[American Thinker] Prior to the year 1994, O.J. Simpson would have been revered mostly as a football legend, since he first became famous for setting a record, in 1973, as the first running back to have a 2,003-yard season. But this man now sets records with his ability to reinvent himself, for better or worse.During a recent interview with Simpson on the Full Send podcast, hosted by Kyle Forgeard and Aaron Steinberg, Simpson stated that when it comes to interviews, "I stay away from last century. Because I did a ton of interviews back then, and it made no difference. Nobody changes their mind." Simpson stated that he prefers now to focus on events from his life that have occurred in the 21st century. Presumably, Simpson means that he no longer wants to talk about the unforgettable 1994 murder trial for which he was the main suspect in the brutal slaying of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman. Sure enough, when Forgeard and Steinberg asked Simpson about the 1994 murders, he firmly expressed that he did not want to discuss them.
And even though Simpson did recently post a Twitter video with comments on the Alex Murdaugh trial, he avoided mentioning his 1994 murder trial and only referenced his recent prison stay for trying to retrieve his own stolen property.
During the Full Send podcast interview, Simpson also lamented that while he gets plenty of invites for interviews, he now turns down most of them. He makes exceptions for interviews related to the sports world.
THE SUPERSTAR IN RENT-A-CAR BECAME A "MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN"
Simpson's desire to keep his public exposure sports-related, as he mentioned in the recent Full Send podcast interview, is fascinating to me. His goal was the complete opposite when he began his role as advertising spokesperson for Hertz car rentals back in 1975, and subsequently became known for quickly and gracefully leaping over luggage racks during Hertz commercials, with a suitcase in one hand and a trench coat in the other. Hertz executives discovered prior to launching the campaign that many businesspeople considered renting a car a "necessary evil" and wanted the transaction to be fast and easy. What's a better symbol of speed than Simpson, a Heisman trophy—winner known as one of the greatest running backs in football history?
Hertz began to see positive results from Simpson's advertisements almost immediately. In the first three quarters of 1976, the company saw net profits yield $532.6 million, which was a 47-percent increase from the year prior. Also, shortly after Simpson began the campaign, there was a 36-percent increase in the number of people who considered Hertz the best rental car company.
Tom Elliott is my grandfather, and he also happened to be vice president of public relations for Hertz during the time when Simpson came on board. "It was a marriage made in heaven" is how Elliott described the relationship between Hertz and Simpson. This quote was used by writer Randy Harvey in a 1977 Chicago Sun-Times article, "OJ.'s Hertz Commercials Like Heaven Made Marriage." Elliott's job was to go beyond the advertisements and develop an association between Simpson and Hertz on the editorial side, with television and radio broadcasts and newspapers. "One of our jobs was to try to get him off the sports pages and onto the business pages of the newspapers, and we were able to do that," says Elliott.