(Confessions of a sofa stroker)
It was a dreary February in 1978. Unemployed, living in Austin, Texas, and seven months pregnant, I wasn’t barefoot, but the stacked-wedgies on my feet were pinching my toes something terrible. Searching for gainful employment, I pounded the pavement knocking on one door after another and soon found out that nobody in the advertising business wanted on-camera talent who was so big she, “Mooooed.” Someone even joked that a woman in my advanced inflated condition might get stuck between a washer and dryer, or God forbid drop her load while on camera.
By late afternoon the kid inside my stomach was using my bladder as a punching bag. A sign on the building read, Bonner McLane Marketing Associates. Once inside the cluttered office, I gave the receptionist my headshot and contact info. The programmed response was, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”.
I rolled across the street and waddled into Highland Mall where I purchased the XXX Grande Orange Julius, a citrus based drink sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. A sign pasted on the cash register swore that an O. J. a day was a healthy alternative instead of soda. I sipped the orangey tasting stuff, and confided to Mister O. J., “The doctor told me to walk, walk, walk. And that’s exactly what I did today.” I checked out the youngish crowd in the food court. That caused a chuckle. “These kids look like they just stepped off the set of The Partridge Family. Advertisers are looking for fresh young faces filled with vigor, not a knocked-up thirty-someone who has a basketball hiding under her blouse.”
The next morning the Bonner McLane agency called. They wanted me to come in for an on-camera audition. Once the initial shock wore off, I asked, “What’s the part?”
“The client is looking for a company spokesperson.”
The audition was held at the K-VUE 24 TV studio in Austin. Besides me, there were probably twenty other women of various ages trying out for the job. None of them looked pregnant, which made me wonder why I was called. Each prospective spokesperson was given a number and a short sales pitch to memorize, then ordered to get in line and wait to be called. Finally, the man who had earlier introduced himself as Bonner McLane, gave the orders.
“You people are here today because Mister David Lacks the founder of Lack’s Furniture is looking for someone to be identified with the company’s brand. When you look into the camera, expound on the sofa’s beauty, the craftsmanship and durability. In other words, ladies, make love to the sofa.”
“Did he say cheap shit?” someone whispered.
“I think it was sheep shit,” some girl giggled.
As each number was called, every one of my competitors sashayed over to stand next to what struck me as an ugly tweed sofa. I thought the outdated antique was just a prop but soon learned that quaint Early American Colonial schlock was David Lack’s stock in trade. When it was their turn each potential Lack’s lady had most of their lines memorized but delivered them like they were afraid of the camera. The rookies who wanted to break into the ad game, stumbled and mumbled, and didn’t know which way to exit the set.
I was lucky number thirteen. Instead of sashaying, I slowly glided to balance one half my rear end on the arm of the sofa. When I stroked the cheap fabric, I looked directly into the camera’s eye and gave it up, “Find red hot savings during the final days of the store-wide super summer sale going on right now At Lack’s, where we make you feel right at home.”
The next day, after I accepted the job to be company spokesperson for the Lack’s Furniture Stores, all six of them, I was told a rush order had been handed down from the top dog himself, Mister David Lacks, who I was told remarked, “Put her in front of the camera ASAP.”
“So, that’s why I was hired?” I thought. “Because I’m pregnant”?
The first Lack’s commercial was filmed inside the new store on Anderson Lane. No one in Austin, not even the Big O with Betty Mayfield at his side, had come up with the bright idea to put a pregnant sofa stroker on TV. To take advantage of my All-American; apple pie look, the commercial’s director, Don Friedkin, a small man with a big head, positioned me in front of a washing machine.
Don Friedkin was a one-shot director, who chain-smoked Winston cigarettes and wore a black derby hat that matched his thick curly hair. I had 30 seconds to make the Lack’s pitch without a hitch, and was allowed one blooper per take, after that it cost me a buck per retake, which covered the cost of Don’s nasty cigarette habit. When the subject of his famous cousin came up, Don laughed and replied, “William Friedkin is an asshole who’d steal a Girl Scout’s cookies. He’s one of those New Hollywood film directors. They give the orders now, not the studio. I think all that power has gone to Bill’s head.”
Every thirty days, like clockwork, we filmed four Lack’s Furniture TV spots and recorded eight radio commercials. My job was to brag on the company’s products and its total commitment to customer satisfaction. Twelve months after filming the first commercial on Anderson Lane, we were on location in San Antonio at the huge Lack’s warehouse. It was a surprise to all when David Lack’s son, Melvin walked on the set to announce that he was now running the family business. Then, he made a point to look directly at me, when he said, “The job of the Lack’s Lady is to instill the American dream in a growing family that consists of a husband, one wife and two-point-five children. When you look into the camera talk to it like you would to a friend.”
I did talk into the mic while looking directly into the camera. I was friendly, too. Most commercials we made were standard sofa stroker tedium, but every now and then Don Friedkin’s creative urge would kick in, like the time I wore a flimsy negligee while laying prone on a king-size bed, stroking a snow-white Afghan dog. Then there was a white-knuckle flight to Amarillo in near blizzard conditions to film the grand opening of Lack’s Furniture store #20. On Diez y Seis de Septeimbre, Don surprised everyone when he put me in the lead of a conga line that wound through the store aisles. And I’ll never forget the hot, suffocating Fourth of July firecracker costume, with a long wick sticking out the top of my head.
I’d been making people feel right at home with Lack’s for a few years when one day, while in the Dallas Furniture Mart, Melvin Lacks showed me a catalogue. He pointed to the glossy color photos and said, “Pick out a line and we’ll push it next month.”
“You want me to decide what Lack’s carries?”
“Why not? You’re the consumer and at Lack’s you’re always right.”
Melvin Lacks not only appreciated my selection in furniture but my choice of a wardrobe as well. I was on the set one day, rehearsing my sofa stroking, when the boss admitted, “You look like you just stepped out of the Foley’s catalogue.”
After Melvin left the set, Don Friedkin hissed, “Yeah, how in the hell can you afford those pricy rags every month?”
I whispered, “You mean on my meager, paltry clothing budget that barely buys my lunch?” I quickly changed the subject, declining to explain my lend-lease contract with Foleys.
The average life span of a sitcom on TV is 7 years. In 1989 after eleven years the Lack’s Lady was booted…why? That’s the way the ad business works. Here today and gone tomorrow. Future Lack’s TV commercials became computer generated and featured a tiny Melvin Lacks inside a mailbox.
These days, if someone stares at me and remarks, “I know I’ve seen you somewhere.”
I smile and tell them “I used to be the Lack’s Lady on TV, but now I’m the Ex-Lack’s Lady.”