His Latest Pitch Is ‘To Die For’

The actor who has appeared in more Gus Van Sant films than any other does not, surprisingly enough, carry the surname Phoenix.

It’s Tom Peterson, longtime Cal Worthington-esque pitchman for his own Portland, Ore., appliance store, whose appearance in “To Die For” is his fourth in a Van Sant film.

The film, which opens Wednesday, is loosely based on the Pamela Smart case; in the film, Nicole Kidman plays Suzanne Stone, a venomously ambitious New Hampshire TV reporter who seduces a teen-age stoner, then presses him into killing her straight-arrow husband.

After his body is discovered, family members gather at the Stones’ home, so stunned by the loss that they are oblivious to the TV blaring in the background. On the screen is the cheerily incongruous image of the crewcutted Peterson exhorting viewers to take advantage of a big sale at his appliance store.

“It started with [1989’s] ‘Drugstore Cowboy,’ when I needed some TV images and decided on kind of a whim to use a Tom Peterson commercial,” says Van Sant, 43, who has lived in Portland since he was a teen-ager. “So many people responded to it that I just decided to keep using him.”

Van Sant went on to cast Peterson as the chief of police in “My Own Private Idaho” in 1991 and as a documentary filmmaker in “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” in 1994.

The ongoing professional connection led to friendship. “It’s been great getting to know him,” says Van Sant. “Last year we even went fishing together.”

Van Sant and Peterson use the same video editor, fellow Portlander Wade Evans--Van Sant for his rock videos (which include the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge”), Peterson for his relentless TV spots, of which there have been more than 2,000 since 1964.

For Peterson, who is in his 60s, the leap from the small screen to the big one is no big deal.

“I’m a professional speaker, is all it is,” he says modestly. And while he has an agent, and will be appearing in Disney’s forthcoming “Mr. Holland’s Opus” with Richard Dreyfuss, he has no illusions about stardom.

“When you play bit parts, you’ve got to be prepared. When the movie’s 2 hours and 20 minutes and it’s supposed to be 2 hours and 5 minutes, whose part do you think they’re going to cut?”