Scentimental Sign : Perfume Peddler Professes His Admiration for Actress Elizabeth Taylor in a Big Way
Joe (Last of the Old Time Peddlers) Honowitz knows all about rejection. After all, nobody spends more than 40 years selling imitation colognes and perfumes door-to-door without getting a few slammed in his face.
Honowitz says he has been shoved in Burbank, shot at in Las Vegas, jailed in Carson, beaten in several bars and harassed throughout much of the continental United States.
But the unkindest cut of all could come later this month, if actress Elizabeth Taylor fails to respond to a huge billboard that Honowitz paid to have erected in her honor near the corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Airdrome Street.
“I want to tell her how much I love her,” said Honowitz, 65. “Not romantically, of course, because I’ve been married 38 years, and I love my wife. What I want to tell Miss Taylor is that I love what she has done.”
Honowitz admires Taylor’s acting and charitable work so much that he is refusing to sell the imitation variety of her “Passion” perfume. The peddler, who carries cheap knockoffs of most other major brands, said he doesn’t want to compete with his idol.
Honowitz said he wants Taylor to enjoy the sweet smell of success.
“I could get the imitation, but I tell people to go to Robinson’s and buy the real thing,” Honowitz said. “I hope she sells a million bottles of it.”
Honowitz hopes to explain his feelings to Taylor, one perfumer to another, if she calls. The Culver City resident spent more than $3,000 to rent a West Los Angeles billboard for a month. The sign contains a close-up picture of his smiling face in sunglasses and a Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap with the message:
“Miss Elizabeth Taylor, Please Call: (213) 839-3750. Joe, Last of the Old Time Peddlers, Honowitz. 41 Years in Perfume Biz--Welcome to the World of Fragrance, Little Doll.”
Taylor spokeswoman Chen Sam, who is based in New York, said last week that she was unaware of the billboard and said she doesn’t know whether Taylor would respond, since the star was recently hospitalized for a recurring back problem. But she called the gesture “sweet.”
The billboard represents an enormous financial commitment for a guy who makes his living in $5- and $10-dollar increments and who faces a pensionless retirement. But Honowitz said that, in addition to gaining Taylor’s attention, the costly advertisement may win him some new perfume and cologne customers.
In an earlier attention-getting ploy, Honowitz dropped 10 gallons of his imitation Aramis cologne on Chavez Ravine from a helicopter in 1959 to give the Los Angeles Dodger organization the “sweet smell of success.”
Honowitz said guys like him have to hustle just to survive in a marketplace filled with people who turn you away at the door, police who demand to see your vending permits and foreboding signs that say--”No Solicitors.”
“Most people know how much they’re going to make at the end of the week,” Honowitz said. “But I have no idea. It’s tough. I’ve had two breakdowns.”
Advice for Taylor
If he manages to speak to Taylor, Honowitz said he will warn her of the perils of the perfume business and offer the star some free sales advice. After four decades, Honowitz says he knows all of the tricks of the trade.
He started his sales career as a child, peddling candied apples on the streets of Depression-era Philadelphia. His older brother later persuaded him to move to Los Angeles and got him started in the imitation perfume business.
Honowitz still has his original ledger from 1948, which includes a listing of longtime customers. One secret to his success, he said, is ingenuity.
When he makes the rounds of doctor’s offices, factories and malls with his bulging and battered brown vinyl perfume bag, Honowitz usually dresses in a colorful outfit that includes green pants and a red identification tag, his head covered with a baseball cap from his beloved Philadelphia Phillies.
He carries his stocky frame lightly and he speaks in quick bursts of words, a habit formed after decades of quick sales pitches. Like Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman,” he seems to ride on a “shoeshine and a smile.”
His two biggest sellers are an imitation Giorgio perfume called “Have a Nice Day” and the Aramis knockoff called, strangely enough, “The Odor of Sweaty Baseball Players.” Honowitz said his wife, Gayle, came up with the name.
‘Feast or Famine’ Job
Gayle Honowitz also handles most of the customer calls that come into the couple’s tidy pink stucco home and helps bottle the perfumes, which are shipped to the Honowitzes in gallon jugs from several New York laboratories. “I told my wife when I married her that she was marrying a peddler,” Honowitz said. “It’s feast or famine. But she hasn’t missed a meal yet.”
On an average day, Honowitz figures he makes as many as 150 to 200 stops. He is licensed to work in Los Angeles and Orange counties, as well as the city of Los Angeles, but occasionally clashes with authorities when he wanders into an incorporated city that has its own licensing requirements. Honowitz, who has been stopped by police 68 times and arrested 29 times, contends that the federal government should issue a national vending permit.
“Cold canvass peddlers have it rough,” he said. “We get a lot of abuse. It’s a brutal business, and most people can’t put up with it. If we were licensed nationally, then at least we’d know we had some security.”
Despite his frustrations, Honowitz has no intention of quitting any time soon. He said he will continue selling perfumes, whether Taylor calls or not.
“If she don’t call, I’m not gonna be heartbroken,” Honowitz said. “Because I know what rejection is.”
