"While we're young" Was All Rodney
/Gary Mihoces talks to Rodney Dangerfield's bride, Joan, who thinks Rodney would be doing cartwheels over the new USGA ad campaign using his ad-libbed "while we're young line," even if they aren't doing anything about slow play in their men's and women's Open championships. Okay I threw in that last part.
As she prepares to laungh a new website, www.rodney.com, she puts into context what Caddyshack meant to Rodney's career:
She says Dangerfield "forfeited a high-paying Vegas gig to do Caddyshack — and for peanuts," she said. "He actually lost money making the movie. But it did open doors for him and helped him kind of live the movie star life, which you know was fun for him."
Caddyshack was her husband's "biggest break in film." It helped launch him into starring roles in films such as Easy Money and Back to School.
She said she contacted Jon Peters, executive producer of Caddyshack, to confirm Rodney had come up with the "while we're young" line.
"He assured me that Rodney did," she said. "And it sounds like a line Rodney would come up with anyway because of his comments just in general life ... born out of impatience and frustration.''
There was also this about Tiger:
"Rodney was aware that Tiger Woods had mentioned that Caddyshack was his favorite movie," she said. "... He was especially proud of that because, again, he always wondered, 'Does the golf crowd really look down on the movie?' "
Alex Myers talked to Paula Creamer about how her "while we're young" spot came about and she acknowledged that while there's a long way to go, the timing of the launch might not have helped matters.
"I think it's coming around," said Creamer, who has a 10-year-old cousin that came to see her play, but isn't interested in picking up the game because 'it takes too long.' "That whole service announcement might not have had the best timing, but now that the two hardest venues are out of the way. Who knows?"