TV’s ‘Mr. Whipple,’ Dick Wilson, 91, dies

LOS ANGELES -- Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," died Monday. He was 91.

Wilson died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who is known for her role as a flight attendant on the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers."

"He is part of the culture. He was still funny to the very end. That's his legacy," his daughter said.

Wilson, a Henderson resident during the 1990s, made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted squeezer.

The first commercial aired in 1964 and by the time the campaign ended in 1985 the tag line and Wilson, a former Canadian airman and vaudeville veteran, were pop culture touchstones.

"Everybody says, 'Where did they find you?' I say I was never lost. I've been an actor for 55 years," Wilson told the San Francisco Examiner in 1985.

Though Wilson said he initially resisted commercial work, he learned to appreciate its nuance.

"It's the hardest thing to do in the entire acting realm. You've got 24 seconds to introduce yourself, introduce the product, say something nice about it and get off gracefully."

Dennis Legault, Procter & Gamble's Charmin brand manager, said in a statement that Wilson deserves much of the credit for Charmin's success in the marketplace.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mr. Whipple character, which Dick Wilson portrayed for so many years, is one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising," Legault said.

During his run as Mr. Whipple, Wilson also performed on the dinner theater circuit, shot occasional stand-up comedy shows and worked on dozens of TV sitcoms. He played the drunk on several episodes of "Bewitched," and appeared as various characters on "Hogan's Heroes," "The Bob Newhart Show" and Walt Disney productions.

After Wilson retired in 1985, he continued to do occasional guest appearances for the brand and act on television. He declared himself not impressed with modern cinema.

"The kind of pictures they're making today, I'll stick with toilet paper," he told The Associated Press in 1985.

That choice seemed inevitable, Wilson said in a 1995 interview, because hundreds of appearances as Mr. Whipple had so typecast him that they "killed me from being an actor" and other roles dried up.

Even so, Wilson shared his knowledge of a lifetime in show business with local performers at workshops presented by the Screen Actors Guild Conservatory of Nevada. He also appeared in two fundraisers for the group in the late '90s, according to conservatory chairwoman Barbara Grant.

"He was a delightful man," Grant said of Wilson, who hadn't lived in Henderson since about 2000, she noted.

In addition to his acting prowess, Wilson was "a very, very talented painter," Grant recalled; among Wilson's artworks was a line drawing of Shirley MacLaine the Oscar-winning performer sometimes used as a promotional logo. (In the drawing, Wilson included a sentimental touch, Grant said, by using his wife Meg's name to shape MacLaine's earrings.)

Procter & Gamble eventually replaced Wilson's Mr. Whipple ads with cartoon bears, but brought the character back for an encore in 1999. The single ad showed Wilson "coming out of retirement" against the advice of his golfing and poker buddies for one more chance to sell a new, more pillowy Charmin.

Even after he was replaced as the Charmin spokesman, Wilson said he still was recognized as Mr. Whipple.

"People say to me on the streets, 'Hey, don't squeeze the Charmin,' " he commented in a 1995 Review-Journal story. "I tell them, 'Hey, you can squeeze whatever you want.' "

Born July 30, 1916, in England, Wilson moved to Canada as a child. His father starred in a vaudeville minstrel show and his mother was a singer. He served in the Canadian Air Force during World War II and became a U.S. citizen in 1954.

He is survived by his wife, Meg, son, Stuart, and daughters, Wendy and Melanie.

A private funeral will be held Dec. 1 at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills in California.

Review-Journal writer Carol Cling contributed to this report.