Don Draper and Roger Sterling have nothing over Martin Schiller and the other “Mad Men” and women of Honolulu in the 1960s. Chain smoking, office liquor cabinets, sexual shenanigans and sleek ’60s styling were a way of life at big advertising agencies here as well as in the Madison Avenue world of “Mad Men,” which swings into its final season Sunday on AMC.
On a recent Friday, former and current advertising industry members got together in the bar of the Elks Club in Waikiki, a bastion of ’60s design, to talk about the show. By prior arrangement, they came dressed in business and cocktail attire of the “Mad Men” era. In keeping with the ethos of their industry, none of them was shy, although some requested anonymity. And both of the women from the ’60s wore pants. (The quotes in this story are drawn from their conversations as well as phone and email interviews.)
Sitting around a table with friends from back in the day, Schiller, a former account manager who rose to partner, cut to the chase: “If any Honolulu agency had a reputation that parallels what you see in ‘Mad Men,’ we were it,” said Schiller, 77, debonair in a dark suit. “The only difference is that no children came out of that mess.”
“That you know of!” his friends chimed in, laughing.
“I came from a very conservative Portland, Ore., so I was stunned by what was going on here,” said Jane Martin, 80, a writer/editor in a jaunty fedora, gingham-checked shirt and white pants. “There was a lot of drinking during working hours, a lot of romantic messes. Did they tell you about the wife swapping?”
Don Draper and Roger Sterling have nothing over Martin Schiller and the other “Mad Men” and women of Honolulu in the 1960s. Chain smoking, office liquor cabinets, sexual shenanigans and sleek ’60s styling were a way of life at big advertising agencies here as well as in the Madison Avenue world of “Mad Men,” which swings into the second half of its final season Sunday on AMC.
On a recent Friday, former and current advertising industry members got together in the bar of the Elks Club in Waikiki, a bastion of ’60s design, to talk about the show. By prior arrangement, they came dressed in business and cocktail attire of the “Mad Men” era. In keeping with the ethos of their industry, none of them was shy, although some requested anonymity. And both of the women from the ’60s wore pants. (The quotes in this story are drawn from their conversations as well as phone and email interviews.)
Sitting around a table with friends from back in the day, Schiller, a former account manager who rose to partner, cut to the chase: “If any Honolulu agency had a reputation that parallels what you see in ‘Mad Men,’ we were it,” said Schiller, 77, debonair in a dark suit. “The only difference is that no children came out of that mess.”
“That you know of!” his friends chimed in, laughing.
“I came from a very conservative Portland, Ore., so I was stunned by what was going on here,” said Jane Martin, 80, a writer/editor in a jaunty fedora, gingham-checked shirt and white pants. “There was a lot of drinking during working hours, a lot of romantic messes. Did they tell you about the wife swapping?”
“It’s true but don’t believe a word she says,” someone interjected.
They did, however, own up to the drinking, much of it conducted during the working day.
“Our media director would take our drink orders; we were basically in-house drinkers,” said David Cheever, 77, a former vice president of account services who was sporting a bow tie, much like senior partner Bert Cooper in the show, and a vintage blue blazer from Reyn’s.
“We came up with a lot of great campaign ideas during that hour or two,” said Cliff Marsh, 78, in a tan suit and striped tie.
A writer and associate creative director in the mold of Don Draper, the dark hero of “Mad Men,” Marsh came to Honolulu from a Madison Avenue agency in 1969. Back then he wore his suit and tie with hair that reached below his collar — rare enough in Honolulu corporate circles that he was profiled in a 1970 Honolulu Star-Bulletin article.
As to whether the alcoholic excesses of “Mad Men” prevailed in Honolulu, “it’s an addiction that goes with the job,” said Donn Tyler, 75, a recording studio producer.
“Remember the party in the bar when the wives got up and danced on the tables?” someone asked.
“Remember that party in someone’s house when I went into the bathroom and it was filled with people and so much smoke I couldn’t see?” Tyler countered.
What kind of smoke, Donn? “What kind do you think? This was the ’60s, baby!”
“I did the ’60s in New York and then again in Honolulu in the ’70s. Things were a lot more behind then,” Marsh said.
“I represent the show’s look now, in the late ’60s,” said Tyler, whose madras shirt and jeans went well with his long white hair and beard.
Asked about the show’s fashions, artist Pegge Hopper, 79, a former agency art director, sighed. “We didn’t wear fancy clothes like that,” she said. “It was a very unsophisticated time here. But we all had to wear skirts, stockings and high heels, except on Fridays, when we could wear muumuus and the men could wear aloha shirts.”
Hopper was urban chic at the Elks in red lipstick, pearls, a black blouse, heels and mod polka-dot pants.
“And all the undergarments — girdles, garter belts — it was torture,” the slender artist remembered.
“Mad Men” certainly doesn’t depict an enlightened work environment, especially for females. Famously, Freddy Rumsen says of Peggy Olson’s “basket of kisses” pitch, “It was like watching a dog play the piano.”
Martin said the show was true to her experience. “In retrospect I could sue every employer I ever worked for,” she said. “I’d leave one job and the very same thing would happen at the next firm.”
She recalled wearing a pantsuit one day and being ordered by her boss to go home and change.
While it may have been as sexist here as on “Mad Men,” Nick Carter, 74, who worked with advertising firms as a broadcast producer, remembers Honolulu agencies as being far more ethnically diverse than Sterling Cooper.
“My recollection is that a significant percentage of the ad world was local people in all roles,” said Carter, looking professorial in a beige suit and well-groomed beard.
THINGS WERE heating up in the glass-walled Elks Club bar, filled with midafternoon sunlight off the sea. A younger cohort of “Mad Men” fans had arrived from work.
Shannon Fujimoto, 30, wore a black-and-white minishift, long straight hair and heavy eyeliner. She and Stefani Li Zaborski, 32, in a mod color-block dress with her hair pulled into an Audrey Hepburnesque chignon, said a colleague had insisted on doing their ’60s hair and makeup for this event.
Both work at Anthology Group, Fujimoto as a media planner/buyer and Zaborski as an account supervisor.
Most among the younger set said the show was true to their experience, except that smoking is banned in the workplace and things are better, if not yet completely equal, for women.
“I like the way they dress, but I’m glad we’re no longer in the ’60s. Watching the show makes me feel lucky to be a woman in this generation,” said Myriam Bernede-Martin, 41, a tall blond Frenchwoman in a dark-pink dress and Chanel pearls who directs communications at the Harris Agency.
“I think it’s equaling out quite a bit,” agreed Katherine von Thelen, 28, an art director at the OrangeRoc agency, blue-eyed in a blue sheath and dangly rhinestone earrings.
But Jennifer Tanabe, 40, creative director at the WalltoWall agency, was more reserved. Tanabe was the picture of ladylike sophistication in a shimmery necklace and cocktail frock.
“It can be tough, even in this day and age,” she said. “When I got my start, in 1995, there were very few female ‘creatives.’ I was sexually harassed at times and told that I couldn’t present my own work because a man has more credibility to a client.”
Being a creative of any gender is challenging enough, said Jesse Arneson, 34, a bearded senior designer at WalltoWall who was clad in a charcoal suit. “Creatives are always fighting for recognition,” he said, adding that “Mad Men” accurately depicts the battles with staff who service the accounts.
Many said the show inspired them.
“I like watching their pitch process and all the preparations they have going on,” von Thelen said.
WalltoWall co-founder and creative director Bernard Uy, 48, in a Draperesque gray suit, had come with Tanabe, Arneson and three other “Mad Men” fans from his firm: Jane Nguyen, 32, a senior account manager in low-cut purple with pearls, Amanda Gatioan, 27, an account manager in black accented with bling, and Taylor Hanson, a designer in a mod windowpane blazer.
Uy watches “Mad Men” with his wife, Tammy, who also works in advertising.
“You can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever have a ‘Kodak Carousel’ moment like Don did at the end of Season 1, although we have brought tears to our clients’ eyes — and in a good way,” he said.
“I really love the end of Season 3 when Don, Roger, Cooper and Pryce scheme to break away from their corporate owner and start over as a new, independent agency. And Season 6, Episode 1, when they filmed in Hawaii!” Fujimoto said.
“I’m so far behind with the show that I’m still drinking a martini from Season 2,” quipped Lance Rae, 39, creative director and account supervisor at TLC PR. He had the flair of a Carnaby Street dandy in an impeccably cut three-piece suit.
As for drinking, it’s still part of the life — though maybe not so much.
“I appreciate that ‘Mad Men’ shows the role alcohol played (and plays),” said Tanabe, adding, “my favorite cocktail is an extra-dirty martini.”
“Even before the ‘Mad Men’ premiere, we’ve had a cocktail bar in our office,” said Uy, who, like Draper, favors Manhattans and Old Fashioneds. “We just don’t drink as much (or as early) as they do on TV.”
Asked to name their favorite character, the Honolulu admen and women overwhelmingly identified with copywriter and former secretary Peggy Olson — for her ethics and empathy, as well as her brains, drive and skill.
“Watching Peggy reminds me of my own struggles. She is a tough chick, and I try to be one, too,” Tanabe said.
“Peggy is pretty altruistic,” said Hanson.
“Peggy had to start up from scratch. I started in the mailroom,” said Marsh.
“Since I’m an account supervisor, I guess I should identify with Pete Campbell, but I don’t like him,” Zaborski said. “I love Joan Holloway. Who doesn’t love Joan, who has the bravery to tell it like it is, especially for a woman back in the ’60s?”
Don Draper, his brilliant concepting aside, was dismissed by most as “too suave and debonair,” “unsavory” and so forth, but not by Zaborski. “I also love Don because, come on, he just looks so good in that suit with that hair slicked back!”
Uy likes Draper “when he’s creative and not drunk,” and Roger Sterling, the account services chief, “because he’s funny as hell.”
Eric Riesenberg, 45, marketing manager at OrangeRoc, who sported a hipster goatee and gray checked suit, is also a Sterling fan. “I like the way Roger approaches clients in a friendly manner. It’s not strict boardroom business, but more about the relationship,” he said.
One has only to look at his silver hair, slender build and dapper tailoring to know who Martin Schiller identifies with: the suave Roger Sterling.
As the “Mad Men” networking drew to a close, Schiller lingered with his ’60s pals.
“One thing we agreed on is that we’ll get together more frequently now. We realized we enjoy each other,” he said.
Hard work and hard play in a highly competitive environment can create close bonds. So maybe there’s hope for the profession, and even for Don Draper, after all.
Tune in Sunday at 7 p.m. and see.
