How Low the Mighty Have Fallen: Hugh Downs and Al Haig Do Infomercials
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008By now the spectacle of once-popular actors and actresses being reduced to infomercial hosts is a familiar one. Celebrities such as Linda Evans and Erik Estrada were once stars of the most popular television shows in the country and their faces fixtures on magazine racks. But their stars faded and they had to make due as infomercial hosts to make ends meet. Still, despite all the TV Guide and People Magazine covers (10 Sexiest Bachelors of 1979!), no one ever really took people like Linda Evans and Erik Estrada seriously, nor expected they would even be remembered—much less popular—20 or 30 years later. So the fact that they now hawk products on TV is hardly surprising to anyone.
More surprising is the case of Hugh Downs. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the announcer on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Later Hugh Downs became very well known as the anchor of the ABC news program 20/20. Downs won Emmy awards for his work on 20/20. These days Downs has gone from host of 20/20 to host of an infomercial peddling The World’s Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets, a book that’s supposed reveal all kinds of “amazing” cures that doctors don’t want you to know about. So a man who was once a pioneer of late night TV is now a fixture on a whole different kind of late night programming. Arizona State University happens to have a “Hugh Downs School of Human Communication” named after him—which is where the latest version of his infomercial was filmed. I wonder if some University will open a “Ron Popeil School of Human Communication” anytime soon.
Actors and broadcasters aren’t the only ones who turn to infomercials once their careers have dried up. The world of politics has several examples.
The infomercial for the National Grants Conference promotes a seminar by Mike and Irene Milin that’s supposed to reveal secrets for wrangling taxpayer money from the government. The show includes a panel of several unknown ex-bureaucrats. The earlier version of the infomercial also featured former congressman J.C. Watts and the current version features former congressman J.D. Hayworth. Both of these men once were movers and shakers in the halls of Congress. Now they’re peddling schemes for getting rich off government money; they’ve essentially turned themselves into Matthew Lesko with better wardrobes.
Then there is the case of Alexander “Al” Haig. Haig served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Reagan, fourth in line of succession to the presidency (a subject of some discussion during his tenure). Now Al Haig hosts an infomercial called “World Business Review.” If you ever catch the World Business Review infomercial you won’t exactly see Al Haig holding a Miracle Blade, standing next to Chef Tony, shouting, “But wait, there’s more: Call in the next five minutes and you’ll get an extra slicer—absolutely FREE!” World Business Review is a staid, serious, and quite boring bit of paid programming disguised as a public affairs program. It sells no products directly, but merely promotes the work being done by the companies who are profiled; these companies are hoping their appearance on this infomercial will help them score government and/or corporate contracts. It is important to remember that this is not a political video that is “like” an infomercial—it is a real infomercial: The producers are paid by the companies that get profiled; the producers then buy the airtime from a TV network (it is currently being shown on CNBC and Bravo) just like Guthy-Renker does for Proactiv Solution infomercials.
Here is a clip from one of the World Business Review infomercials where Al Haig gets to show off his teleprompter reading skills. If you find it dull you’re in good company because it looks as if Al Haig is about to doze off at several moments.
Haig isn’t the first prominent person to host this series of infomercials either: General Norman Swartzkopf and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger played the same role in the past. Still, as former Secretary of State, Al Haig is the highest ranking member of the Federal government ever to host a broadcast infomercial. Al Haig has gone from being a peer of Thomas Jefferson, Dean Acheson, and Henry Kissinger to being a peer of Cathy Mitchell and Billy Mays.
I’ve written previously about 
We know that many has-been celebrities end up hosting infomercials. But where do has-been infomercial stars go?
Where do once-famous but now almost-forgotten former celebrities turn? Some of course host infomercials. Others attempt to revive their sagging careers by debasing themselves on some “celebrity” reality show such as
What do has-been or D-list celebrities, in need of money and desperate to jump-start their careers, do? They might host an infomercial. Or appear on VH1’s bottom-of-the-barrel reality show The Surreal Life.