COMMERCIALS BREW HIS CAREER

The art director from the ad agency pushed up her sleeves, resolutely crossed her arms and chewed her lip while watching the television monitor.

She walked over to the commercial director who was lounging in his chair, quite pleased with the action he had stirred up.

“It’s too busy,” she complained.

“No, that take was perfect, absolutely perfect,” he insisted. “Let’s get another one.”

John Zaremba, the subject of these comments, stood comfortably in front of the camera, oblivious to the ongoing debate. After 14 years as the Hills Bros. “bean buyer,” Zaremba is pitching its expensive new line, Hills Bros.’ Gold Label.

The elfin actor had donned tails and a top hat for the coffee’s TV debut. But his elegant attire stopped abruptly at his feet. Instead of the painfully tight black patent leather shoes the agency had provided, he’d slipped into flowered bedroom slippers.

Once again, he positioned himself in front of the camera. He smiled and delivered his lines as he flipped his top hat from hand to head, vaudevillian style.

It was this unscripted hat trick that had the two directors warring until the next shot was set up. After half an hour had been spent lighting the steam rising off a cup of coffee, Zaremba picked up his own Pentax, jumped on a wooden box and snapped pictures of the cameramen photographing the coffee cup.

“I’ve had so many people ask me how a commercial is made that I’m putting together a slide presentation to show at a class (on topical events) I attend at Orange Coast College,” says the actor. “I generally watch quite closely, especially when they’re setting up a scene I’m required to be in. That way I know how the viewer will see me.”

Zaremba, 77, who’s appeared in more than 100 Hills Bros. commercials, initially had the same trepidations that haunt most actors-turned-pitchmen: Would the commercials typecast him and ruin his acting career?

It proved different for Zaremba: He had already established the debonair, sophisticated persona that Hills Bros. would cash in on. He refined it selling coffee--and furthered the other side of his career.

Six years after he became the Hills Bros. bean broker, the producers of “Dallas” contacted Zaremba’s agent, wanting the actor to read for the part of Harlan Danver, the family doctor.

“I was so pleased they thought of me. In Hollywood I’m viewed as a lawyer, judge or doctor, and that’s what I’ve concentrated on,” Zaremba said. “I’m sure I got the part because I’m believable.

“Very early on in my commercial career I pictured myself as a spokesman or salesman for a product. I never wanted to be the grandfather eating breakfast cereal with the children in the backyard. I think that’s because of my business background.”

As a young man in Grand Rapids, Mich., and later in Chicago, Zaremba worked on newspapers and performed in local theater groups with his wife, Eleanor.

While he was on the ad staff of the Chicago Tribune, the couple appeared at Mummer’s Theater.

They later returned to Grand Rapids where he published the Creston News, working as reporter, editor and salesman. But after several years of 90-hour work weeks, he had accomplished what he wanted and, in 1949, decided to resume his acting career.

“It was a choice of going to Broadway or Hollywood, and we picked Los Angeles because of the film industry,” he recalled. “We had three children and a wish--for me to become a full-time actor.”

They moved to Pasadena, where he eked out a living in local theater.

Television ultimately molded his dignified, authoritative demeanor when he played FBI agent Gerry Dressler on “I Led Three Lives,” the 1950s TV series starring Richard Carlson. Zaremba has since guested on such series as “Perry Mason,” “Ben Casey” and “Little House on the Prairie” and appeared in a couple of dozen forgettable films, including “R.P.M.”

“Strangely, I don’t feel like an actor,” Zaremba said. “One agent referred to me as a non-actorish actor, and I agree. I feel much more comfortable and secure as a business spokesman.

“I did a film called ‘The Chicago Story,’ and didn’t enjoy it. I was playing the leader of a mob who had the appearance of a businessman but underneath he was a thug. I could see on screen my own discomfort with the character.”

Zaremba’s reminiscences were cut short as the director called him back to work. Once again he took his mark and practiced flipping his hat until the director called, “Take two.”

The commercial, however, may never run. Elliott Gould has been pitching Hills Bros. Gold lately, but Zaremba is convinced there’s no trouble brewing over his contract.

“I was told my contract, which is up for renegotiation in August, won’t be affected by this situation. A couple of years down the line there might be some changes made--we’ve always spoken frankly about that possibility. Meanwhile, I expect to enjoy the stability of being a Hills Bros. commercial spokesman.”