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Cal Worthington, whose old-time carnival flair built one of the most successful car dealerships west of the Mississippi, has died. He was 92.
Worthington died Sunday while watching football at his home on the Big W Ranch near Orland, Calif., said his attorney Larry Miles. The cause has not been determined.
Described as a cross between Dale Carnegie and Slim Pickens, Worthington was best known for his wacky television pitches which had him wrestling with a tiger, flying upside down on an airplane wing or riding a killer whale. His sales antics with his "Dog Spot" drove a career that took him from a three-car lot on a patch of Texas dirt to a multi-make dealership empire that grossed billions of dollars and stretched from Southern California to Alaska.
"I can compete with anybody," Worthington said in a 1995 newspaper interview. "I figure my commercials are better than the other guys. Why should [a customer] go to anyone else, when they see me standing on my head to sell a car?"
The Oklahoma native's risk-taking nature and colorful pursuit of wealth were rooted in the traumatic experiences of his youth. The seventh of nine children, Calvin Coolidge Worthington was born Nov. 27, 1920, and grew up in the poverty of the Dust Bowl. His family's home had no running water and was heated by a wood stove. His father, a man who Worthington once remarked "couldn't sell eyes to a blind man," was a common laborer.
Worthington quit school at age 13 so he could help support his family. He worked as a dollar-a-day cowboy and later with the Civilian Conservation Corps.
When World War II broke out, Worthington enlisted in the Army Air Forces and became a B-17 pilot at the age of 21. He was among the first bomber pilots to lead daytime raids over Berlin. In all, he flew 29 missions with the Army's 390th Bomber Group, including raids over Hamburg and Frankfurt, and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross.
After the war, he applied to be a pilot with the major commercial airliners, but was rejected because he lacked a college degree. In fact, he had dropped out of school in the ninth grade. With little idea of what to do next, Worthington, who then lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, paid $500 for a gas station lease. He'd raised the money in 30 minutes by selling his 1936 Hudson Terraplane.
In time, the gas station didn't work out, but his knack for selling cars did. He began buying cars, fixing them up and then selling them from a dirt parking lot near the local post office. After a few months of sales success, he abandoned his dream of becoming an airline pilot, and knew he'd be a car salesman.
By 1950, he'd made enough money to buy a car dealership in Huntington Park. In the years that followed, Worthington began to use his down-home theatrical style to drum up more business.
His business continued to expand as he organized and sponsored country/western music shows called "Cal's Corral." The three-hour live shows featured such acts as Buck Owens, Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash before they became big names.
Worthington's enduring mark on regional television wasn't made until 1971, when he began running his famous "Dog Spot" commercials. The ads were inspired by two competitors, Ralph Williams and Fletcher Jones, who both ran television ads featuring dogs. In particular, Jones was shown cuddling puppies and promised he'd give customers a dog from the pound.
"I decided I'd mimic them," Worthington told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. So he borrowed a gorilla, chained it to a car bumper and let the cameras roll. With the ape snarling in the background, Worthington said: "Howdy, I'm Cal Worthington and this is my dog, Spot. I found this little fella down at the pound, and he's so full of love."
Worthington spoofed the ads for decades, offering customers his "dog, Spot," who always turned out to be any animal other than a dog. At one time or another, frogs, lizards, grizzly bears, hippos and even elephants played the part of Spot. It was during this time, too, that Worthington aired the famous 26-stanza jingle he'd written himself titled "Go See Cal."
From the start, Worthington insisted on writing and starring in his own ads. And he believed in the power of repetition. At the height of his success, he spent $12 million to run his commercials 50,000 times a year.
The ads caught the eye of Hollywood, as Worthington made an appearance with a goose on "The Tonight Show." When the bird soiled Worthington's suit, host Johnny Carson quipped: "Be glad it wasn't that elephant sitting on your lap."
His fame earned him minor parts in the movie "Into the Night" and the television series "The Fall Guy," where he naturally played a car dealer. The Television Bureau of Advertising called Worthington "probably the best-known car dealer pitchman in television history."
His ride to cult celebrity status and great wealth wasn't without its bumps. In the 1960s, and then again during the energy crunch of the mid-'70s, his car dealership business suffered to such an extent that he gave live Southern California traffic updates from a helicopter. And for a short time, he even sold motorized pogo sticks.
In 1979, Worthington divorced his wife Barbara of 37 years and married Susan Henning, an actress and model. The second marriage ended in a bitter divorce seven years later.
In the early 1980s, he left his Southern California headquarters in Long Beach and moved his operations to the Sacramento area. Once there, he spent much of his time on his 24,000-acre Big W Ranch and office complex in Glenn County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.
In 1995, Worthington again married, this time disc jockey Bonnie Reese, about 40 years his junior. The couple divorced in 2006.
Worthington is survived by his sons Rod, Calvin and Coldren; his daughters Barbara Worthington, Courtney Worthington Shepherd and Susan Worthington Skellenger; and nine grandchildren.
As he aged, Worthington stopped his practice of flying his Learjet to car dealer locations in Houston, Phoenix and Seattle to shoot his commercials. In recent years, he stood before a green wall at his Northern California ranch and let a computer superimpose his 6-foot-4 image into an Alaska snowstorm for his Anchorage dealership or a sunset for his Long Beach or Carlsbad lots.
"I don't do anything very well," Worthington told The Times. "I just stick at it."
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