restaurateur.
But it was his consumptive exploits that gained him his greatest fame.
"Before lunch, I'd have 10 to 12 martinis . . . every day," he said.
"In Las Vegas, I ate 12 club sandwiches in a row. I ate 400 raviolis a
couple of times. . . . Eating those 27 chickens at Trader Vic's in
Emeryville, I won a $10,000 bet. Not too many guys wanted to compete
with me."
There wasn't any food he didn't like, though he liked fish the least.
"I never really had indigestion," he said.
Friend to the stars
He was the son of vaudevillians. His dad was a comedian and unicycle
rider, his mom a dancer.
Bozo knew many Hollywood stars. They would come to his home near Lake
Merritt, where he still lives after 55 years, for one of his lavish
dinners.
He named these friends/acquaintances as if they were next-door
neighbors: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, James Cagney, Jimmy Stewart,
Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren
Bacall.
"I liked them all," he said. "Dean Martin was a real good guy. Sinatra
was miserable at times. Sinatra could drink; Martin couldn't."
A narrow escape
Hollywood producer Mike Todd, who married Elizabeth Taylor, invited
Bozo to fly with him and publicist Art Cohn, a onetime Oakland Tribune
sports columnist, to a Sugar Ray Robinson-Carmen Basilio middleweight
title fight. Bozo couldn't go, fortunately. The plane crashed, killing
everyone aboard.
"I had to go to the horse races," Bozo recalled. "Mike died owing me
$160 playing gin."
Bozo was married 47 years; his wife was an invalid the final 20. They
had three daughters, one of whom was killed in a car accident. When
that happened, he cut back drastically on his eating and drinking and
his weight plummeted from 330 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame to its
present-day 170.
He has two hearing aids and uses a cane and walker for support. He's
dealing with diabetes and heart trouble and has a round-the-clock
nurse. But his mind is amazingly sharp at 99. His memory is crystal
clear.
However, his voracious appetite is gone.
"I don't care if I eat or not," he said. "I can go all day without
eating. Two days. Everything tastes the same."
Bozo already anticipates what his exit will be like.
"They're going to stuff me," he said.
<http://www.mercurynews.com/alamedacounty/ci_7497693?nclick_check=1>
alfansome
> Record-Setting Eater Dies at Age 99
>
>
> FROM: The San Mateo County Times ~
> By Dave Newhouse, Staff Writer
>
> Eddie "Bozo" Miller, a gustatory giant whose eating and
> drinking prowess landed him in the Guinness Book of
> Records, died Monday at his Oakland home. He was 99.
snip
>
> Miller had struggled with diabetes, a weakened heart and
> kidney failure, though his family said he died of natural
> causes.
>
snip
Boy I wonder how long he might have lived if he took care of himself.
Al
Charlene
> Record-Setting Eater Dies at Age 99 <=== Holy cow!!
And I felt guilty about eating the entire eggplant at one sitting.
wd43