Friday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1952. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one features actor Dan Duryea, who was born in White Plains, New York, but according to the ad copy he at least at some point in his life “lived in Milwaukee,” and one of the small panels shows him on his boat “Minkote” in Lake Arrowhead. There is a Lake Arrowhead in Nekoosa, in central Wisconsin, but it seems more likely it’s the one in California, which is near San Bernardino, not too far from the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, where he lived most of his adult life as a working film and television actor.
