Charmin's Mr. Whipple dead at 91
STEVE GORMAN
Reuters
November 20, 2007 at 6:53 AM EST
LOS ANGELES — Dick Wilson, the Canadian-raised actor and pitchman who earned an enduring place in U.S. pop culture for his role as Mr. Whipple, the nervous grocer who warned customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin" in toilet-paper ads, has died at age 91.
The English-born actor, who often snuck in a squeeze himself in more than 500 TV commercials he made over 20 years for the popular Charmin bathroom tissue brand, died Sunday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Los Angeles, his daughter, actress Melanie Wilson, said on Monday.
Wilson had been a resident at the facility for the past five years, according to a spokeswoman for the hospital.
Moving to Canada from Britain with his family as a youngster, Wilson began his career as an announcer and disc jockey at age 15 and later graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto with a major in sculpture.
Actor Dick Wilson portrayed character Mr. Whipple in Charmin bathroom tissue television commercials.
He performed as an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville, and went on to appear in more than 300 U.S. television shows, mostly during the 1960s and ‘70s, including recurring roles as a drunk on “Bewitched” and Captain Gruber on “Hogan's Heroes.”
He also had small parts in a host of films, among them the 1968 Elvis Presley movie “Stay Away, Joe,” in which Wilson played a car salesman in a scene shared with the king of rock ‘n' roll.
But he was best-known as the bespectacled, high-strung Mr. Whipple, whose recurring line in the 30-second toilet paper ads, “Please, don't squeeze the Charmin,” became a popular household phrase.
He played the role in more than 500 Charmin spots, running from 1964 through 1985, turning the Mr. Whipple character into an advertising icon among the likes of the Maytag repairman and Rosie the waitress in Bounty paper towel ads.
So closely linked with Charmin was Mr. Whipple that Procter & Gamble Co. brought Wilson back at age 82, in 1999, to launch its new line of Charmin. In those ads, he comes out of retirement against the advice of his golf buddies, poker pals and his wife to spread the word about the new Charmin.
Melanie Wilson said her father always had a sense of humour about the role that made him famous, recounting his reaction to a 1970s survey in which he topped then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter as the most recognizable face in North America.
“Well, I guess if more people know who's in the outhouse than in the White House, we have a problem on our hands,” she quoted her father as saying at the time.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mr. Whipple character, which Dick Wilson portrayed for so many years, is one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising,” Charmin brand manager Dennis Legault said in a statement from P&G.
Less well known was Wilson's service during the Second World War as a decorated bomber pilot, flying dozens of missions over Germany and Burma for the Royal Canadian Air Force and Britain's RAF, Melanie Wilson told Reuters.
She said her father, who was wounded in combat and shot down more than once, rarely talked about his military service.
“He was just a brave guy. ... You don't think when he's busy squeezing toilet paper that there's another story,” she said.
STEVE GORMAN
Reuters
November 20, 2007 at 6:53 AM EST
LOS ANGELES — Dick Wilson, the Canadian-raised actor and pitchman who earned an enduring place in U.S. pop culture for his role as Mr. Whipple, the nervous grocer who warned customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin" in toilet-paper ads, has died at age 91.
The English-born actor, who often snuck in a squeeze himself in more than 500 TV commercials he made over 20 years for the popular Charmin bathroom tissue brand, died Sunday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Los Angeles, his daughter, actress Melanie Wilson, said on Monday.
Wilson had been a resident at the facility for the past five years, according to a spokeswoman for the hospital.
Moving to Canada from Britain with his family as a youngster, Wilson began his career as an announcer and disc jockey at age 15 and later graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto with a major in sculpture.
Actor Dick Wilson portrayed character Mr. Whipple in Charmin bathroom tissue television commercials.
He performed as an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville, and went on to appear in more than 300 U.S. television shows, mostly during the 1960s and ‘70s, including recurring roles as a drunk on “Bewitched” and Captain Gruber on “Hogan's Heroes.”
He also had small parts in a host of films, among them the 1968 Elvis Presley movie “Stay Away, Joe,” in which Wilson played a car salesman in a scene shared with the king of rock ‘n' roll.
But he was best-known as the bespectacled, high-strung Mr. Whipple, whose recurring line in the 30-second toilet paper ads, “Please, don't squeeze the Charmin,” became a popular household phrase.
He played the role in more than 500 Charmin spots, running from 1964 through 1985, turning the Mr. Whipple character into an advertising icon among the likes of the Maytag repairman and Rosie the waitress in Bounty paper towel ads.
So closely linked with Charmin was Mr. Whipple that Procter & Gamble Co. brought Wilson back at age 82, in 1999, to launch its new line of Charmin. In those ads, he comes out of retirement against the advice of his golf buddies, poker pals and his wife to spread the word about the new Charmin.
Melanie Wilson said her father always had a sense of humour about the role that made him famous, recounting his reaction to a 1970s survey in which he topped then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter as the most recognizable face in North America.
“Well, I guess if more people know who's in the outhouse than in the White House, we have a problem on our hands,” she quoted her father as saying at the time.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mr. Whipple character, which Dick Wilson portrayed for so many years, is one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising,” Charmin brand manager Dennis Legault said in a statement from P&G.
Less well known was Wilson's service during the Second World War as a decorated bomber pilot, flying dozens of missions over Germany and Burma for the Royal Canadian Air Force and Britain's RAF, Melanie Wilson told Reuters.
She said her father, who was wounded in combat and shot down more than once, rarely talked about his military service.
“He was just a brave guy. ... You don't think when he's busy squeezing toilet paper that there's another story,” she said.
