Up Till Now: The Autobiography

million people a year still mystified by it. And about that, I am not kidding.
    The heroic characteristics exemplified by Captain James Kirk— among them honesty, integrity, compassion, and courage—were easily transferable, making me a desirable commercial spokesperson. At the beginning of my career it was well known that real actors simply did not do television commercials. Actors acted, spokesmen spoke, period. It was considered an act of artistic prostitution. Many stage actors would choose to starve rather than sell out, and a lot of them got the opportunity to do just that. I felt very much the same way, I was not for sale! Not that anyone was interested in buying, of course, but even if I had been offered a commercial I would have refused.
    But in 1963 I co-starred with Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Laurence Harvey, my friend Howard Da Silva, and Claire Bloom in The Outrage, Martin Ritt’s westernized remake of Kurosawa’s Rashomon . I played a disillusioned preacher who is told three different versions of a rape committed by a Mexican bandit played by Paul Newman. For me, the joy in making this film was the opportunity to work with Edward G. Robinson, whom I had long idolized as one of America’s finest actors. One night he invited me to his home for dinner, and afterward took me out back where he had built a small round building that vaguely resembled New York’s Guggenheim Museum. This was his art museum and inside was arguably the finest private collection of French impressionist works in the world. He was passionate about it. As he showed these paintings to me he referred to them as his “children.”
    Coincidently, a couple of days earlier I’d happened to see a coffee commercial he’d done. It had been jarring for me to see an actor of his stature doing a commercial, so I asked him about it. He looked at me, then pointed at a superlative painting by one of the masters. “That’s why,” he said.
    After that I changed my whole attitude. If Edward G. Robinson, who’d made classic films like Little Caesar, Key Largo, and The Cincinnati Kid , could do television commercials, so could the person who made Incubus .
    Among the first commercials I did was for Loblaw’s, Canada’s largest grocery chain. I’d walk down the produce aisle looking directly into the camera and say with the greatest sincerity I could fake, “At Loblaw’s, more than the price is right.” And then I would pause and pick up a big, round, juicy melon and examine it as if I’d never before seen such a big, round, juicy melon and say, with practiced surprise, “But, by gosh, that price is right.”
    I took this work very seriously. Whatever commercial I did I wanted it to be the best commercial ever done. I wanted people storming their local Loblaw’s to buy melons. I wanted to sell more melons than anyone had sold before. When Marcy and I did a series of commercials for Promise margarine I wanted people bathing in margarine. When I did a local spot for a personal injury lawyer I wanted people hobbling over to their telephones as fast as they could limp to call that lawyer. I’ve done so many commercials for so many different products, most of them easily forgotten, but there is one classic advertising campaign that has become part of American pop culture, a job I got because of my unforgettable record album. But before I tell you the story of that unusual commercial campaign, let me interrupt with a brief anecdote.
    The primary reason that most big stars don’t do commercials is that they’re worried about damaging their image. They’ve spent many years creating a positive impression in the minds of the audience about who they are, an impression that allows them to play and be accepted within a certain type of role, and they can’t afford to risk it.
    Early in my career, in Canada, I had done mostly light comedies. In fact, I’d become known as a light-comedy leading man. And I loved it. Believe me, there are few feelings for an actor more satisfying, more luxurious, than standing on stage bathing in waves of laughter. And when I came to New York I did comedy on Broadway.In one play, I remember, I got a nice laugh with a very simple expression. I was very proud of that laugh. Unfortunately, one day I didn’t make that particular face—and I still got the laugh. Uh oh. And that’s when I realized it wasn’t me getting the laugh at all—it was another actor behind me doing whatever he was doing.
    When I