Hank The Angry Drunken Dwarf - Death

Death

Hank would occasionally cut down on his drinking. During a Stern Show segment in August, 1999, in which Howie Mandel was the guest, Hank explained that when he reduced his intake of alcohol it precipitated him to go into a seizure during an appearance in California. In October, 1999, Hank related that he had gone a "full three days" without a drink the previous week.

As Hank's fame grew, he couldn't even walk to the package store (the term for liquor stores in Massachusetts) without being recognized and having people honk their horns and yell his name.

In a documentary short that profiled Hank, his mother related how doctors had told her that Hank's liver was damaged, and that she didn't know how long he had to live, and she "didn't know what to do." Hank had been in rehab before, as well as court-mandated detox, and it had never worked. Once Hank was even kicked out of Alcoholics Anonymous because he brought into the meeting a bottle of Mad Dog 20-20 and started drinking it five seconds after the meeting started. Regarding trying to get Hank help for his alcoholism, Howard Stern explained, "People always asked me if we tried to get him to stop drinking, and I said all the time we did..." Stern also related that there were employees of the show who tried to get Hank into programs.

Hank had related that he first tried alcohol when his grandfather had given him a taste of blackberry brandy when he was around seven or eight years old (his grandfather died when he was eight). Although the schtick of Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf was that Hank drank because he was angry about being a dwarf, Hank had actually experienced significant trauma in his life as a child. On his first appearance on the Stern Show he related how he had been sexually abused by a male when he was seven years old (Hank explained that it was someone unrelated to him). Later, during another Stern appearance, when asked further about the incident, Hank said that the abuse was in the form of rape. As he got older he said that he almost took out lethal revenge against the perpetrator. When Hank reached adolescence, particularly around the age of fourteen, his drinking started to pick up, and he slowly started "to build up a tolerance".

Right now I wouldn’t change if they had some kind of drug that would make me grow. Plus I’d lose my job. And I’d have to buy new clothes.

-Hank discussing being a dwarf

On the afternoon of September 4, 2001, Hank died in his sleep at the home he shared with his parents in Fall River (his mother discovered that he had died when she went to wake him). He was 39 years old. His death certificate listed his immediate cause of death as a seizure disorder, with ethanol abuse and chondrodystrophy as contributing factors. Hank is buried at the Notre Dame Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts. The next day, Howard Stern devoted most of the show to Hank.

Hank's mother, Claudette, called into the Stern Show on September 10 to publicly thank everyone who attended Hank's funeral and wake. She also thanked everyone who e-mailed, and sent their condolences. She told an anecdote about how someone in the family had put a can of beer in Hank's casket. She said that "someone else slipped a bottle of Jack Daniel's in under Hank's coat." She ultimately left the items in the casket because she said that's what Hank would have wanted.