ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601310013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: ROY RIVENBURG LOS ANGELES TIMES
This article is not available in stores! For a limited time only, you can own one of the most amazing works in journalism history! It illuminates! It entertains! It washes and waxes your car!
It also tells the strange saga of TV pitchman Ron Popeil, a tale involving murder plots, multiple wives and a diet of chicken feet.
But wait. There's more!
Act now and we'll throw in Ann Landers, a humorous column and 18 comic strips absolutely free!
For four decades, Popeil has sliced, diced and Mr. Microphoned his way across American TV screens. He has unleashed such products as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Hula Ho (the weeder with a wiggle) and GLH spray-on hair.
He has endured such attention as spoofs by ``Saturday Night Live'' and a plunge into bankruptcy.
And now, at age 60, he's back. This time he's peddling a new invention: his autobiography.
To Popeil, ``The Salesman of the Century'' (Delacorte Press) is an American success story - the account of a college dropout who overcame adversity and sold (so far) more than $1 billion in goods.
But it's also a fairy tale gone awry. Between the lines is the story of an affection-starved youth who discovered that the only way he could relate to people was by selling them stuff.
Popeil's Beverly Hills home is guarded by an electronic gate, security cameras and a dog named Pasta. This is the heart of Popeil's infomercial empire, Ronco Inc. Here, products are tested and TV spots taped.
The house is also something of a shrine to his merchandise. An Inside the Shell Egg Scrambler rests on a kitchen counter. A redesigned Pocket Fisherman is on a table. And two Automatic Pasta Makers squat near a smoke-belching mystery device that seems destined to go back to the drawing board.
In the middle of it all, lounging on the couch, is the guru of gadgets himself, Ronald Martin Popeil.
Speaking in his trademark hypnotic voice, the one that causes credit cards to twitch in their owners' wallets, the Bronx-born hawker reminisces about his achievements.
``I think I've fulfilled the American Dream,'' he declares.
And it's hard not to believe him at first: A personal fortune in ``the double-digit millions.'' A 28-year-old model as his new bride. Homes in Las Vegas and Southern California.
But behind the glamour is a painful past.
Popeil wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth - or even a Ginsu knife.
When he was 3, his parents got a divorce and essentially abandoned him. Exiled to an Upstate New York boarding school, he didn't see them for years.
When he was about 8, his paternal grandparents took him in, but life remained miserable, he says. The old couple fought constantly, served meals made from chicken feet and showed Popeil little affection.
It wasn't until they moved from Miami to Chicago - where his father manufactured kitchenware - that Popeil found salvation. There, he discovered Maxwell Street, the gritty equivalent of a modern-day flea market. At 16, he joined the rough-and-tumble collection of street vendors and thieves who unloaded merchandise there.
He purchased a bunch of gizmos from his dad (their relationship was ``strictly business,'' Popeil says) and dove into the maelstrom.
``I pushed. I yelled. I hawked,'' he recalls. ``And it worked.''
But there was more to Maxwell Street than money. ``I had lived for 16 years in homes without love,'' he writes. ``Now I had finally found a form of affection, and a human connection, through sales.''
Popeil claims he cleared $1,000 a week, a gold mine in the 1950s.
Then he discovered late-night television. And thus began a parade of products still seared into public consciousness:
Chop-O-Matics and Dial-O-Matics (``You can slice a tomato so thin it only has one side!'').
Feather Touch Knives (``So sharp they could shave the eyebrows off a New Jersey mosquito!'') and Food Dehydrators.
And Kitchen Magician and canned hair (motto: ``Gone today, hair tomorrow'').
By the early 1970s, Ronco was cruising up the American Stock Exchange. And Popeil, the man who one reporter said could sell fingernail polish to the Venus de Milo, was a jet-setting millionaire.
But his family life was a wreck.
In 1974, Popeil's stepmother, Eloise, was convicted of trying to have Popeil's father murdered.
After she served a 19-month sentence, the elder Popeil remarried her.
Ron's domestic situation wasn't notably better. His obsession with work took a toll: at home (he's currently with wife No.4), with friends (he struggled to name even two in a recent interview) and at play (movies and books are out of the question and he has never once used the tennis court or pool at his Beverly Hills house).
Popeil admits that he's been a lousy husband and mediocre dad, but says he's trying to break the pattern with his youngest daughter, Lauren, 12 (his two other children are adults).
But during a November visit to Los Angeles, Popeil concedes he hasn't seen Lauren in 11/2 months.
Couldn't he quit to make more time for her?
Popeil sighs. Part of his reluctance to take that step, he says, is his Depression-era upbringing: ``We're all driven by our pasts, and my past says you never know.''
But it's more than a fear of going broke.
``I like the idea that people ask me for my autograph, say they can't wait for my next product,'' he says. ``It's far different from the first 16 years of my life when there was no communication. I'll be a little unhappy [when it ends].''
(Isn't this article amazing? But wait! There's more!)
In 1984, Ronco began a new chapter - Chapter 11.
Popeil blames the bankruptcy on his bank: A new management team came in and wouldn't extend his $15million loan. Other observers suggest he got pummeled by the competition for his CleanAire Machine.
Popeil played the national anthem and signed off the air.
During his TV hiatus, he worked on several unusual projects. One was a videotape device that projected subliminal self-help messages onto home TV screens. The other was a computer handwriting analysis program that rated couples' compatibility.
In the early '90s, Popeil launched his television comeback, blitzing cable stations with infomercials for electric food dehydrators, pasta makers and aerosol hair.
He says he made more money than ever.
And now there's Ron Popeil the book (he originally wanted to title it ``As Seen On TV''). Half the text is tips for other inventors. Popeil has always been a magnet for strange ideas (his cousin once proposed a combination denture washer and milkshake maker), but most of his gadgets are either self-created or improvements on existing patents.
The book also recounts Popeil's life story, but Popeil isn't big on introspection.
It seems clear Popeil isn't going away any time soon.
He says he's trying to cut a deal that would allow him to sell his company but keep a hand in creating and selling its products.
If negotiations fall through, he muses momentarily, he might simply retire. But seconds later, he says, ``You're always going to see Ronco or Popeil in the marketplace. I'll never stop.''
Operators are standing by...
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Infomercial pioneer Ron Popeil (left) with some of hisby CNBfamous products. color. 2. Some of Ronco's biggest sellers were
Veg-O-Matic, 3. Dial-O-Matic, 4. Inside-the-shell-Egg Scrambler 5.
and the Pocket Fisherman.