If you are going to sell out, do it with style like Mr. Welles.
Orson Welles Commercials
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Sell out? What’s the issue with an entertainment industry figure appearing in advertisements?
Welles would sell anything towards the end of his career Art, up to and including frozen peas. He was supposedly an actor of stature rather than an advertising agency.
Welles would sell anything towards the end of his career Art, up to and including frozen peas. He was supposedly an actor of stature rather than an advertising agency.
He did stage, large screen, small screen; acting, writing, directing, and producing. Product endorsements are ethically suspect because the endorser has a name being used to sell the product even though he may not actually use the product. The thing is, its not so much lying as artifice – as no deception is achieved or even intended. And he may well have had some Paul Masson wine in his house. We did, and my father thought of himself as something of a connoisseur.
Product endorsements do get more troublesome if you work in the philanthropic sector or you work in a trade where the understanding is that your public has to have confidence in the literal meaning of your words. In this vein, John Cameron Swayze hawking Timex watches would be more troublesome than Welles hawking wine (though Swayze may well have had a Timex). It gets fuzzier if you’re a figure who has a foot in both news and entertainment (e.g. Dave Garroway).
Welles likely did lose stature among peers, because advertising is a way to earn when you can’t get remunerative parts. Well, do what you gotta do.
BTW, Ronald Reagan’s principal income source between 1952 and 1966 was from advertising and public relations (albeit a rather odd niche therein that got him out of the studio and talking to ordinary people all over the country).
BTW, Ronald Reagan’s principal income source between 1952 and 1966 was from advertising and public relations (albeit a rather odd niche therein that got him out of the studio and talking to ordinary people all over the country).
Yep, as part of his duties of host of General Electric Theater which helped prepare him for his career as a politician as did his terms as President of the Screen Actors Guild.
Lots of episodes posted to Youtube and they hold up pretty well six decades later. Here is a link to The Martyr, an episode from 55 starring Reagan and Lee Marvin, set in the Irish Civil War of 1922:
I don’t want to be too hard on Welles, and I don’t begrudge him a living. I guess it is more of the sad end of his career that strikes me than anything else. He truly was a genius in his field and not just in Citizen Kane. His performances in Macbeth, Touch of Evil, Prince of Foxes, etc, are mesmerizing and it seems pathetic to see such a talent used solely for commercials at the end, although as I say he did it with style.