Dear Otus,
I've been a big fan since I was a young thespian at UALR. I hope I can count on you to help spread the word to your thousands of readers.
Our growing organization has now joined social media and we aim to bring an end to a continued gross perversion of the American way and common decency.
I've attached a photo and our AARP manifesto.
-- James Marvin,
Culver City, Calif.
Dear James,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to thank you for being a longtime reader. I'm delighted to count such a Hollywood icon as a reader and a fellow native Arkansan. You have done your hometown proud.
For those who know his work, but not his name, James is a highly-respected Hollywood character actor who was born in Little Rock in 1960 and graduated from Catholic High in 1978.
After a couple of years at Hendrix College in Conway, James got the acting bug and finished at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1984 with a bachelor of arts degree in technical theatre.
After paying his dues for five years at the Stage Crafters Community Theatre in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., James made his way to California in 1989 where he became in demand whenever there was a role that called for a rugged, all-American type, especially one in uniform.
We all recall his memorable turn as "Lieutenant" in a 1989 episode of China Beach, and as "Military Policeman No. 1" in an episode of Twin Peaks in 1991.
James made his mark in ensuing years as "Delivery person," "Sailor," "Krishna Cop," "Bus Counter Tender" and "Hattie" in Down Home, Quantum Leap, In Living Color, Ruby, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
But James really caught the attention of Hollywood with his portrayals of "Tank Commander" in JAG, "Cop No. 1" in Nip/Tuck and "Hazmat Tech" in CSI.
James credits his breakout performance alongside fellow Arkansan Mary Steenburgen as "Another Park Ranger" in "Common Thread," a 2005 episode of Joan of Arcadia, with landing him his big break as Leonard the Bear, the patriarch of the famous Charmin Bears family.
The bears replaced bespectacled grocer Mr. Whipple, played by Dick Wilson, upon Wilson's retirement from the long-running Procter & Gamble advertising campaign for Charmin bath tissue. Wilson, by the way, died in 2007 at the age of 91.
As Leonard the Bear, James became internationally famous for his signature catchphrase, "We all deserve a little pampering!," said while blissfully squeezing a roll of Charmin.
In his familiar bear costume, James became the touring face of Charmin from 2006 to 2012, appearing at malls and on local TV morning shows across the country. Then, in late 2012, Proctor & Gamble "went in a different creative direction" and opted to replace the human actors with animation. The cartoon bear family has been on the air ever since.
The annual six-figure royalties from his years with Charmin have allowed James and his wife, actress Mea Rozzlyn ("Cashier" in One False Move), to live comfortably in the fashionable Lucerne Higuera neighborhood of Culver City alongside such famous neighbors as Drew Barrymore, Michael Richards, Helen Hunt and Daniel, the black sheep Baldwin brother, who gave up show biz after being the first Housemate to be evicted on Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2015.
Unfortunately, as with similar Hollywood situations, James saw his career fade once his Charmin days were over. He had simply become too closely associated with Leonard the Bear and the movie and TV offers dried up.
No one in Hollywood wanted to hire "the bear guy" -- not even as "Deputy No. 2," or "Tall Cop" -- so James tried to start over with other commercials.
Sadly, his misfortune coincided with the national movement to replace commercial actors with nonprofessionals in an effort to lend verisimilitude to the product. "Real people, not actors" became the on-screen boast of countless advertising campaigns that began with Chevrolet and spread across the spectrum.
"Are we not real people, too?" James asks in the cover letter from his organization, Actors ARE Real People. He says that 87 disgruntled actors organized AARP in 2016 after yet another blockbuster movie came out featuring dozens of computer-generated characters and just a handful of humans.
AARP now boasts 14,000 unemployed members.
"If you prick us, do we not bleed?" James writes. "If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you to follow James and AARP on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest at #RealPeople.
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Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of
Z humorous fabrication X
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Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of 👉 humorous fabrication 👈 appears every Saturday.
HomeStyle on 09/01/2018