I’ve never liked the Dos Equis’s “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials. Some ad agency took the viral appeal of Chuck Norris facts (or, if you go back further, the Bill Brasky sketches on “SNL”), regurgitated a bunch of similar statements, and now the campaign is into its fifth year on the air. That’s a whole lot of success for stealing an idea off the Internet.
Nevertheless, the New Yorker has an article on Jonathan Goldsmith, the actor who plays the Dos Equis icon, and teh 72-year-old is pretty interesting in his own right:
A montage of highlights from the real life of Jonathan Goldsmith might include (had there been cameras present) footage of him rescuing a stranded climber on Mt. Whitney, saving a drowning girl in Malibu, sailing the high seas with his friend Fernando Lamas (the inspiration for his Interesting persona and, according to Goldsmith, “the greatest swordsman who ever lived in Hollywood”), and starting a successful network marketing business (“I was a hustler, a very good hustler”), which, for a while, anyway, enabled him to flee Hollywood for an estate in the Sierras. Among the outtakes might be glimpses of his stint as a waterless-car-wash entrepreneur. “I love the old philosophers,” he said. “I have a large library. [“I have many leather-bound books.” – Ed.] I am not a die-hard sports fan. I love to cut wood.”
But nothing in the Dos Equis commercials is half as good as this tidbit from Goldsmith’s youth:
Knowing that Warren Beatty kept a penthouse suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Goldsmith used to wait in the lobby for the young women who’d been summoned there, and he’d intercept them, saying, “Warren sent me down. I’m terribly sorry, but he had to cancel the meeting.”
A dude who used his smarts to steal Warren Beatty’s conquests? Now THAT guy has a justifiable claim to the title “Most Interesting Man in the World.”
[via @thecajunboy]
