Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Powered by Genesis

You are here: Home / Art & Beer / Beer In Ads #2157: William Bendix For Pabst

Beer In Ads #2157: William Bendix For Pabst

January 15, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Sunday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1950. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features General William Bendix. He “was an American film, radio, and television actor, who typically played rough, blue-collar characters. He is best remembered in movies for the title role in The Babe Ruth Story. He also memorably portrayed the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television’s The Life of Riley. He received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for Wake Island (1942).”

PBR-1950-william-bendix

In the ad, Bendix sits in a barcalounger in his San Fernando Valley home, with a pipe in one hand and a mug of beer in the other. There’s also a sandwich for him on an end table. So if there’s a television in front of him in that room, it’s a pretty perfect setting. This series, with the photos inside a round blue ribbon ran for a few years, and then they changed the format slightly, squaring the photos, getting rid of the ribbon frame, and changing up the text away from talking about where the people were in the photo. Below is the newer version of the same ad, from the mid-1950s, just for contrast.

PBR-1950-william-bendix-sq

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Celebrities, History, Pabst



Comments

  1. Ron Dawes says

    January 16, 2017 at 9:49 am

    Looks like he ground his own coffee.

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Recent Comments

  • Steve "Pudgy" De Rose on Beer Birthday: Pete Slosberg
  • Paul Finch on Beer Birthday: Dann Paquette
  • Steve 'Pudgy' De Rose on Historic Beer Birthday: Louis Hudepohl
  • Steve 'Pudgy' De Rose on Historic Beer Birthday: Sharon Vaughn
  • Paul Gatza on Beer Birthday: Paul Gatza

Recent Posts

  • Historic Beer Birthday: Christian Heurich September 12, 2025
  • Beer In Ads #5077: Dinkelacker Bock Beer September 11, 2025
  • Beer Birthday: Geno Acevedo September 11, 2025
  • Beer In Ads #5076: Stroh’s Bock Beer September 10, 2025
  • Beer Birthday: Nico Freccia September 10, 2025

BBB Archives

Feedback

Head Quarter
This site is hosted and maintained by H25Q.dev. Any questions or comments for the webmaster can be directed here.
Go to mobile version