The Selling Point

It is time for the TV commercial. Two people appear, standing casually in their kitchen, drinking coffee and making talk so small that it might as well be inaudible. The dialogue doesn't matter, however. The two people are Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards Jr. The coffee is Instant Maxwell House. And those are the elements that Maxwell House wants you to notice. In gratitude, Maxwell House has paid Mr. and Mrs. Robards $200,000 for the two days of work involved.

Other stars, hearing this, scarcely look up. They are too busy making their own commercials. In the olden days--that is, in the earlier 1950s--the idea of an established star's barking on TV for a commercial product was unthinkable. Now Barbara Stanwyck, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Taylor, Claudette Colbert and Edward G. Robinson all appear for Maxwell House, too--but only for $50,000 apiece. You can hear Robinson clearly enough, as he looks toughly over the brew and snarls, "Now do it my way, see."

Classical Bouquet. Last season actors of all degrees of importance were paid $30 million for doing commercials. For actually acting on TV, the mass of actors earned $26 million. Movies paid them $20 million. For one 60-second commercial, an actor can make as much money as most starring players do in about 13 weeks of a TV series.

The payments come in all sorts of packages. Thunderbird Wine gives a new Ford Thunderbird or the cash equivalent for doing one 20-second spot. Cesar Romero and Alexis Smith quickly snatched for Thunderbirds. Joanne Dru and Sebastian Cabot took the cash. James Mason agreed to plug the wine, but apparently felt that he was not in the Thunderbird class, demanded and got a Rolls-Royce instead. Now Sir Laurence Olivier is all but lined up. He wants not one but two Rolls-Royces, and for his 20 seconds of classical bouquet, he will probably get them.

Allan Sherman (My Son the Folksinger) did a 60-second job for Brillo and was paid $60,000 plus 3,000 Brillo pads. Harry James wrapped a Kleenex around the end of his trumpet and demonstrated that its blasts would not break the tissue. That was worth $30,000 to him. Now, when he comes onstage in his nightclub appearances, people wave Kleenex at him. Or perhaps Doeskin.

Pearl Bailey makes a scrupulously honest presentation of Rainier Ale. "I've been drinking Rainier Ale for as long as I can remember," she sings, and it is a true note, a blue note, for she adds, "which is the day before yesterday." Rosemary Clooney recently sprayed Florient here and there and sang somewhat unconvincingly about its capacity to deodorize an entire dwelling. Beautiful Arlene Dahl was paid $80,000--not nearly enough--to do a commercial in which she is cast as a beauty consultant to the Toni Co.; but with Arlene Dahl on the screen, how can anyone care which twin is which?

Mother Image. Buster Keaton does a funny sort of Keystone Kops scene to illustrate the virtues of Ford Econoline vans, the boxy-looking, eight-door vehides that closely resemble Volkswagen Micro Buses. Keaton, chased by the law, dashes in and out of a whole lot full of Ford buslets, finding pies in one and hurling them into the cops' faces while nickelodeon music plays and oldtime titles point out things like "easy loading and unloading" and "fast getaway."

June Lockhart has made a change from star to salesman, but she has remained on the same show. She used to be big in the Lassie series, of course, but when a change of format eased her out of the narrative, she simply did a 60-seconder for Kool-Aid, the show's sponsor, and earned $30,000 for it. She also talks to schoolchildren about Crest Toothpaste. This, says her agent, "keeps her mother image intact."

The eye-filling Edie Adams, appearing for Muriel Cigars, says: "Why don't you pick me up and smoke me some time?" Eva Gabor mixes sex with cinders, too, offering a pipeful of Masterpiece tobacco to a fellow, scarcely seen on the screen, who is presumably worthy of her favors. Phil Silvers extols Pream. Mamie van Doren, with a kind of exactitude of casting, appears in a $39.98 dress covered with glittering beads for a Los Angeles discount house. She also works for Aqua Velva. Joseph Cotten discusses the miracle of Bufferin, and so does Arlene Francis, for which each was paid $50,000. Imogene Coca appears for Armstrong Cork. Louis Jourdan, surprisingly, appears for Prell Shampoo. The Lustre-Creme seraglio has included Jill St. John, Juliet Prowse, Jeanne Crain, Jane Powell, Sandra Dee and Stella Stevens.

New Vegas. Old Aunt Tilly, in the wonderful skits for Lay's potato chips, is Bert Lahr, shawl and all. Even semi-show-business people like Mickey Spillane are doing commercials. Mickey dashes out in the dead of night and jumps into a waiting car that contains a remarkable blonde. "Wherever this man goes, he packs a .38," says the announcer. Then Spill ane holds up a bar of Lifebuoy soap, which is advertised as giving "38-hour protection."

And celebrities who are relative aliens to show business are eager to plug things too. Rocky Graziano, displaying a container of Breakstone Cultured Yoghurt, says, "Ya wanna be helty, goils?" All they have to do, he says, is eat the cultured yoghurt. He eats some himself. The next line he delivers has intonations so cultured that it might have been rehearsed at Brasenose or Balliol. "Breakstone is the more cultured yoghurt," he says beautifully.

"I don't know whether people are going to come to their senses or whether they have decided that this is the new Las Vegas--how to make $100,000 the quick way," says Stan Freberg, the nutty satirist who was one of the first performers to get into the commercial field in a major way. "But I believe that someone, somewhere, has enough money to make Elizabeth Taylor pick up a can of Maxwell House."

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