Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf

Henry Joseph Nasiff Jr. (April 20, 1962 – September 4, 2001), better known professionally as Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, was an American entertainer.

He appeared numerous times on The Howard Stern Show and on the televised studio segments which aired on the E! channel.

He was a member of the show's Wack Pack.

Henry Joseph Nasiff Jr. was born on April 20, 1962, in Fall River, Massachusetts.

He was diagnosed with achondroplasia dwarfism a week after he was born.

His mother, Claudette, taught him from a young age that he could do whatever he set his mind to do, and Hank learned to ride a bike and participated in Little League Baseball for several seasons.

When Hank was twelve he had an operation on his legs to straighten them.

Although doctors had said that he would eventually require more surgery, Hank put off doing it and ultimately opted to not undergo another operation.

Before being associated with The Howard Stern Show, Hank had a bit part in an ongoing performance of Finnegans Wake at a Boston dinner theater.

Hank played a character who would pop up out of a beer keg at the end of each performance.

He was paid $50 to say four lines of dialogue.

The gig lasted two years.

Hank's career began August 16, 1996, when he entered Stern's studio at radio station WXRK (K-Rock) in New York City.

He was 4ft 1in tall and weighed 95 lb.

Hank met Howard Stern on August 16, 1996, after driving to New York City with a friend from the Boston dinner theatre.

After a night of drinking, Hank was waiting outside the K-Rock studios in Manhattan at 5:30am.

He never had a doubt that he would make it onto the air.

Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate recalled arriving at work and encountering an obviously intoxicated dwarf who aggressively demanded that he be permitted to meet Stern:

"There was a dwarf standing there, and I remember he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and one of those Hawaiian leis. And he had a vodka bottle in his hand... and he was drunk beyond belief. And it really was like a gift for our show. It was like a gift fell out of the sky. He could go to Regis, he could go to Letterman, he could go to all those shows, and they'd have him arrested. And I said 'Howard, I just walked in and there's a drunken dwarf wearing a Hawaiian lei, with a vodka bottle.' And [Howard] said, 'Bring him in immediately.' He really found the right place."

Hank's first appearance that day included reading a series of one-sentence jabs against various groups and ethnicities which he had scrawled on a piece of paper the night before.

Hank asserted from his first on-air conversation with Stern that he be referred to as a dwarf and not a midget, and was quick to correct anyone who violated this rule, viewing it as an issue of respect.

The name of Hank's character came about spontaneously during his first appearance.

During that day's show, Stern commented: "I've always wanted an angry, drunken dwarf on my program and now I've got one".

A short time later he added, "Isn't this great? An angry dwarf, an angry drunken dwarf. Everything I've ever dreamed about."

From his first appearance until his death five years later, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf became a popular character on the show.

Never afraid to express himself, Hank would come across completely unguarded.

In terms of being belligerent, Hank's manager Doug Z. Goodstein explained that this tended to only occur when Hank was really drunk and people would heckle him.

He described Hank "as a relatively soft-spoken polite guy who quite often had a big smile on his face."

Behind Hank's public persona, an underlying "good nature" tended to shine through, which fans seemed to recognize.

During the first few years, Hank would take the bus from Boston each month as soon as he got his SSI disability check.

Hank was a member of the show's Wack Pack and soon attracted a large informal fan base.

Hank was not paid for his appearances on the show, but he said sometimes they would "slip [him] a little under the table."

Adding, "What do I need money for anyway? People fight to buy me drinks."

Hank received widespread media coverage in 1998 when he won a People magazine online poll asking the public to vote for the most beautiful person in the world as part of the run-up promotion for the magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" issue.

When the public was given the option to submit a write-in candidate, the magazine had not counted on 230,169 votes for Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf—beating out assorted celebrities by a wide margin.

In third place was Leonardo DiCaprio, with 14,471 votes.

In the early years of public participation on the Internet, media critics responded by wondering whether this was evidence of an emerging digital democracy.

In May 1998, People Magazine conducted an online poll on their website asking the public to vote to determine the "Most Beautiful People" in the world as part of the promotion for their annual Spring issue.

The film Titanic had been released the previous winter, and had a prominent position in American popular culture.

There were indications that People's editors simply assumed that the film's leading star, Leonardo DiCaprio, would automatically garner the most votes.