One of the best things about this commercial is that, right up to the end, it looks like an instructional video on How To Take The Center Snap. Our demonstrator is Roman Gabriel, the Pro Bowl quarterback for the Rams and Eagles in the ’60s and ’70s.
That same year (1969), Gabriel appeared in John Wayne movie, The Undefeated, set in the period just after the Civil War. He played a Native American named Blue Boy. (Was he a Native American? Well, no. But his father was Filipino, which accounted for Roman’s dark complexion. That’s show biz, folks.) You also get a glimpse here of Merlin Olsen, the Rams’ Hall of Fame defensive tackle, who went on to a much more substantial acting career (Father Murphy, Little House on the Prairie).
How great is it that an NFL quarterback got to be in a film in which The Duke delivered this line?