Hysterical Ad

[everythingold]

Precious

 

[oldhouseman]

I found out

I'm related to Ronnie through my 2nd great grandfather. Turns out we have the same 8th great grandfather. I went onto the ancestry.com world tree site and found a link to "famous people" you are related to. I have a link to carter and nixon also as well as Bette Davis and Lucille Ball!! It's interesting to find out who you are related to. I bet if I kept going through the various lines I will find several AW members.

My Doctor has this ad posted in his office next to a collection of antique surgery tools and a picture of a diseased lung from someone who smoked that nasty stuff

 

[beadsobleach]

Mr. Reagan

And the funny part is Mr. Reagan never smoked,I like the Formica!

 

[danemodsandy]

Ads Like This...

...Were part of the "contract system" practised by Hollywood in its glory years. As part of their seven-year contracts with major studios like Warner Bros. (Reagan's studio at the time), actors were required to appear in whatever advertising the studio wished to put them in. There was no "out" whatsoever; if the studio had made you available to an ad agency for a product endorsement, you were required to pose, by contract, and your name appeared as an endorsement of the product, whether you used the product, liked the product, or not. The fees paid by ad agencies for stars to appear in ads represented a healthy subsidiary stream of revenue for studios. Actors might or might not be paid something for this use of their names and images, according to how big a star they were and how successful their agent had been negotiating their most recent contract. As much as we long for the good old days of Hollywood, stars were essentially owned by their studios, told what movies to make, what ads to appear in, what marriages were good for business and what marriages were not - everything about the star's life was regulated by contract. It was an existence not too far removed from slavery, even if it was financially well-rewarded (Bette Davis was the highest-paid individual in the United States for a year or two there).

So, don't think that Little Ronnie Reagan (Bette's derisive term for an actor she considered a lightweight) actually liked Chesterfields, or that Claudette Colbert actually used Lux, or that Kim Novak really had a Simmons Beautyrest or an Edsel - all these ads were their studio's doing.

P.S.: One of the funniest studio ad placements ever happened in the 1940s - Joan Crawford for Royal Crown (R.C.) Cola, ads she was required to do under her Warner Bros. contract. As we all know, once Joan broke away from studio contracts to become a free-lancer in the 1950s, she rather fervently endorsed another cola brand, preferably with a shot of 100-proof Smirnoff in it.

 

[MikeS]

Joan Crawford and Pepsi

As any gay man (who has seen "Mommie Dearest") will tell you, Joan Crawford's relationship with Pepsi began when she married the company's chairman and CEO, Alfred Steele, in 1955. Steele turned around a mortibound company, making it more competitive with rival Coca-Cola. He died of a heart attack in April 1959. Steele's handpicked successor, Herbert Barnett, appointed Crawford to Pepsi's board of directors soon after. She served on the Pepsi board until her forced retirement in 1973.
Famous "Mommy Dearest" line during her showdown with the Pepsi board after Steele's death:
JOAN: Don't f--k with me fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo.

 

[whirlcool]

A friend of ours whose husband works for ExxonMobil has a take on this line from Mommy Dearest, board room scene:

JC: I've fought worse monsters than you in Hollywood.

And LB Mayer used to boast that he had more stars than there are in the heavens.

Our friend says that Exxon has more monsters in management than Hollywood has.

Our friend says that EM always does what it pleases and they treat their employees pretty badly.

 

[everythingold]

Ronnie never smoked?