ELMER HAULDREN (April 1, 1922-April 26, 2011)
The Empire Carpet Man
From Wikipedia
While looking at the May 16th Time Magazine, I came across this man's obituary. If I have seen him in those commercials once, I've seen him thousands of times. He is a part of my memory and I must admit that whenever the Empire commercial aired, I stopped and looked at it, anxiously waiting for my sing-a-long with the phone number.
Elmer Hauldren, advertising copywriter from Chicago, best-known for originating The Empire Man (we called him the Empire Carpet Guy) for Empire Today (used to be Empire Carpets).
Mr. Hauldren was born in Missouri and served as a radio operator during World War II along the Burma Road between India and China.
After the war, he went into advertising. In 1977, he was working the Empire Carpet account and couldn't find an actor the company would accept for the role of The Empire Man. The company's owner, Seymour Cohen, asked Hauldren to play the role. And he did...from 1977 until 2011, appearing in almost every commercial. There was even a limited-edition bobble-head doll of Mr. Hauldren.
You can hear a commercial at the Empire Carpet Video site. There is even a site devoted to him at http://www.empirecarpetman.com.
"1-800, 5-8-8. 2-300, Em-pire."
No comments:
Post a Comment