had a size 24 shoe. He was popularly known as "The Jewish Giant," "The Happy Giant," and "The World's Biggest Cowboy." "Eddie" was his nickname from his youth, and Carmel was a stage surname. Career In 1958, Carmel sold mutual funds at an office near Times Square in Manhattan, New York City. Due to his condition, Carmel's primary work was in carnival sideshows, including appearances at Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus on West 42nd Street in Times Square, Milt Levine's World of Mirth show, and in the 1960s in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (which billed him as being 9 feet and 5/8 of an inch tall, and 500 pounds). He also acted in a few films, such as the science fiction horror film The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) and 50,000 B.C. (Before Clothing) (1963). He formed and played with a rock and roll band, Frankenstein and the Brain Surgeons. Carmel also recorded two novelty 45 records, "The Happy Giant" and "The Good Monster," and the single "The Happy Monster's Song". For a time Carmel, with his best friend, Irwin Sherman, worked together as stand-up comedians in New York. He stopped working in 1969, as his physical condition and arthritis made movement difficult, and he required two canes when he walked, later a wheelchair, and ultimately he was unable to get out of bed. Carmel was made famous by photographer Diane Arbus' picture Jewish Giant, taken at Home with His Parents in the Bronx, N.Y. in 1970, his back arched against the low ceiling of the apartment where he lived with his parents, when he was 34 years old, two years before his death. As the photo was taken, he joked: "Isn't it awful to have midget parents?" Arbus remarked on her photo, "You know how every mother has nightmares when she’s pregnant that her baby will be born a monster? … I think I got that in the mother’s face…" The photo inspired his cousin to make an audio documentary about him in 1999. A print of the photo was sold at auction for $421,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 2007. A print of the photo was sold at a Christie's auction for $583,500 ($ in current dollar terms) in 2017. Death On August 14, 1972, Carmel died of a heart attack at age 36, in Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, New York. At