Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 7, 1995 TAG: 9508070070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His mother called him Art.
To the U.S. Army, he was Capt. Haggerty.
But to the rest of the world, he's Mr. Clean.
At least he was, for about a year in the mid-1960s.
It's a name the actor hasn't been able to completely shake since he made the trade show circuit doing personal appearances as the shiny-headed man on the label of the Proctor & Gamble cleaning product. Among friends and in the dog training world, he's still known to many by that name.
Haggerty was in Salem Friday night judging a Roanoke Kennel Club dog show at the Salem Civic Center. Wrapped in a massive tuxedo instead of a skin-tight T-shirt and a gold earring, he was still the most impressive thing in the ring. Friday was the first of three days of competition.
How did he get the gig as the toughest - and most famous - janitor in America?
"Well, I look like Mr. Clean," he said.
A silly question, obviously.
Don't mess with Mr. Clean.
At about 6 foot 3 with a pate as round and smooth as the harvest moon, he still looks like the guy on the label. For the record, he started life in Yonkers, N.Y., with a head of curly blond locks. He began shaving his head toward the end of his military career, but now he's nearly bald naturally.
Marlene Halsey, president of the Roanoke Kennel Club, said that when she met Haggerty at a dog show in the late 1960s, a mutual friend introduced him as "Mr. Clean." It was Halsey who brought the Clean One to Roanoke this weekend to judge.
But Haggerty hasn't played Mr. Clean in more than 30 years. He came close to playing the role in television commercials for the product, but Proctor & Gamble decided to go with an animated version.
It's the classic John Henry tale. The hard-working hulk of a man replaced by automation. Only Haggerty didn't lie down and die at the end.
He's been working hard ever since. You might say his life has gone to the dogs, if it hadn't started there in the first place.
Haggerty said he's been training dogs all his life. With his daughter getting into the business, that makes four generations of Haggertys training them. He also has written two books on the subject, one of which, "Dog Tricks," has been selling steadily since 1977.
After serving in the Korean War and doing two tours of duty in the U.S. Army Canine Corps, Haggerty wound up in California training dogs for film appearances.
"I would be there on the set with a dog, and somebody would say, `Hey, you want to be in the film?'''
After a few movies, he joined the Screen Actors Guild. He's been acting ever since, under the name Capt. Art Haggerty.
"Yeah," he said, "I'm so nondescript-looking I figured I had to have a title."
Haggerty said he's done 26 appearances in comedy skits on the David Letterman show, about a dozen on ``The Tonight Show,'' and several movies.
Alec Baldwin gunned him down on the Long Island Rail Road in "Married to the Mob," and Burt Reynolds beat him senseless in "Seamus."
Needless to say, the portly Haggerty often plays "the heavy."
People still stop him on the street and say, "Hey, you're Mr. Clean." But by now, he's used to that.
``I just say, `My contract doesn't permit me to answer that question.''' He's not kidding about that, either. He's not allowed to cash in on his likeness to the artist's rendering of Mr. Clean in any way.
Friday night, a civic center maintenance worker walked by and paused momentarily to look over Haggerty and Halsey, a platinum blond in a flashy white tux with a gold lam bowtie.
After he turned the corner, the man stopped Halsey's husband, Bert, to ask him a question.
"Hey," the man whispered, "Is that Debbie Reynolds in there?"
by CNB