Longtime Charmin pitchman, Canadian airman dies

19.11.2007 20:00 Arts - Source: cbc.ca

Prolific character actor Dick Wilson, who is probably best remembered for playing the grocer who pleaded with his customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," has died.

The 91-year-old performer died Monday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif., according to his actress daughter, Melanie.

Though his career spanned nearly seven decades of roles on radio, television, film and stage, Wilson stepped into his most famous performance late in life: as a toilet paper pitchman in the more than 500 Charmin spots he filmed from 1964 through 1985.

The son of a vaudeville performer and a singer who emigrated from the U.K. to Canada when he was still a child, Wilson studied sculpture and graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto.

He also served in the Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.

A prolific performer who followed his father into vaudeville, Wilson started out working in radio as a teen announcer. He eventually went on to build up a vast performing resum as a character actor.

His credits include myriad appearances on TV (including on Hogan's Heroes, McHale's Navy, Bewitched, Perry Mason and The Rockford Files), film (such as Planet of the Apes and Shakiest Gun in the West) and stage (Dial M for Murder, On the Town).

Wilson, who said he became a U.S. citizen in 1954, eventually became "one of the most recognizable faces of American advertising," Dennis Legault, Procter & Gamble's Charmin brand manager, said in a statement.

A private funeral will be held in December. Wilson is survived by his wife, three children and three grandchildren, all of whom live in the Los Angeles area.

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