The Surprising Lives
Of Famous Pitchmen

Jared Fogle

As a student at Indiana University, Bloomington, Fogle reportedly ran a little business out of his dorm room, renting porn videos to fellow students for the bargain price of $1. At the time, Fogle wore size XXXXXXL shirts and boasted a 60-inch waist.

He was thrilled when a Subway sandwich outlet opened on the ground floor of his building and developed a crush on a cute female employee that worked there. Fogle decided to eat each and every meal at the Subway in his building. After a year, he lost 245 lbs.

Ryan Coleman, a former dorm-mate of Fogle’s, was so stunned by his dramatic weight loss that he penned an article about it in the 'Indiana Daily Student.' Fogle was quoted at the end of the article as saying, "Subway helped save my life and start over. I can't ever repay that."

A writer for 'Men’s Health' magazine tracked down Fogle and included the “Subway Sandwich Diet” in an article which caught the eye of Bob Ocwieja, a Subway franchisee in the Chicago area. Ocwieja floated an idea to Subway’s ad agency to use Fogle as a pitchman.

The idea didn’t excite Subway's marketing team at first, but a decision was finally made to contact Fogle and test a commercial which would run regionally. On January 1, 2000, the first “Jared” ad ran. It was runaway success. The company then rolled out the commercial nationally, and Subway's 2000 sales rose 18%, year-over-year.
· See Jared's Before Picture
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

Billy Mays

When Billy Mays, the congenial, impassioned infomercial spokesman, died suddenly in his Florida home at age 50, his pallbearers, including his son, wore blue shirts and khaki pants to pay tribute to the quintessential television pitchman behind Oxi Clean, among other products.

Born in 1958 in the small town of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, William Darrell Mays Jr. went to college at West Virginia State where he played football for two years before dropping out. He tried working in waste management like his dad, but in 1983 he picked up and headed to Atlantic City's boardwalk in New Jersey where he sold mops, washers, and other wares. Mays credited the old-school salesmen there for showing him the ropes.

Mays spent the next 12 years as a traveling salesman, later describing his years on the road, hawking at home and auto shows, state fairs, and conventions, as a "tough way to make an easy living." It also left an indelible mark on his home life; Mays said he was an absentee father to his son, Billy Mays III, and he and his wife divorced.

Life changed for Mays when Orange Glo International hired him in the mid-1990s to promote its cleaners on the newly established cable channel, the Home Shopping Network.
· His Life, Death & What He Was Buried In
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

Vince Offer

Offer "Vince" Shlomi, aka “The ShamWow! Guy”, aka Vince Offer, was born April 25, 1964, in Haifa, Israel.

Offer, who had been supporting himself by selling kitchen utensils at swap meets, got his start in “show business” in 1999, writing, directing, producing, (and funding) 'The Underground Comedy Movie,' which was described by Rod Dreher of the New York Post as “the least amusing comedy ever made.”

Without wide theatrical release, Offer needed to figure out a way to realize a return on his investment. Taking a cue from marketing powerhouse and convicted felon Joe Francis of 'Girls Gone Wild' fame, Offer tried his hand at selling his movie via infomercial. It worked. 50,000 copies were sold and Offer realized he was onto something.

That “something” wasn’t a film career. It was an infomercial career, selling whatever Offer could get his hands on and foist upon the television-watching public. First up was a synthetic cleaning rag Offer had come across during his flea market days, which he re-branded the ShamWow!
· A Prostitute Scandal & Product Controversy
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

Ron Popeil

Born in New York in 1935, Ron Popeil's parents divorced when he was three years old. They went their separate ways and abandoned Ron and his older brother Jerry, who spent the next three years in foster care together in upstate New York. Jerry then died young.

When Ron was six years old he moved in with an aunt for two and a half years in Florida and then moved again to Chicago, this time to stay with his paternal grandparents, first generation Polish immigrants, who, according to Ron, were abusive and neglectful.

Luckily, in 1951, the young Popeil found his way to Chicago's Maxwell Street, where the city's street salesmen hawked wares to tourists. His sales pitch was spectacular and convincing. He not only sold to customers, but also to the store owners and workers. Popeil made $1,000 a week, where the average salesperson earned $500 a month.
· The One Low Point in Popeil's Reign
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

Dick Wilson

Dick Wilson was born Riccardo DiGuglielmo in Lancashire, England, in 1916. Four years later, his family moved to a city near Toronto, Canada, where the actor assumed his mother's maiden name of Wilson so he wouldn't be typecast as an Italian. Wilson dabbled in radio in his teens and eventually became an acrobatic dancer in New York after serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. By 1954, he moved to California to pursue a life of acting in TV and film.

For more than 30 years Wilson was immensely successful as a character actor. He's appeared in a gamut of classic sitcoms like 'McHale's Navy,' 'I Dream of Jeannie,' 'Get Smart,' 'The Partridge Family,' and had an ongoing role as a comical drunk in 'Bewitched.' But his work as a toilet paper pitchman paid off in spades. Wilson was earning $300,000 per year and working a paltry 12 days per year. If that meant being typecast as a grocer with busy hands, so be it.
· How Many Commercials Did He Make?
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

John Hodgman

John Hodgman married his high school sweetheart, Katherine Fletcher, who, like him, is from a suburb of Boston. He studied literature at Yale, then moved to New York in the 1990s and worked his way up at a major literary agency, which he eventually left to launch his own writing career.

In 2000, Hodgman began writing for 'The New York Times,' becoming its first humor editor of the 'Sunday Magazine,' as well as appearing on NPR's radio show 'This American Life,' penning a column for McSweeney's journal called "Ask A Former Professional Literary Agent," and publishing his first book, 'The Area of My Expertise,' in 2005. While promoting the book he went on 'The Daily Show,' after which Jon Stewart hired Hodgman to be a correspondent, an unprecedented first for any guest.

A couple months later, Hodgman was called in for an Apple audition. To his surprise, he booked the gig. His portrait of a stubborn, temperamental, beleaguered PC was, and still is, unbelievably good. It's as if a clunky, crash-prone piece of buggy hardware has sprung to life. Hodgman became a success rather quickly in somewhat related, but nonetheless different and highly cutthroat fields: The first book he ever wrote became a bestseller; he landed an ongoing stint on a major television show, 'The Daily Show,' for which he didn't even audition; then he scored the first commercial he ever auditioned for.
· So What's His Secret?
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

Matt McCarthy

McCarthy, a 30-year-old affable redhead, has been starring in the FiOS cable campaign for the past year and a half. The son of a now-retired public school teacher and government lawyer, McCarthy says he recognizes that success can be a double-edged sword. "I’m not interested in making money for the sake of making money,” he says. Although he appreciates the income from the job, he says he’d quit if it ever interfered with his true passion: comedy.

McCarthy stumbled into commercials. He randomly auditioned for his first commercial for a Sears car battery and got the job. The estimated $60,000 he says he earned from the weekend’s worth of work was enough to allow him quit his day job to focus on acting and comedy.
· Other Commercials He's Appeared In
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

Marilyn Chambers

Considering Procter & Gamble hired a Waspy blonde to invoke an image of purity for its Ivory soap brand, perhaps it was the company's comeuppance to discover, in 1972, that its All-American cover girl had made a name for herself in the dirty business of adult entertainment.

Marilyn Chambers was known to skip school and sneak into New York City to audition for advertising and modeling jobs, much to her parents' chagrin. She had some early success, booking modeling gigs for Clairol, Coca Cola, and at age 17 for Ivory soap, though the ad wouldn't come out until a couple years later. She also landed a bit part in the 'The Owl and the Pussycat,' which starred Barbra Streisand. Invited on a tour to promote the film out west, Chambers discovered San Francisco, a city she liked so much that she chose to pick up and move there rather than return to college.

In San Francisco, Chambers worked at odd jobs during the day and took a night job as a topless dancer, something that got her arrested more than once. One day she responded to a movie audition ad listed in the 'San Francisco Chronicle.'She booked the part for what was the leading role, albeit with no lines, in 'Behind the Green Door,' released in 1972.

The film debuted at Cannes Film Festival to a standing ovation. Her work in 'Behind the Green Door' broke norms, most notably it presented the first interracial sex scene on screen.

Unbeknownst to Ivory, Chambers embraced the irony of her having modeled a wholesome mom after making it big in the porn business. The producers of the movie successfully used the Ivory slogan to drum up publicity, while Procter & Gamble pulled the Ivory Snow boxes with Chambers' face off store shelves.
· What Came Next for Chambers
Next: Another Pitchman's Life Offscreen

The Marlboro Man

Dedicated to a harsh but simple life in the mountains or open plains, the Marlboro Man symbolized the freedom of having a good smoke after a filling meal or a long day at work. Through the years, Philip Morris signed several actors to lend a face to the Marlboro Man's tough image -- only to find that an image based on weather exposure, improper diet, and carcinogens could lend itself to the occasional health issue.

Wayne McLaren, David McLean, and Dick Hammer -- three actors who appeared in the Marlboro Man ads -- were diagnosed with lung cancer and each eventually succumbed to the disease. After McLaren learned he had cancer, he became a renegade for anti-tobacco legislation and appeared in an ad against smoking on his deathbed. Paired with an image of him as a vibrant cowboy, the sickly McLaren presented a sobering lesson of what a life of smoking could render. Adding insult to injury, Philip Morris denied that McLaren ever appeared in a Marlboro ad -- only changing its tune after McLaren uncovered a pay stub for a Marlboro print ad and had his talent agency write an affidavit confirming his work.

Like McLaren, David McLean became an anti-smoking advocate. After his death, his family went on to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Philip Morris for encouraging David to smoke in his Marlboro role -- a situation that was fictionalized in the tobacco satire 'Thank You for Smoking.'
· What Inspired the Marlboro Man Campaign?