Christopher Walken Radio Impersonator Dupes Media with Natalie Wood Comments
6:22 pm, November 18th, 2011
(GettyImages.com)
A number of media outlets – including the Associated Press – were duped by a Christopher Walken impersonator who commented on Natalie Wood‘s death on a Washington, D.C. sports radio program on Friday.
Here’s what happened.
ESPN980 producer-personality Marc Sterne does a running gag on the station in which he doles out fantasy football advice in Walken’s distinctive voice and cadence.
With the real Walken in the news today as one of the last people to see Wood before she drowned to death in 1981, Sterne (as “Walken”) claimed that three decades ago he went to bed and only learned of Wood’s demise the next morning.
The faux “Walken” recalled there being drinking and shouting before “there was tragedy.”
Not realizing that Sterne regularly does his “Walken” shtick as a radio gag, the Associated Press printed his comments as though the real Walken had broken his silence on the newly reopened Wood investigation.
SEE SCREEN SHOT BELOW
Chuck Sapienza, the radio show’s executive producer, tells Gossip Cop that no one contacted the station to confirm that it was actually Walken making these remarks.
“It’s ridiculous,” he tells us, noting that the fantasy football segment in which the “Walken” comments came should have been a giveaway that it wasn’t the real actor.
Sapienza adds that it’s “disappointing” the AP “wouldn’t own up to their mistake,” instead blaming the radio show for a purported “hoax.”
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(Associated Press)
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