Pity the Perotletariat : When the Crusty Texan Quit, a Lot of Get-Rich-Quick Dreams Died Too

He appealed to the Perotletariat of America, and now he’s let them down.

But there are none so bummed about Ross Perot’s aborted presidential campaign as the capitalists who thought they’d get rich off the plucky little billionaire.

He left them in the red.

“I feel like I’m holding a load of Christmas cards on New Year’s Day,” groans Ken Gross, author of a quickie biography, “Ross Perot: The Man Behind the Myth.”

Apparently, Gross’s editors over at Random House also are holding their breath as they await sales reports. In early July, 390,827 copies were shipped to bookstores across the nation, and although Gross says he’s been told “sales are good so far,” he adds, “I just keep asking, ‘You want me to open a souvenir stand like Elvis?’ ”

Even when he started writing in May, he knew the project was a high-wire act.

“I was never certain I could do the book,” says Gross, a mystery writer who ultimately traded in a job at People magazine to write the biography. “I was never certain Perot would stick it out. I guess that’s part of what intrigued me.”

Indeed, Perot certainly stirred a lot of intrigue as well as entrepreneurial spirit. Whether hustling unauthorized biographies--Gross’ was the only one Perot approved--bumper stickers or humor, dreamers tried to become as wealthy as the stealth candidate by riding the wave of public interest.

Jack Mayberry, a Los Angeles stand-up comic, was set to record an album impersonating Perot the day after he pulled out of the race. The recording “was delayed” indefinitely after Perot couldn’t take the spotlight--a spotlight Mayberry would have relished.

Mayberry’s producer was to have been Earl David, who put together the 1960s comedy album “First Family” about the Kennedys, which sold so many copies (25 million) so fast that it made the Guinness Book of World Records.

“I would have made a lot--I mean, like, a lot --maybe even enough for a sizable payment on a Ross Perot-like house,” says Mayberry mournfully. “I was also looking forward to doing a comedy album. It would have been my first, and everyone associated with them says they’re lots of fun.”

Although he was a popular enough stand-up comic, Mayberry’s bookings jumped after he mimicked Perot five times on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Even some Perot supporters called and asked if he would make an appearance at a rally. But Mayberry wanted to keep out of politics, so he stayed away.

Leno had called because Mayberry, a native of Texas who had been on “Tonight” four times previously, not only sounds like Perot but also looks like him. (He’s actually from Lubbock, which he describes as “2 or 3 billion dollars away from Dallas.”)

To prepare for the “Tonight” sketches, Mayberry says, he started watching dozens of taped interviews with Perot.

“Somehow, I could put myself behind his eyes and it made it easier. It wasn’t just my height and hairstyle (that were similar),” he says, “it was that manner I picked up: cocky, assured.”

In an interview from a hotel in Greenville, S.C., where he’s back to his normal life as a nightclub comedian, Mayberry says he’s not surprised Perot failed him: “You never count on getting that much money for doing that little work. This is comedy.”

What got Hank Burbridge interested in Ross Perot was not his haircut.

“When a man says he’s got $100 million to throw away on a campaign, well, naturally, we being Texans and all, we wanted to get in on this,” says Burbridge, president of AM Productions, a campaign supplies business in Austin. “We think of him of as kind of legend in Texas.”

The day after Perot announced last February that he would be up for it if his name were placed on the ballot, Burbridge got a call from Perot supporters in Austin who wanted a donation of printed supplies like banners and bumper stickers.

Burbridge agreed to provide 1,000 free banners if the supporters would give him the rest of their business exclusively. Next thing he knew, he was the unofficial Perot paraphernalia supplier, and he was shipping bumper stickers all over America.

“Oooooooh, did business blossom!” hoots Burbridge, as if remembering a particularly good Christmas.

In all, he shipped out 240 orders of Perot stuff--banners, balloons, bumper stickers, buttons, labels, flags, refrigerator magnets, memo holders, placards, yard signs and a few dozen boxes of T-shirts.

But now, he is sore at the Texas legend.

Burbridge is stuck with $40,000 in unpaid receipts, 150,000 unassembled “Ross Perot for President ‘92” buttons, 400,000 banners and 25,000 bumper stickers.

“We’re starting to sell them as souvenirs,” he sighs.

But if worst comes to worst, he’ll send Perot his unpaid invoices in hopes that the billionaire will stand by his promise to reimburse anybody who lost money because he changed his plans to seek the presidency.

“He’s a man of honor,” declares Burbridge. “He’s a Texan.”

And Burbridge won’t be deterred even if he doesn’t get his money back.

“We’re moving on to Clinton and Bush products,” he says. “We’re starting to make posters, bumper stickers and yard signs (for them). . . . You gotta pick up the profit one way or another.”

Meanwhile, another Texan, Cecil Johnson, had hoped to eke out just enough money in royalties from a book about Perot to send his daughter to college.

But, unlike Gross, Johnson doesn’t even have a bound copy of the 279 pages he slaved over--or a fat advance--to show for his efforts. The best he could come up with on July 16, the day Perot pulled out, was a quart of Jack Daniels.

“I died, practically,” says Johnson, an editorial writer for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. “You can’t imagine how it feels when someone hits you over the head. Only the grace of God and Jack Daniels got me through.”

After the Summit Group, a Ft. Worth publisher, asked him to write an upbeat biography of Perot defying the stereotype that Perot wasn’t personally worthy of his followers’ admiration, Johnson took all his vacation time from work and spent 12 hours a day, seven days a week writing, writing, writing. He received a small advance, but his profits--the money intended for tuition--were to come in royalties. The publisher had already accumulated advanced orders for 45,000 copies of the hardcover.

The book, “Perot: The Candidate, The Portrait of the Man and His Views,” was supposed to go to the printers on July 18, the day after Perot pulled out. The publisher canceled the press run.

“It was slick. It was well done. My publisher said it was the best thing they had ever done,” mumbles a disappointed Johnson. But then he pauses and starts talking again: “Maybe it’s just as well. If Perot had waited one more week, I would have looked like a big fool, because in light of what he did, it proved what the pundits were saying about him.”

Johnson, a never-published author, is back to writing editorials about the Ft. Worth City Council.

But his sad saga aside, just as many authors got lucky--and made it onto bestseller charts.

Todd Mason’s 1990 book, “Perot: An Unauthorized Biography,” was reissued by its publisher, Business One Irwin, and was on the New York Times’ hardcover bestseller list for a couple of weeks. “On Wings of Eagles,” Ken Follett’s 1983 account of the 1979 rescue of two Perot employees jailed in revolutionary Iran, made it to third place on the nonfiction paperback list.

And when people ask Tony Chiu, author of “Ross Perot: In His Own Words,” how he wrote an instant bestseller--it was on the New York Times list for seven weeks--he replies, “Timing, timing, timing.”

Chiu approached four publishers in early April with the idea to do a “quickie paperback” on Perot. Two turned him down, one didn’t return his call and Warner Books was interested.

On April 28, Chiu struck a deal with Warner and 19 days later produced a book of Perot’s quotations spanning 25 years. By May 28, the first batch of books was in the stores.

About 500,000 copies later, Chiu is still on the bestseller list next Sunday, although he expects his luck won’t last.

After Perot announced his decision, Chiu was disappointed, but he adds, “While part of me said to him, ‘Oh, hang in there for another month and I’ll make more money,’ I’ll be perfectly frank--I was into profits so early, I felt I couldn’t be greedy. I suppose if he had been elected President, I would have become as rich as he is. Yeah. “

Chiu also narrowly avoided disaster.

Shortly before Perot pulled out, Chiu and his publisher had discussed revising the book and reissuing it next month.

“We decided to leave well enough alone and that our book would stand as a source of what he had been saying until May,” Chiu says. “Since he doesn’t change his tune a lot, we thought, ‘We’re OK.’ I guess it was a financially sound decision.”

For some, there was more than money at stake when the maverick Texan jumped off his campaign horse.

Vint Lawrence, a cartoonist for the New Republic, will forever miss that big mouth, that goofy nose, those jug ears--at least until some odder-looking person comes along.

“It’s a tragedy,” Lawrence laments, a slight giggle escaping between his words. “He was larger than life. He was a treat, a real original. The problem, and I guess the appeal, of (Bill) Clinton and (Al) Gore is that they’re not larger than life. How do you draw a pudgy Clinton and an angular Gore?”

Lawrence did six cartoons of Perot for the New Republic, and in each, Perot’s ears seemed to grow, making him look more and more like he could fly.

“We won’t have his ears to kick around anymore,” Lawrence moans. “Too bad.”

Staff writer Patt Morrison also contributed to this story.