Will The Real David Angell Please Stand Up Again?

Last week I observed that a 1997 picture purporting to be of David Angell is in fact Cheers co-creator and Frasier director James Burrows. I stand by this assertion and can only say that if it's not Burrows - and it certainly looks like him - then it must be yet another incarnation of the remarkably 'elastic' David Angell. In the same post, I speculated that David Angell might be a nom de plume used by Burrows. Since then, however, I have discovered a YouTube video, which clearly shows David Angell at the 1984 Emmy Awards accepting an Emmy for Best Comedy Writer. David's appearance begins at 2:56 and ends at 3:41 and indicates that he was not merely a nom de plume but a real person. There is, as far as I can see, no other rational explanation, unless we're to believe that the perpetrators of 9/11 started backstopping characters seventeen years prior to 9/11.

In saying this, I am categorically NOT suggesting that there's any truth to the the 'official story' of how David and Lynn Angell met their alleged deaths. Quite the opposite in fact, because the existence of this video proves beyond all doubt that The Angell Foundation's picture of David Angell at these same awards is fake. In this sense the video is a blessing: it establishes that David Angell was a real person whilst confirming that there is something very, very wrong here.

The Angel Foundation's image purports to portray David receiving his Emmy Award at the 1984 award show. I can say this with confidence because there are key features that clearly match the video. Furthermore, the 1984 Emmy was the only award David Angell won on an individual basis as a scriptwriter. All his other awards were for Best Comedy and shared with James Burrows, Les Charles and Glen Charles (for Cheers) and Peter Casey and David Lee (for Frasier), the next coming in 1989. As such, the 1984 award show represents the only occasion on which he was called upon to stand alone on stage and receive an award for individual achievement.

In this context, we can observe the following commonalities between the image and the video:

• David's attire is identical
• The microphones and lectern are identical
• We can clearly see the same envelope positioned on the lectern
• The position of David's hands is identical (but see below)
• Both capture him raising his Emmy Award in triumph

Problems with The Angell Foundation's Image

Click the thumbnail to view a copy of this image with the relevant discrepancies highlighted. I haven't enlarged this image in any way, but the discrepancies are quite obvious nonetheless. It's a large image so I recommend that you save it to your PC and view at your leisure.

First, take a look at the below screen captures from the video. David's face is lean and long, so much so that I thought this must be the product of an aspect ratio issue.

However, host Tom Selleck's face appears to be correctly proportioned when compared with a representative photograph from the same era.

This suggests that David Angell really did have a long, lean face, an equally long and 'distinguished' nose, and what we Brits would call a 'Jimmy Hill' chin. However, none of these striking features are apparent in the Foundation's image.

Second, you might want to revisit one of my earlier posts, which points out some of the more obvious discrepancies with this image. Specifically, there are some very obvious join marks, one of which runs across David's face, which has a very odd texture. We can see that small segments of hair are slightly misaligned, and that the shadows and sideburns running up the left hand side of his face are visibly much more misaligned.

Third, ask yourself where you think the 'photographer' was standing when this photograph was taken. The fact that David's face is in profile creates the illusion that the picture was taken from the wings, whereas the angle and perspective of the lectern tells us that the 'photographer' was in fact positioned front left and above. Using the below video still as a guide, we can assume that the photographer was located in the balcony area.

Fourth, and with reference to my third point, note that although David's face is in profile his glasses are not. The perspective offered by his glasses, together with that offered by the top half of his forehead, indicates that David's head is slightly inclined to the left, i.e. towards the camera. Once we notice these peculiarities it becomes apparent that the creator of this image has inserted a face in profile into this photograph and tried, unsuccessfully, to match it to a head that isn't quite in profile.

The join marks on the far right hand side of the full size version of this image indicate where the creator cut the image horizontally, altered the face, and subsequently ran into problems when attempting to reintegrate the segments. It's obvious that the artist was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea here. Very obviously, the creator had to choose between aligning the forehead or aligning the sideburns. Given that getting the sideburns right would result in a very visible misalignment of the forehead, the creator sensibly opted for the lesser of the two evils.

While we're on the subject of misaligned foreheads it's worth pointing out that whoever made these images wasn't quite as successful with this other image, which shows David with his brother, Kenneth Angell. It should be noted that neither image is currently available on he Angell Foundation's website - I obtained them only because the Foundation's web master is careless enough to allow browsing of the site's directory structure. The equally fake Cheers picture, which is even worse than this image, does appear on the Foundation's website, but only as a small 'thumbnail' that hides the blunders. No doubt the Foundation alternates the images it uses on the site from time to time. I for one find it telling that the Foundation doesn't use these smaller images as HTML anchors linked to the full size versions it has in its possession.

Fifth, notice David's left hand. In the section of video that shows him holding aloft his Emmy Award (03:37 to 03:39) we can clearly see that the fingers of this hand are spread open and remain spread for the duration. Not spread wide by any means, but visibly spread nonetheless. In the image, however, David's fingers are pressed together. Moreover, we can see that his fingers are discoloured: there are very strange light and dark sections with clearly visible join marks. There are also very odd looking finger nails and a thick band of discolouration running across the knuckles. The top of his middle finger is missing and the nail of his ring finger looks positively feminine! That said, are these really fingernails we're looking at? Have the fingernails been removed?

Oddities can also be seen on his right hand. Again, we can see a thick discoloured band running across the fingers. His middle finger has two very strange looking lumps and he appears to have a bloated fat sausage for an index finger. There's more discolouration to be seen on his thumb, the top of which should not be in shade, and a small section of the thumb itself is missing. Additionally, we can see the 'ridge' of David's knuckles in this image, which should be impossible from this angle unless David was bending his wrist at a rather extreme angle...and he's clearly not. This points us to the fact that the fingers of this hand are in an impossible position.

The Foundation's image is, undoubtedly, a forgery. The problem – perhaps 'puzzle' is a better term – is that this image appears to be a genuine picture of the 1984 Emmy Awards. The lectern is a match, the envelope on the lectern is a match, the microphones are a match, and the lights in the background are a match. Even David's clothing is a match. What doesn't match, and what has quite clearly been manipulated, is David's hands and face.

In light of the above, it would seem that this was at one time a genuine picture of David Angell, which has been deliberately manipulated in order to change his facial characteristics. The hands are another matter entirely: we've come across this sort of disfigurement in a previous image. This suggests that the creator is either trying to make a point of some sort, or more likely is using 'psy-ops' tactics in an attempt to trigger the viewer's subconscious to associate the couple with violence and mutilation.

The question here is this: why would The Angell Foundation alter a genuine picture of David Angell? This is, after all, an organisation that claims to control David and Lynn's multi-million dollar estate and lists his sister, Claire, and her brother, Thomas, as members of its Advisory Committee. Why, then, would the Foundation need to fake a photo, let alone take a genuine picture and deliberately alter it? Before I answer my own question, let's first consider the Many Faces of David L. Angell:

What intrigues me about Angell's multiple countenances is what it tells us about the strategy being employed here: the modus operandi is the exact opposite of the standard approach used for the Joe Public 'clock-puncher' vicsims. This standard approach seems to involve producing two or three virtually identical portraits, which are then inserted into different backgrounds. By contrast, in Angell's case we're presented with multiple subtly different versions of the 'same' individual, all of which bare less resemblance to one another than we should reasonably expect.

It seems to me that there can be only one logical reason for these inconsistencies: David and Lynn Angell are still very much alive. Once we accept this we can see these images for what they are: a deliberate attempt to ensure that the pair are never put in the awkward position of being recognised by a member of the public and identified definitively as David and Lynn Angell.

In David Angell's case these images most probably represent an attempt to limit the damage caused by his appearance in two videos, the second being his fairly extensive interview, alongside his Grub Street partners, Peter Casey and David Lee, in the 1999 documentary The Frasier Story. It's worth reiterating that the 'fish eye' lens used for this interview distorts the appearance of all three interviewees. The choice of lens is incomprehensible: was the producer (Channel 4, a major TV network in the UK) unable to source a suitable wide angle lens?

As regards Lynn Angell, we have at this time no independent footage of her. This leaves us with the forged pictures, and this suggests that the Lynn we see in these images is a complete fabrication.

This is not to say that Lynn never existed, because David clearly refers to her in his 1984 acceptance speech. My guess is that the digital versions of Lynn are probably passable representations of her at various stages of her life. Logically, making the fake Lynn resemble the real Lynn would avoid the need to provide answers to awkward questions from people who knew her in real life, while still providing a degree of cover against public recognition. Ditto for David himself.