TV Guide (November 27, 1953)

look and sound like a housewife, but need not be; must believe in product; actress preferred; long-term contract; insincere girls need not apply.” That’s more or less what they want. The trend is taking hold. Large corporations have gone out and hired pitchgirls. General Electric has Kathi Norris; Colgate employs Candy Jones; Admiral’s girl is Muriel Williams; and Borden’s recently signed Betty John¬ son. The ad men’s hope: when a con¬ sumer thinks of either the girl or the product, he thinks of both. A Fa.sl .4d Lib In recent months the four men¬ tioned new pitchgirls, blessed with broad smiles and nice long-term con¬ tracts, have been plugging their spon¬ sors’ products. Of the lot, the most ex¬ perienced in the art of The Sell is GE’s Kathi Norris who spent more than four years on a New York TV station singing the praises of such items as one-armed egg beaters and ketchup dispensers for a department store. Kathi made her hour of vend¬ ing, plus interviews, each week¬ day strictly a family affair by co¬ hawking wares with her husband, TV producer Wilbur Stark, and occasion¬ ally daughter Pamela, now (Pa¬ mela still has a lot to learn about Mommy’s profession; upon biting into a sponsor’s doughnut once, she made a face and said, “I don’t like it.” Ad- libbed Mommy, sweetly but firmly, “Well, dear, millions of others do.”) Candy Jones, a fair-complexioned model who married the boss (glamor connoisseur Harry Conover) is Col¬ gate’s charm girl. Unlike Kathi, this is Candy’s first real dip into handling commercials. Her role is that of a peaches and cream beauty who is a shining example of how to stay “irre¬ sistible” by bathing with a Colgate soap. Her commercials are paying off. Since the sponsor hired Candy sales have hit a new high. I.,eave That Door Open Apparently the ad man’s favorite subject for a pretty pitchgirl is still the ever-ajar refrigerator door. Check the Bishop Sheen show and you’ll see Muriel Williams beaming over an ice tray or gleefully pointing out the un¬ withered meat, the unspoiled eggs, the crisp vegetables in an Admiral re¬ frigerator. Muriel, an established stage actress, is like most of the other video salesgirls in the new advertising scheme of things: she’s practically in¬ separable from her product. She’s Ad¬ miral’s Girl. Then there’s little Betty Johnson, a Down South package with a slight drawl who chirps commercials for Borden’s on Treasury Men In Action. Betty isn’t exactly in competition with Borden’s original pitchgirl, Elsie the Cow. She’s more of a running mate to that celebrated dairy bovine. In any case, pert Betty is one of the few who Muriel Williams: a living trade mark. takes singing the praises of old Spon¬ sor U. literally. She’s a professional at it, having sung with the Johnson Fam¬ ily Singers and also as a soloist. Pitchgirls try as much as possible to look the part of the modern, middle- class housewife, which many of them are. “We dress,” said one TV sales gal, “not in aprons or flimsy little prints like most homemakers, but rather in clothes a housewife would wear if she only had time.” Their talks stick mostly to the honest, direct ap¬ proach with a liberal sprinkling of female gushing. The pay is good, the work is steady. But with few excep¬ tions the girls don’t want to live out their careers as walking trademarks. Underneath they’re actresses all. 11