No matter what the product, there will always be some B-list celebrity to flog it

MANY PEOPLE HAVE asked how I went from being Sid of Seventh Avenue to Sid the Endorsement King. (Hey, it’s Variety’smoniker, not mine.) So I’m grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight. First off, I didn’t invent the practice of celebrities flogging consumer tchotchkes. That goes back to Eve and the apple. Then came the 20th century, the golden age of advertising, when Pope Leo XIII endorsed Vin Mariani cocaine-laced wine – true story – and Churchill became the poster boy for Pol Roger bubbly. Even Bogart appeared in cigarette ads, until they killed him – the smokes, not the ads.

No, the ads were terrific. They saved my life. You see, when the shoulder pad business flattened in the early 70s, I said to my Adele, “Adele,” I said, “we’re gonna starve sitting around waiting for Linda Evans and Dallas. We need a new line.” So I knew a guy who knew a guy, and bingo, I got Shecky Greene together with the folks who made Thalidomide. The ads were brilliant. Too bad about the product.

That was the problem in those days. Getting celebrities to flog adult diapers and canned hams was no walk in the park, believe you me. P&G wanted a big name for their feminine hygiene spray, but Jane Russell, Vivien Leigh, Audrey Hepburn – so high and mighty! Ford wanted Steve McQueen to promote the Pinto. Bupkus! Robert Mitchum signed on, but the day of the shoot he went missing in New Orleans and we didn’t find him for six weeks. By then, they’d pulled the car off the market because of that gas-tank thing.

Second of all, I discovered Asia. Yeah, I know, Marco Polo got there first. But I was the one who realized that Western celebrities could trash their reputations by endorsing anything that moved in Japan, India, China, the Philippines – and the fans back home wouldn’t know squat. That’s how I talked Van Cliburn into linking up with that pachinko chain. And Bill Murray with Suntory whiskey. Sofia Coppola made a movie about that one. Lost in Transmission,or something.
My big breakthrough was getting Orson Welles to do those coffee commercials. Unlike other celebrity endorsers in Japan, he actually spoke in the ad, something like “excellent” or “delicious.” Nobody could understand him, but he sounded like God. Anyway, they called it the Orson Welles-shokku.

Now you can’t turn on the TV over there without seeing Charlie Sheen or Harrison Ford or Leo DiCaprio babbling away in English, and who knows what they’re saying?

People often ask me what I think of celebrity endorsements today. They stink – the endorsements, not the people. I mean, really, Paris Hilton for the Canon low-light camcorder? Jane Fonda for Vietnam Tourism? OJ Simpson and Ginzu Knives? Gimme a break. Show me some integrity. If you can’t fake that, find another line of work.

And the athletes nowadays! They win a medal in Beijing, and all they can think of is money. What’s Michael Phelps doing hooked up with Sugar Frosted Flakes? He belongs on a Wheaties box, like any self-respecting sports hero. Not out there promoting some high-fructose corn scabs that turn kids’ teeth into rotten stumps.

If you ask me, this whole celebrity thing has gotten out of hand. Picking up some spare change for endorsing bottled fish sauce is one thing. But $300 million for Jerry Seinfeld to shill for Microsoft? Yeah, I know that includes the airtime, but how many copies of Windows will they have to sell to break even? That’s why Pepsi just announced they’re getting out of the celebrity business. True story.

Celebs today have it too easy. Get your name in the papers in China and somebody waves a contract in front of you. In my day, you had to earn your fame before you could cash in on it. That’s how I got Bono that deal with Monsanto. So what if it didn’t work out, he was the man.

So the next time you’re at the supermarket and you vaguely remember seeing some flash-in-the-pan Entertainment Tonight retread extolling the virtues of a low-cholesterol latke or a flavored depilatory, ask yourself: are you buying this stuff just because a minor-league palooka is getting paid to praise it? Of course you are, you sap.

That’s how I became Sid the Endorsement King. True story.