Calamity Pam

Anyone who watched television during the past year must have seen a pretty but slightly misty-looking 5-ft. 4-in. blonde tumble out of a highflying airplane, crash a speedboat onto a beach at full throttle, ride a wagon hauled by galloping horses, plunge through an opening drawbridge, fall off a roof, and accidentally lean on a dynamite plunger. At the moment of greatest peril, the pixy hollered something like: "Stamp out cramped compacts!" or "Kick the dull driving habit!" or "Don't follow the leader. Drive it!" After which she miraculously escaped disaster--crying "Join the Dodge Rebellion!"

The blonde is Pamela Austin, a 25year-old Omaha-born actress and model who lives in Hollywood with her husband and two-year-old son. All her harebrained derring-do is done in the name of souping up sales of Dodge automobiles. Though it is impossible to say precisely how much auto sales are affected by promotion as opposed to styling, the fact remains that Dodge has done wonderfully well since it first went riding with Calamity Pam. In 1966, while most auto sales slumped, Dodge's went up by 5%.

As for Pam Austin, her job with Dodge has never taken her to Detroit, she knows few of the Chrysler Corp.'s top brass, and until she was spotted for the Dodge Rebellion by Don Schwab, Hollywood producer for Manhattan-based advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, she was virtually unknown. Pam was under contract to Warner Bros, and MGM, made a few pilot films for TV, and did a stint as a dancer in Tony Martin's nightclub act, but her career was going nowhere. The Dodge Rebellion revolutionized all that. Last year she earned $34,000 plus residuals for making great televised escapes. This year she asked for and got $60,000, plus residuals. And she has just completed a flick with Pat Boone called--of all things--Perils of Pauline.

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