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The Most Interesting Man
Those of us who have been around recall those Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials. The ad campaign ran from 2006 through 2018.
What you may not know is that Jonathan Goldsmith, who portrayed this most interesting man, was mostly basing the character on the real most interesting man, Ernest Hemingway.
According to an NPR article about Goldsmith, his then-agent now-wife Barbara suggested he try out for a commercial, playing a “Hemingway-ish character.” It would be improvised and he’d have to end with the sentence, “And that’s how I arm wrestled Fidel Castro.”
An Advertising Age article describes Goldsmith’s character as directly leading to a surge in Dos Equis sales and attributes the surge to the James Bond-meets-Ernest Hemingway character Mr. Goldsmith plays, who is so revered that, as one ad says, “if he were to pat you on your back, you would list it on your resume.”
Largely attributable to my love of reading and borderline hoarding tendency when it comes to books, I purchased and read By-Line: Ernest Hemingway edited by William White last year.
