MAXWELL HOUSE’S HAL FINDS THE SECURITY GOOD

Rick Gates clasped his hand around his mug of coffee--Maxwell House coffee--as if giving a thankful prayer. Why not? Maxwell House has made his life a lot richer.

For the last five years he’s been paid well over $100,000 a year (by his estimate) to take an “E” ride around the United States. He is Hal, the company’s subtle pitchman, who travels with a camera and a dog named Duke to various regions of the country, sharing coffee with hospitable folks.

The Hal and Duke campaign first aired in 1983, after a three-year test period in which his exclusive contract with Maxwell House hurt his career. They weren’t running his spots, yet Gates couldn’t pitch anyone else’s products.

The delay has long since paid off, however. So far, Gates as logged 13 of the spots.

Gates, 38, has hyped instant, decaffeinated and drip-grind coffees from a firehouse in Charleston, S.C., to a lighthouse in Maine to the docks of Northern California’s Bodega Bay.

“Of course, I drink Maxwell House,” he said. “I know which side the butter’s on. As soon as my wife, Janie, got pregnant we switched to decaf, but we’d never change brands.”

It was during the latter part of his wife’s pregnancy this spring that Gates told his agent he was temporarily unavailable to work. Before that he had filmed back-to-back television shows (Linda Purl’s boyfriend in the ABC-TV movie “Pleasures” and a cop in “Bridges to Cross,” the Suzanne Pleshette series on CBS).

His first child, Katherine, was born April 19.

Gates and Duke are worlds apart: The actor lives in an English Tudor home in the Hollywood Hills; Duke (real name: Tramp) resides at Frank’s Inn, a trained animal ranch in the Valley.

But Gates claims they remain close: “I got to pick the dog with the producer. It was love at first sight. Tramp is the all-American muttsky. We rolled around and found out we could relate.”

A Southern Californian, Gates was born and reared in San Gabriel. By the time he began acting in high school, he was also something of a beach bum, which helped him land a commercial for water skis in Hawaii.

Before he was 21, he had appeared in dozens of spots, including 12 for Nestle’s Quick. Years later--but before Maxwell House--he even drank coffee with Folger’s Mrs. Olson.

Gates continued getting small acting roles, starting with “The Graduate” in 1968 (he gave Dustin Hoffman directions to the church), and was strung up despite Clint Eastwood’s protests in “Hang ‘em High.”

He was hired for the Maxwell House ads, he said, because of his blond-haired, West Coast, outdoorsy look.

“A friend and I read for the part at the same time,” Gates explained. “He expressed misgivings about becoming another ‘Mrs. Olson.’ I wasn’t worried, since Maxwell House didn’t want me to pound the coffee can. Their commercials are very low-key.

“Mrs. Olson’s role is very forceful and specific. (But) Hal is Everyman, and Duke is Any Dog.”

The deal’s downside is that Maxwell House has the ultimate control over Gates’ acting career--for one year at a time, with an option. Last year Gates was forced to give up his role as Gardner Perry on “Search for Tomorrow” after three months--because the producers had decided to turn the preppy, iconclastic Perry into a child molester. Maxwell House shuddered, and Gates left the soap.

But Gates claimed he has gotten other concessions from the coffee company--”several hundred thousand dollars a year” and the promise of no interference with his shooting schedule when he’s filming outside projects.

“Let me put it this way, this job is a long way away from becoming a grind,” he said, laughing.